In Argentina, America Secures a Libertarian Client State
History shows why a declining great power would eschew the free market at home yet promote it abroad.
Despite shaky polling data and high-profile scandals, President Javier Milei’s La Libertad Avanza Party won a decisive victory in the Argentinian elections earlier this week. Decades of Peronist failures to deliver on economic issues are not so easily forgotten by an electorate that, similar to that of many other countries, is willing to take risks to undo generations of failed establishment policies rather than continue as things had gone before.
What is distinctive about the Argentinian case is how involved Washington was in this election. In a candid moment after the results came in, President Donald Trump said, “In Argentina, I want to congratulate the victor. And he had a lot of help from us.” The Trump administration had proposed a $40 billion bailout from the U.S. that would have been contingent on Milei’s party winning the election. What role this had in deciding the outcome of the contest is not yet known, but it could not have been a small factor considering the size of the promised aid and the uncertain nature of the Argentinian economy.
Despite the affinity between Trump and Milei, populist trends in Argentina and the United States are moving in opposite directions. In Buenos Aires, going against the establishment means embracing free market libertarianism and opposing the grasping hands of an overly regulatory state. In the United States, it means rejecting a 40-year-long economic experiment in open borders, open markets, and neoliberal technocracy. A turn towards national conservativism among both the base and some members of the White House, with tariffs and state investment in critical industries becoming normalized once again, is at total cross-purposes with the Argentinian desire to slim down the state’s role in the economy.
So why is the U.S. putting so much on the line to support this project? An open and honest answer to this question is not easily found on Fox News or in White House statements, but the likely cause can be found in history: Free market economics undermine the sovereignty of smaller states in the international system, and for the U.S., the loss of sovereignty in Argentina is a feature, not a bug.
In the 19th century, global empires such as Britain worked to reduce trade barriers between their various colonies in order to fuel industrialization in the home island itself. The overseas colonies became crop exporters and raw material providers for the development of Britain. Britain had been the first country to industrialize and many of its political elites sang the benefits of free trade to others. It is noteworthy, however, that once other countries caught up (or in the case of the United States and Germany, surpassed) Britain in the late 19th century, it moved increasingly towards protectionist measures in response.
The United States, meanwhile, was a country explicitly founded on breaking free of the British Empire in order to embrace its own separate model of development. Before the Revolution, Americans were in danger of becoming a new Bengal, and the young republic in its earliest years set out to build both an economic and diplomatic system that prioritized non-alignment from global projects and the domestic development of nascent industries.
The protectionist inclination of the U.S. would remain a dominant trend for most of its history, only changing in the late 1970s as events came full circle and the formerly young republic aged into something more like the very British Empire it had once rebelled against. But with the failure of ’90s-style U.S. global hegemony, both military and economic, in more recent times this current phase now seems to be coming to an end. What the U.S. seems to be moving towards is a more modest role abroad while retaining some elements of predominance through securing critical industries at home.
The neoliberal experiment, once touted by the governing classes, had been found to threaten the sovereignty and independence of the U.S. It was a lesson many other countries had learned as rapacious multinational corporations often failed to increase their level of human development while remaining unaccountable to civilian leadership. Meanwhile, the countries that developed most in the post-World War II era were those where a sovereign state retained a tight grip on domestic development.
Countries like Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and, after the rise of Deng Xiaopeng, China, saw the biggest gains for late-coming industrial powers by a process that mirrored the earlier American model. Compare this to the earlier “open door” policies the great powers had forced on a weakened China, which would culminate in them carving out zones of influence directly inside the Qing Dynasty—a tragic fate that in no small part inspired the rapid Japanese industrialization and militarization of the pro-imperial Meiji reforms as a counterreaction.
Whether free trade is a positive or a negative for a developed country is debatable, and beyond the scope of this article. What is relevant to note from historical experience is that sovereignty—the monopoly over a society’s policymaking by its own people or an indigenous elite—is critical to becoming and remaining a developed country. Global trends, multinational corporations, foreign nonprofits, or investors and other powerful individuals in larger nations can compromise the ability of a developing nation to forge its own independent political path.
Domestic critics of Milei’s governance in Argentina often point towards a loss of industry and the reorientation of its resources away from control by its own people. Argentines who voted for Milei believe this experiment will be successful at reversing their decline in living standards. They may well be correct, but the cost of following this policy is to weaken the sovereignty of Argentina and increase U.S. influence over the nation’s fate.
As the U.S. intensifies its protectionist turn at home, it encourages others abroad to do the opposite, creating a subordinate relationship with smaller countries. What appears to be philosophically incongruous is actually the realpolitik of reindustrializing North America at the potential expense of South America. As more of the world moves back to economic nationalism, we can expect the great powers to sell free market economics in their region to anybody but their own people.
