Democrats' road not taken, Columbia's ‘academic freedom' hypocrites and other commentary
Liberal: Democrats' Road Not Taken
'Democrats currently are at a fork in the road to their political future and how that future turns out depends on which path they choose,' muses The Liberal Patriot's Ruy Teixeira.
They can take either 'the party of restoration' path or the less traveled 'party of change' one.
Polling shows 'voters want change — big change'; the 'party's brand is in wretched shape and views of Democratic governance are negative.'
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Dems 'will have to work really hard to convince voters, especially working-class voters, that they embody change.'
Democrats 'don't realize that they are at a fork in the road,' yet if they keep on the nothing-but-anti-Trump path it 'will make them the party of restoration in a change era — and ensure that the political breakthrough they are seeking will continue to elude them.'
Campus watch: Columbia's 'Academic Freedom' Hypocrites
Critics of President Trump's 'enforcement of civil-rights laws' at universities gripe that a crackdown on pro-Hamas protesters will destroy academic freedom, notes Commentary's Seth Mandel.
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Yet it's the 'anti-Zionists' who've been 'erasing academic freedom,' and punishing them 'will help restore it.'
The 'tentifada mobs' made that point clearly 'when they stormed Butler Library and forced nearly a thousand students to stop studying' for finals.
Even groups that usually defend the goons said protesters went too far.
Yet if academic-freedom groups had led the fight 'to restore the academic freedom of the Jewish students under siege' from 'campus Hamasniks,' then perhaps now 'they wouldn't be fighting to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to Harvard and Columbia and the rest.'
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From the left: How US Higher-Ed Turned Useless
As professors gripe about the 'climate of fear' stemming from Gov. Ron DeSantis' and President Trump's DEI crackdowns, Racket News' Matt Taibbi observes it's just 'the latest in a long chain of official actions and reactions, during which American higher education became increasingly a) expensive and b) useless.'
Remember: Obama-era 'federal pressures' on campus sexual-harassment led to a 2022 poll showing that 'huge pluralities of Americans held their tongues for fear of 'retaliation and harsh criticism.''
DeSantis' anti-DEI rules 'go too far,' trading 'one brand of groupthink for another': Yes, 'universities have become madhouses and ignorance-factories whose purpose is not to teach but produce sinecures for ed-sector dingbats,' but 'I don't want federal thought police of any stripe sitting atop them.'
From the right: Bernie's Private-Jet Hypocrisy
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Sen. Bernie Sanders won ridicule with news 'that he spent $221,723 in campaign money on private jets for his 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour,' scoffs the Washington Examiner's Byron York.
Bernie's excuse? 'You run a campaign and you do three or four or five rallies in a week . . . That's the only way you can get around.'
Yet, notes York, 'Sanders has long had a taste for private jets'; indeed, his 'requests for private jets were so frequent that they at first irritated and then angered Clinton staffers' during the 2016 campaign.
Bernie's 'message is basically that billionaires are destroying American democracy,' but he has something in common with them: They also 'defend their use of private planes by saying they are just so busy' they can't fly commercial like the little people.
Law prof: Partisan Persecution of Lawyers Isn't New
'I opposed the executive orders of President Trump targeting law firms,' writes Jonathan Turley at The Hill, but 'many of those objecting today to the targeting of Democratic firms and lawyers were the very same people who targeted conservative lawyers for years.'
Indeed, 'I personally know lawyers who were told to drop Republican cases or else find new employment — including partners who had to leave their longstanding firms.'
Many 'deans and law professors protesting Trump's orders' had 'previously purged their schools of Republicans and conservatives.'
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At least 'there could be a modicum of recognition of the years of systematically purging conservative lawyers and law professors by some of these very critics.'
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
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