Quick Hits

Christopher Caldwell writes that Trump's first few days were so momentus that we scarcely notice he ended 60 years of government devotion to "Affirmative Action," as ordered by LBJ.

"So tumultuous was the first week of Donald Trump's second term that people have barely noticed, a week on, that last Tuesday he repealed affirmative action by executive order. That is astonishing.

For half a century, affirmative action has been the federal government's principal instrument for carrying out desegregation, the longest and costliest moral crusade in American history. After the 1970s it was adapted to liberation movements, from feminism to gay rights. Supreme Court justices anguished over the way its call for special consideration of minorities might clash with the letter of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which barred racial discrimination. Over the past decade affirmative action became the hammer of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement, which grew so unpopular that it has now brought affirmative action (and much else) down with it.

Trump's decision to repeal it is the most significant policy change of this century--more significant than the Affordable Care Act of 2010 or anything done about Covid. How can people be talking about anything else? Yet major news outlets treat Trump's bold move as a detail of personnel management: "Distress and Fury as Trump Upends Federal Jobs," headlined The New York Times.

Somewhere along the line, the Trump administration came to understand in a sophisticated way how the enforcement of civil rights actually works. Not many Americans do--and it's worth reviewing."

orge @BehizyTweets

BREAKING: President Trump just fired a bunch of USAID employees for conspiring to secretly send further foreign aid without approval.

This administration is NOT playing games.

"We've identified several actions within USAID that appear to be designed to circumvent the President's Executive Orders and the mandate from the American people. As a result, we have decided to put a number of USAID employees on administrative leave with full pay and benefits until further notice while we complete our analysis of these actions." - Acting USAID administrator Jason Gray

Samantha Power used USAID to aid to terrorists:

David Wurmser @Wurmserscribit

Under Samantha Power -- an Obama ally -- USAID became a vanguard to leverage humanitarian law & aid to sabotage allies at war. "Humanitarian" demands on the Saudis, eg let the Houthis seize Hodeida -- the port from which the Red Sea subsequently was blockaded.

A woke DEI teacher is sad that Trump is taking away xis fake pronouns.

A Washington State teacher ranting about Donald Trump's rollbacks on transgender and DEI programs during a local committee hearing sounded so much like a parody of the woke point she was struggling to make that even the Democratic chairperson of the panel had to warn her to stay on topic.

Tracy Castro-Gill, 49, the former leader of the Seattle Public School District's Ethnic Studies program, took the podium at a state House of Representatives Committee on Education public hearing on Thursday to complain about Trump's measures.

'My name is Dr. Tracy Castro-Gill, my pronouns are they/them. I am a disabled queer Chicanx educator and scholar in Washington state with my expertise on curriculum and instruction,' Castro-Gill said in her long-winded tirade.

Chicanx - which is among phrases banned by the Trump administration - has been used in some circles to refer to people of Mexican descent.

Castro-Gill said getting rid of it, and the other terms that apply, denies their 'very presence and humanity.'

'I want to remind us that George Orwell, in his novel 1984, warned us about limiting how we are allowed to define ourselves and our experiences and how that allows fascism to take root.'

posted by Ace at 06:18 PM

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