The new post-ideological order in the Middle East and North Africa is built on nihilistic looting.
El Fasher has fallen. On Monday, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) rebels drove the Sudanese army and allied militias out of the city, which had been under siege since April 2024, cementing RSF control over Darfur. The victorious rebels filmed themselves gleefully committing atrocities against the local population, including the executions of 460 hospital patients. Fighters shot at fleeing civilians while shouting “kill the Nubians,” both a name of a Sudanese ethnic group and a general slur for non-Arab minorities. The bloodstained streets are visible from space.
The war crimes will likely not be limited to killing. The RSF has a reputation for sexual sadism against conquered populations, including a raping a woman after tearing her from her breastfeeding baby and beating to death an 11-year-old boy who tried to save his mother from sexual assault. Along with rape comes rapine. The RSF sustains itself by preying on Sudan’s resources, from gum arabic to gold, through extortion and outright looting.
Most of Sudan’s gold has ended up in the United Arab Emirates, the main military and diplomatic backer of the RSF. And Emirati investments in Sudanese militias have paid off in more than one way. The RSF and its predecessor, the Janjaweed, have also served as a manpower reserve for Emirati proxy wars in other countries. The Emirati government paid the Janjaweed to send fighters, including child soldiers, into its doomed war in Yemen. RSF troops later turned up fighting for Khalifa Haftar, an Emirati-backed warlord in Libya.
As El Fasher was under siege, Syria was busy dealing with the fallout of a rival foreign intervention in Libya. This week, the new Syrian government announced the opening of consular services for Syrians marooned in Libya, along with efforts to recover POW/MIAs, brought there by Turkish intervention. During Syria’s own civil war, Turkey had cultivated the Syrian National Army, a militia that one U.S. official characterized as “thugs, bandits, and pirates.” They acquired a reputation for extortion, torture, and kidnapping women in Syria, particularly Kurdish areas. When Turkey intervened in the Libyan civil war against Haftar, it brought along these mercenaries, some of whom later made their way to Europe.
The Axis of Resistance, the Iranian-backed bloc in the Middle East, fell apart almost a year ago. The victors have been a loose coalition of Israel, Turkey, and the oil-rich Arab monarchies, all of whom enjoy American backing. And the wars in Sudan and Libya demonstrate what kind of regional order is in the cards. Rather than embracing the vision of peaceful trade and non-interference that U.S. President Donald Trump laid out in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, the victors have been using proxy warfare to grab as much as they can from the burning wreckage of the Middle East and North Africa. The Axis of Resistance has been replaced with an Axis of Rape and Pillage.
The old Iranian axis was a network of would-be revolutionaries. Primarily drawn from Shi’a Muslims, Palestinians, and a few Levantine minority communities, these forces cannibalized their host nations in the name of a regional uprising against U.S. imperialism. Many of them descended into pure self-enrichment and petty sectarian feuds, which ultimately exposed the Axis to penetration and destruction. The new Axis of Rape and Pillage is a more efficient upgrade of that model. The same combination of local hatred and international greed drives it, without a pretense of a positive vision or popular legitimacy. Corruption is not a bug; it is a feature. There is no Revolution left to betray.
After the U.S. attack on Iran in June 2025, journalist Arash Azizi and Bashar Halabi beamed about “the Middle East’s end of ideology” in Foreign Policy. Thanks to the destruction of the Axis of Resistance, they wrote, the region was seeing “the decline of transnational militias and revolutionary ideologies as central to Middle Eastern politics,” to be replaced by sovereign state-driven development. If only. The “post-ideological” order means less national sovereignty and less accountable power..
The essayist Ali Terrenoire explains much better both the cause and effect of post-ideological politics: “While the lumbering masses try to organize; smaller hierarchies comprised of the incumbent rich and powerful can move quickly to establish their dominance and re-wire the political domain to their advantage, permanently.” The opposite of resistance is submission; the opposite of ideology is nihilism.
Azizi and Halabi cite post-revolutionary Syria as an example of state development in the new order. And while there is indeed much to be optimistic about, the new Syria is threatened by sectarian violence, egged on by sparring U.S. partners. Turkish-backed warlords, only partially integrated into the new government, have committed atrocities against non-Sunni minorities. In response to a July 2025 massacre against the Druze minority, Israel began backing Druze separatism through arms shipments and air raids. Two pillars of the post-ideological order are working out their spheres of influence at the expense of Syrian sovereignty and Syrian blood.
The same pattern has played out across the region for years, especially in places like Libya and Sudan, where Iran had negligible or no influence to begin with. Turkey went into Libya to fight against an Egyptian- and Emirati-backed warlord; the Emirati-backed RSF is fighting against an Egyptian- and Ukrainian-backed military government in Sudan. While the incumbent Middle Eastern powers have been willing to kill tens of thousands of foreigners to adjust their share of the pie, they fundamentally agree that they (and no one else) should be sitting at the same table. No matter how the pie gets divided, the U.S. becomes more entrenched in its role as maître d’hôtel.
The Abraham Accords of 2020, sold as a peace agreement, were key in setting this table. For all the interfaith kumbaya messaging, the real basis of the accords is defense cooperation. Even that euphemism does not quite capture what Israel and its Arab partners have to offer each other. Both are interested in ruling over unwilling subject populations. Israel has the technology to spy on people at scale and insulate the powerful from resistance. Arab petrostates have the money and networks to project subversive soft power at a distance.
Real estate men like Jared Kushner have gotten much of the credit for brokering the new regional order. Yet the wheels of Arab-Israeli cooperation leading up to 2020 were greased by shadier characters, such as arms dealers. A leaked email from the Handala files shows that Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Barak turned to none other than sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to make “contact” with “the right hand of [M]aktoum,” the ruling family of Dubai, in 2013. (Neither Barak nor the figure described as Maktoum’s right hand responded to email requests for comment.)
The pinnacle of the post–Abraham Accords order is the “New Gaza” plan. Israel and unnamed Arab countries have been working together to establish several Palestinian militias to rule the ruins of Gaza, building on preexisting clans and organized crime networks. To the disappointment of regional powers, Hamas quickly routed those militias in October 2025 and instituted a brutal crackdown against opposition. Although Trump had initially praised the crackdown against “very bad gangs” in Gaza, he soon made it clear that the U.S. considers Hamas consolidation to be a violation of the ceasefire.
“Very bad gangs” indeed. The Israeli- and Arab-backed militiamen include confessed aid looters and former Islamist State fighters. Hawkish Israeli opposition politician Avigdor Lieberman called them “the equivalent of ISIS in Gaza.” But these militants are not dangerous because they are secretly true-believing jihadists. They are dangerous because they do not believe in anything. Like the warlords who cycled through every single faction of the Syrian civil war, they are willing to fight for anyone who can offer protection and opportunities to exert power. Those are the footsoldiers of the anti-ideological world.
This order is not stable, and it cannot be. Nor is it good for U.S. power on a global scale. The inherent instability means a neverending demand for outside involvement. Washington’s hyperfixation with managing small wars in the Middle East and North Africa has only increased at a time when the U.S. has thrown in the towel against China and faces a prolonged struggle with Russia over Europe’s frontiers. The Axis of Rape and Pillage is, however, good at satisfying specific people’s lust for power and money. The most shameless actors at every level of society, from Epstein’s orbiters to street gangs, can all build little fiefdoms of their own.
Inside new attempts to replicate “DEI” tactics for the right on one elite college campus: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The neocon oligarch Paul Singer’s fingerprints would seem to be all over it.
(Photo by Thos Robinson/Getty Images for New York Times)
On June 25, 2025, the Louis Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Antisemitism filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) along with two affected individuals—Lior Alon, an Israeli postdoctoral associate at MIT, and William Sussman, a Jewish former MIT Ph.D. student. They contended that, in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas assault, MIT fostered a climate of hostility toward Jewish and Israeli members of its community; the complaint outlined several alleged antisemitic incidents directed at Alon, Sussman, and other Jewish students and faculty.
Open-source records suggest that the campaign against MIT and its president, Sally Kornbluth, is probably being orchestrated by billionaire Paul E. Singer, a major funder of neoconservative organizations and media efforts to combat the purported pandemic of campus-based antisemitism. Singer, major donor to the Washington Free Beacon and the financier behind the notorious “Steele Dossier” eventually weaponized in the debunked Russiagate conspiracy theory against President Donald J. Trump, remains a power player in Wall Street circles and in Republican quarters hoping for the return of Bush-style GOP politics after Trump’s days in the sun. Indeed, Trump had frequently praised the university, talking about his “great, brilliant genius, Dr John Trump at MIT,” who taught at the university for thirty-seven years. Like all elite academic institutions, MIT had succumbed to many elements of wokeness, but it had begun to reverse course by eliminating its DEI offices and requiring standardized tests.
However, the school has faced significant pushback from neoconservative elements on the right for not censoring Israel-skeptic speech under the guise of antisemitism.
This Brandeis lawsuit against MIT was filed by White & Case LLP, a law firm in a longstanding alliance with Singer. According to its webpage, White & Case represents Elliott Advisors—Singer’s UK-based affiliate—in “a range of confidential matters across the world.” Elliott Advisors is the European arm of Singer’s hedge fund dominion, managing investments and activist strategies throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
In 2020, White & Case represented Elliott Advisors in the acquisition of a €900 million portfolio of secured non-performing loans—including small business and SME loans backed by Greek real estate—from the National Bank of Greece. The transaction, known as “Project Symbol,” marked one of the largest sales of non-performing exposures by any Greek bank at the time.
White & Case has also advised Singer’s U.S.-based hedge fund Elliott Management in a range of high-profile matters. These include serving as counsel to Elliott as a debtor-in-possession (DIP) lender in the Chapter 11 restructuring of Avianca Holdings, representing Elliott in the bankruptcy of Windstream Holdings, advising on the corporate restructuring of FirstEnergy, and representing Elliott as the largest unsecured creditor in the Chapter 11 proceedings of Energy Future Intermediate Holding.
There are other noteworthy aspects about the Brandeis Center’s lawsuit against MIT.
First, although the Brandeis Center has initiated multiple legal actions and complaints against universities—including Columbia, Stanford, UCLA, Scripps College, and the University of Washington—for allegedly fostering environments of intimidation and harassment toward Jewish students, the MIT case is unique in its legal representation. It is the only case in which the Brandeis Center partnered with White & Case; all other lawsuits were filed through separate legal counsel.
The lawsuit also appears to be part of a broader Brandeis initiative to counteract the allegedly widespread scourge of antisemitism on American university campuses. This allegation is frequently repeated by establishment Republican politicians and elements of the Trump administration, often anchored in Marco Rubio’s State Department. (The hypocrisy of inflating racism concerns when the Democrats were just drummed out of power in part for such messages would appear to be lost on much of the Republican old guard.) On February 6, 2025, the Brandeis Center launched a new initiative called the Center for Legal Innovation (CLI), a public interest law firm to, in part, combat antisemitism on campus through litigation.
The launch of CLI appears to have been carefully timed. It followed just three days after the U.S. Department of Education (ED) February 3 announcement that it was initiating formal Title VI investigations into five universities—Columbia, Northwestern, Portland State, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota—for tolerating alleged widespread antisemitic harassment. The investigations were launched under the auspices of President Trump’s January 29 executive order to combat antisemitism in schools and postsecondary institutions.
These overlapping political and philanthropic circles make their connection widely recognized in conservative policymaking contexts. The close timing of CLI’s launch amid ED’s legal move suggests that the Brandeis Center may have mobilized its litigation vehicle opportunistically to capitalize on the federal lawsuits against universities.
The CLI initiative is also supported by a prominent advisory board that includes former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, who served under both Presidents George H. W. Bush and Donald Trump. Barr’s involvement is particularly notable, given his position as a trustee of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (“Manhattan Institute”), a conservative think tank with prominent ties to Singer.
Until May 2025, Singer served as the Manhattan Institute’s chairman, shaping much of its strategic direction. Nonprofit tax records show that his Paul E. Singer Foundation has contributed more than $9.1 million to the Manhattan Institute since 2012, firmly establishing Singer as its most generous donor.
CLI’s other advisory board members include prominent legal and political figures such as the former Solicitor General Paul Clement, the campaign finance lawyer Jason Torchinsky, the First Amendment lawyer Erik Jaffe—and Jonathan Polkes, a senior litigation partner at White & Case, the firm representing Brandeis, Sussman, and Alon in the MIT lawsuit.
At least some evidence further suggests that the new CLI initiative is a litigation finance vehicle.
The presence on the board of David Perla, vice chair of Burford Capital, one of the world’s largest litigation finance firms, suggests that funders with a financial interest in high-profile antisemitism lawsuits may be backing this venture. Burford is known for underwriting legal costs in exchange for a portion of any settlement or award.
Combined with the involvement of Polkes from White & Case (who may have been tapped by Singer or his allies to file the MIT lawsuit), the law firm’s composition suggests potential harmony between ideological and financial interests, possibly leveraging litigation both to achieve policy outcomes and generate legal returns.
These connections are not the only point of interest in the MIT case. Of all the lawsuits listed on the Brandeis Center’s website, the case against MIT stands out as the only one filed by the newly created “Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Antisemitism.” Like CLI, neither group existed prior to February 2025. Domain registration records show that the Coalition’s website, LDBCoalition.org, was registered on February 24, 2025.
That same week, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice announced on February 28 that its new Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism was launching investigations into 10 universities over alleged antisemitic incidents tied to pro-Palestinian protests. (Notably, MIT was not among the universities under federal investigation.)
Ties would seem to run deep. The joint Department of Education and Department of Justice investigation was led on the Education side by Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights. Announcing the probe, Trainor proclaimed, “Today, the Department is putting universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses.”
Trainor previously served as special counsel to Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH). Jordan was also closely affiliated with the Manhattan Institute earlier in his career. The Ohioan was a member of the syndicate’s Young Leaders Circle, an invitation-only network for rising political and policy professionals interested in shaping public policy. Trainor has also been a contributor to the Manhattan Institute’s flagship publication, City Journal, which profiles him as part of its editorial network.
Taken in context, the timing suggests that the new Brandeis initiatives were established to serve as a litigation vehicle aimed at selectively targeting campuses through private legal action. Moreover, the sequence of events—launching the Coalition to Combat Antisemitism and CLI just days after the federal task force announcement, coupled with the June filing of the MIT lawsuit—raises the possibility that the new initiatives were designed to exert external pressure on the Trump administration to widen the scope of its campus antisemitism investigations.
In this scenario, Brandeis’s high-profile MIT lawsuit may have been intended to steer media attention, galvanize donor and political networks, and ultimately influence federal investigators to prioritize MIT in future investigations or enforcement actions.
***
Just three weeks before the Brandeis Center launched its CLI initiative, William Sussman, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against MIT, left the university on January 16 to become a Manhattan Institute associate. “New York and the United States face great challenges, from illiberal education to union antisemitism. As of today, I have left @MIT to work on these issues as an associate at @ManhattanInstitute,” he posted on social media.
Since joining the Manhattan Institute as a fellow eight months ago, Sussman has published a mere two commentaries in City Journal: a piece titled “Columbia students should decertify their union,” and co-authored an op-ed: “Student radicals are hijacking the labor movement.”
One more vertical here: Minding the Campus is the webpage of the National Association of Scholars, an organization with the call to arms of favoring “civil and honest engagement of all ideas.” But, like many of the Singer-funded groups, it has focused on suppressing criticism of Israel using left-wing language like “academic freedom is not a shield for discrimination.”
Until 2017, Minding the Campus operated as a project of the Manhattan Institute. It was originally co-founded in 2007 by two Manhattan Institute senior fellows, John Leo and Herbert London. In 2015, the Manhattan Institute provided Leo with additional capital to sustain and grow the platform. Leo continued to oversee the site until his retirement in 2020, after which it was acquired by the National Association of Scholars (NAS).
In 2025, the NAS is led by Peter Wood—a former provost at the King’s College—who has served as NAS’ president since 2009.
Minding the Campus LinkedIn page discloses that it was a project of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
Although the Paul E. Singer Foundation’s nonprofit tax disclosures do not list direct contributions to the NAS, the NAS’s own 2019 annual report identifies the Singer Foundation as one of its largest financial supporters. The inconsistency could stem from indirect funding mechanisms, such as contributions routed through donor-advised funds or loans.
In fact, the Paul E. Singer Foundation’s tax filings reveal that in 2018 and 2019, it extended a total of $500,000 in loans to a little-known entity named Pitkin Media Inc.Notably, the filings describe the recipient as a “publisher of educational journalism” but offer no further details about the company’s activities or affiliations.
Moreover, the address for Pitkin Media (4905 34th Street South, Ste. 234 in St. Petersburg, FL) is a UPS Store located in a strip mall.
Paul E. Singer Foundation 990 tax filings reveal two loans totaling $500,000 to Pitkin Media for “educational journalism”
Pitkin Media Inc. was incorporated in Delaware on April 10, 2018, and subsequently registered as a foreign corporation in New York in May 2018. Corporate records show that it was created by Max Neuberger, the founder of a media publishing company called Level Three Labs which publishes Jewish Insider (which has become a notorious administration brawler in the second Trump term, seeking to purge overly nationalist personnel)and eJewishPhilanthropy,among other publications. Neuberger also serves on the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
It’s unclear whether Neuberger, Pitkin Media, or Level Three Labs is associated with NAS or Minding the Campus, but it’s noteworthy that Pitkin Media was founded at least five years after Neuberger founded Jewish Insider,suggesting that the corporation may have been established for another media venture such asMinding the Campus.
It is also potentially telling that the first media outlet to receive news of the MIT lawsuit from the Brandeis Center was, in fact, Jewish Insider.
On June 25, the same day the lawsuit was filed, Jewish Insider published a story framing it as an “exclusive” provided by the Brandeis Center. The article prominently quoted Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center, stating, “This is a textbook example of neglect and indifference,” while emphasizing that the lawsuit had been “shared exclusively with Jewish Insider.” Brandeis republished the exclusive coverage of the lawsuit by the publication.
Although Minding the Campus publicly states it was acquired by the NAS, its 2021 IRS Form 990 discloses that James Piereson (a Manhattan Institute senior fellow) served as chairman until at least 2021. Additionally, the site’s vice chairman, Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University, is a regular contributor to City Journal, the flagship publication of the Manhattan Institute.
Both the NAS and Minding the Campus have other connections to the Manhattan Institute as well. In the past two years, the website has published several articles and op-eds critical of MIT, some of which are by authors closely affiliated with the Manhattan Institute.
In March 2024, it re-published a Campus op-ed by a Manhattan Institute fellow titled “The Takeover.” It sounded the alarm that a dramatic rise in foreign student enrollment—especially from Arab and Muslim countries—had transformed elite U.S. campuses like MIT and Harvard into coliseums for unparalleled anti-Israel activism and antisemitic rhetoric.
The piece portrayed MIT leadership, in particular Kornbluth, as supine for failing to discipline protestors who had chanted what were termed as genocidal slogans or who were said to have overtly denied atrocities.
Two months later, in May 2024, the website published “Abolishing diversity statements is an empty gesture at MIT,” by Paul du Quenoy, the president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute (PBFI). In 2024, du Quenoy’s PBFI sponsored the Manhattan Institute’s Fourth Annual Celebration of Ideas conference.
A year prior in December 2023, du Quenoy also published “Purging the Presidents” at the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal,examining how university leaders responded to campus unrest triggered by pro-Palestinian protests—especially at Harvard and MIT—by swiftly pushing out university presidents like Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Penn’s Liz Magill.
Du Quenoy is widely seen as a staunch ally of Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. In 2022, Shapiro was awarded the Paul du Quenoy Prize for his efforts to expose “absurd or unethical practices in academic institutions.”
In January 2024, Shapiro posted a social media tweet calling for Kornbluth’s removal.
“Two down, one more to go,” he posted to X. “Sally Kornbluth, call your office.”
Last but not least: Minding the Campus also appears to publish anti-MIT commentaries and op-eds by authors who use pseudonyms, an unusual and generally disparaged journalistic maneuver.
For example, on March 21, 2024, the website published an op-ed titled “Congress must defund MIT until it gets its house in order” by the pseudonymous “Mitt Castor.” Castor is described as the “pseudonym of an MIT educator who runs the Babbling Beaver website,” described as a satirical online magazine targeting “wokeness” published by alumni, faculty, staff, and students associated with MIT.
Mens et Manus (“Mind and Hand”) is the motto of MIT. At the very least, there appear to be some mind games and hidden hands at play at the world’s paramount technological academy, which is being diverted from its institutional purpose by politically-minded stunts. Certainly none of this is in service of this organization’s ostensible purpose of pursuing the “useful arts.”
Teamsters Union President Sean O’Brien – Screencap of Twitter/X video.
You know things are bad for the Democrats when even the Teamsters Union is calling on them to end the government shutdown.
One of the amazing aspects of this is that Sean O’Brien, the president of the union, is making these remarks while flanked by Republican Vice President JD Vance and Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Do Democrats realize how stunning these optics are and how incredibly bad it looks for them?
Teamsters leader Sean O’Brien demands ‘end the shutdown’ while flanked by Vance, Duffy at White House event
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien demanded an end to the government shutdown Thursday in a passionate speech on its impact on the U.S. aviation industry and working families.
Flanked by Vice President JD Vance and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy outside the West Wing of the White House, the union leader called on lawmakers, including Senate Democrats, to “end the shutdown” and pass a clean continuing resolution (CR) to reopen the government…
“We took a position three weeks ago,” O’Brien said Thursday. “Pass a clean CR, get to the table, negotiate a deal. Do not put working people in the middle of a problem. They should not be in there,” he added.
“And we have got to think about the families that are going to be affected. Think about when you have to tell your son or daughter they can’t play sports because you’re not getting paid. Think about when you can’t pay your mortgage. Think about when you can’t pay your tuition.”…
“Put the politics aside, get to the table, negotiate a deal, pass a clean CR right now, and then figure out the problems moving forward,” he said. “Let’s not compromise the safety or the livelihoods of working people. Pass a clean CR.”
Here’s the clip:
Democrats have lost America’s workers.
Teamsters Pres Sean O’Brien–flanked by VP Vance and Transport Sec Duffy, and backed by 1.4 million Teamsters–demanding that Dems end the shutdown by signing the CR. This after government workers union (800,000 strong) demanded the same. pic.twitter.com/a6QpoVR5xE
The liberal media completely ignored this, because of course they did.
the @VP Transportation @SecDuffy union leaders @Teamsters President Sean O’Brien and airline execs just held a presser on the government shutdown and @cnn & @MSNBC refused to carry it
Chuck Schumer on the floor of the Senate – Screencap of Twitter/X video.
The government shutdown has dragged on for so long that even the liberal Washington Post is admitting that it’s the fault of Democrats and is calling on them to end it.
The WaPo is acknowledging the fact that Democrats are pushing for certain demands in healthcare funding and telling them that they should fight this battle at another, more appropriate time.
All of this is being driven by the base voters of the Democrat party who just don’t want to give an inch to Trump. They want total war.
Washington Post Editorial Blames Left for Shutdown, EBT Disruption: ‘It Is Wrong… Democrats Have Held the Government Hostage’
The Washington Post editorial board on Wednesday wrote that Congress should fund the government for a full year, otherwise families could “go hungry” as key programs such as food stamps may soon expire.
The Post editorial board wrote that the Democrat shutdown has continued for so long because there has been little “discernable” impact on most Americans’ daily lives. However, food stamps, more formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), will expire this weekend, which may deprive roughly 42 million people of needed benefits.
The Post wrote:
Save the debate for another day about whether too many people qualify for food stamps, which have become significantly more generous over the years. Keeping the government open should be separated from policy disputes about how to spend taxpayer money. It is wrong that Democrats have held the government hostage for a month in hopes of extending costly Obamacare subsidies, just as it was for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to shut down the government in 2013 for 16 days in a bid to defund the Affordable Care Act altogether.
Negotiations can always fall apart, but the calendar could help: Both chambers are supposed to be out on recess the week after next for Veterans Day, which might help induce a deal by next Friday.
The Washington Post’s left wing readers are absolutely furious about this.
– “This is pathetic. What happened to the thought leadership that this EB used to provide? I’m ashamed to be a subscriber.”
– “Was this written by somebody from Project 2025?”
– “This editorial does not mention the word “Republican” a single time. Not once. How is that even possible? I’m a longtime WP subscriber who has both voted Republican and Democrat in presidential elections, and I’ve now decided to cancel my subscription. I don’t want this publication to kowtow to either party, but this editorial makes things clearer than ever where this paper is going.”
– “It seems the WaPo has become a MAGA outlet, what a pity, cannot trust a word anymore from this paper.”
The Washington Post is MAGA now? That’s hilarious.
The left just doesn’t want to hear the truth. They’re so used to the media blaming Republicans for everything that they can’t deal.
Jon Stewart speaking to Kamala – Screencap of Twitter/X video.
Kamala Harris recently appeared on Jon Stewart’s podcast and left the liberal host surprised as she suggested that Joe Biden was fit to serve another full term.
If that is true, why did Democrats force Biden out of the race after he completely bombed in his debate with Trump?
Kamala tries to make a distinction between running for president and serving as president but even Stewart seems skeptical about that.
“I did not want to pile on with all the criticism that he was facing,” Harris explained. “I didn’t think it was necessary.”
At that, Stewart tried to clarify that he was referring to Biden’s policies rather than his “competence.” Harris then said she also wasn’t speaking to Biden’s mental and/or physical capability.
“I’m not talking about competence at all,” she said. “I believe he was fully competent to serve.”
“Do you really?” Stewart said in shock. “That surprises me, actually.”
“I do,” Harris stood firm. “But there’s a distinction to be made between running for president and being president … Being a candidate for President of the United States is about being in a marathon at a sprinter’s pace, having tomatoes thrown at you every step you take.”
Stewart concluded with his thoughts on the matter: “I think it’s a hard case to make for people that he didn’t have the stamina to run, but he had the stamina to govern because I think most people view the presidency as a marathon run at a sprint with tomatoes being thrown at you in terms of governance.”
Here’s the clip:
NEW: Jon Stewart *STUNNED* as Kamala Harris claims she believes Biden “WAS FULLY COMPETENT TO SERVE”
In another moment from the same episode, the two disagreed about the amount of time Harris had to run. She said it was too little. Stewart wonders if she would have done better with less. Watch:
NEW: Jon Stewart *DOESN’T BUY* Kamala Harris’ MAIN EXCUSE for losing 2024 campaign
HARRIS: “I do believe one of the biggest factors that was at play in the 107 days — we just didn’t have enough time.”
Democrats’ responsibility for the ongoing federal government shutdown has forced them to perform some hilarious mental gymnastics.
For instance, Thursday on C-SPAN, Democratic Rep. Janelle Bynum of Oregon first refused to answer interviewer Greta Brawner’s question and then, when properly pressed on her non-answer, accused Brawner of pinning blame for the shutdown on Democrats, who, in point of fact, have repeatedly refused to vote to end it.
Indeed, throughout the interview Bynum took an absurdly evasive approach to the interviewer’s direct questions.
To begin, Brawner noted that funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will expire on Saturday.
“Should Democrats pass a stand-alone bill to fund SNAP benefits?” the interviewer asked.
Bynum replied with tedious pablum about how Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House. She also added platitudes about making sure children do not go hungry.
“Is that a ‘yes,’ then, that there should be a vote on the stand-alone legislation?” Brawner asked.
“I’m here; my Republican colleagues are on vacation. We want to make sure that we stand up for American people,” Bynum responded before blaming House Speaker Mike Johnson.
In other words, the interviewer saw from the beginning that the Democrat congresswoman would not give a straight answer.
Moments later, Brawner tried another question. This time, Bynum grew flustered.
“[Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee] made the argument that Democrats in previous situations avoided government shutdowns by voting thirteen times for so-called ‘clean’ continuing resolutions that would fund the government at the previous year’s funding levels,” Brawner said. “Why not agree now?”
Bynum responded by posing as someone who operates above politics, demanding a clean bill.
“They did have a clean CR vote on Sept. 19 in the House,” Brawner said. “Did you vote for it?”
“I disagree with your characterization,” Bynum replied, “and want to make sure that we’re very clear about what Republicans have been doing. Any bill that they put forth, they’ve always had some extra stuff to it. There’s always been a poison pill to it. So I disagree with your characterization.”
“What were the poison pills of the clean CR, or the continuing resolution — you say it’s not clean — that was voted on in the House in mid-September?” Brawner asked.
Incredibly, Bynum then accused the interviewer of having an agenda.
“Here’s what’s important,” the overmatched Democrat congresswoman replied. “I think what you’re trying to do is shift the responsibility to Democrats.”
Bynum proceeded once again to blame Johnson. By then, of course, she had made it clear that she had no intention of answering Brawner’s question.
Readers may view the entire remarkable exchange in the video below.
Bynum’s non-answers, of course, spoke volumes.
It seems that modern Democrats have no purpose besides exacting revenge on President Donald Trump for repeatedly humiliating them.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in fact, has made it clear that he regards the shutdown as a political move.
In short, Bynum’s cringe-worthy inability to answer Brawner’s “poison pill” question merely confirmed what we already knew. All that remains is for Senate Democrats to admit as much by voting to reopen the government.
FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly ousted one of the leading special agents who oversaw the Arctic Frost investigation into President Trump.
“Operation Arctic Frost” was a taxpayer-funded witch hunt launched in April 2022 that seized government-issued cell phones belonging to Trump and Pence while conducting a barrage of interviews across the country.
The 2020 Trump alternate electors prompted the Biden DOJ to open the Arctic Frost investigation into Trump and hundreds of other individuals and organizations.
According to MSNBC, Patel is ousting Aaron Tapp, one of the lead agents on Arctic Frost.
Aaron Tapp is a Special Agent in Charge leading the San Antonio Field Office.
According to Aaron Tapp’s LinkedIn page, he has served in the FBI for more than 20 years.
“Senior FBI Executive with more than twenty-seven years of combined experience leading people, conducting and supervising complex investigations, and engaging in collaborative partnership across government and the private sector. Strategic thinker who anticipates future requirements and creates strategies to achieve results. Broad based operational, management and human capital expertise. A natural collaborator who is focused on building and motivating cross-functional and integrated teams who consistently achieve excellence,” Aaron Tapp said on his LinkedIn page.
“Driver of organizational and cultural change through innovation, transparency, communication and partnership. Deep experience combatting the most serious threats facing the private sector. Experience in the financial services industry leveraging functional and technical skills from multiple teams to address complex problems. Extensive experience balancing business needs and risk mitigation. Currently leading the FBI San Antonio Field Office,” he said.
Kash Patel is ousting Aaron Tapp after he appeared in the documents released by Senate Republicans.
New: Two people familiar with the matter tell @CarolLeonnig and me that FBI Director Kash Patel is forcing out the special agent in charge in San Antonio, whose name appeared in documents recently released by Senate Republicans detailing the “Arctic Frost” investigation into…
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley on Wednesday revealed that former Special Counsel Jack Smith targeted the ‘entire Republican apparatus.’
Grassley said new disclosures revealed Jack Smith targeted conservative organizations such as TPUSA and the Republican Attorneys General Association.
“I’ve obtained through legally protected whistleblower disclosures,” Grassley said during a press conference on Wednesday. “197 subpoenas were issued by Jack Smith and his team. These subpoenas were issued to 34 individuals and 163 businesses, including financial institutions.”
President Trump called for all of the dirty cops and corrupt prosecutors involved in Arctic Frost and Russiagate to be investigated.
“Former FBI Agent Walter Giardina is a DIRTY COP! He should be, along with Deranged Jack Smith, the sinister team of Lisa Monaco and Andrew Weissmann, Liddle’ Jay Bratt, Norm Eisen and his FAKE Charity, CREW, Christopher Wray, Merrick Garland, Thomas Windom, who dreamt up the corrupt J-6 Witch Hunt, should be investigated, immediately,” Trump said.
“They are a disgrace to our Nation. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump said.
