Tag Archives: Harvard

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Justice Department Wants to Deport Harvard Scientist to Russia. Where is the Outrage?

                                                           

Kseniia Petrova (Polina Pugacheva, via Associated Press)

UPDATE

On May 28, the New York Times reported that a federal judge said she would grant bail to Ksenia Petrova   in an immigration case stemming from Ms. Petrova’s failure to declare scientific samples she was carrying into the country. “There does not seem to be either a factual or legal basis for the immigration officer’s actions” in stripping Ms. Petrova of her visa on Feb. 16, Christina Reiss, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Vermont, said in a court hearing. She added that “Ms. Petrova’s life and well-being are in peril if she is deported to Russia,” as the government has said it intends to do.

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 To what levels of uncaring depravity have we sunk?

U.S. Government lawyers told a federal judge today that the Trump administration intends to deport a Harvard scientist back to Russia, a country she fled in 2022, despite her fear that she will be arrested there over her protest of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The New York Times reported the action today. 

Christina Reiss, chief judge of the United States District Court in Vermont, asked the government to clarify whether or not it planned to deport Ms. Kseniia Petrova to Russia.

“You are asking for her removal to Russia?” she asked.

“Yes, your honor,” Jeffrey M. Hartman, an attorney representing the Department of Justice, replied, according to the Times.

That this is taking place in Donald Trump’s America is a travesty.

Petrova, a 30-year-old Russian-born scientist at Harvard Medical School, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since February. Her detention occurred when she was returning to Boston from a trip to France. Her story was reported by Geoff Bennett, who serves as co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS News Hour. 

Kseniia Petrova, a 30-year-old Russian-born scientist at Harvard Medical School, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since February. Her detention occurred when she was returning to Boston from a trip to France. Her story was reported by Geoff Bennett, who serves as co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS News Hour. 

Returning to Boston’s Logan International Airport from a trip to France, she brought back frog embryo samples for her lab. The PBS News Hour reported on April 24 that ICE said she knowingly broke the law in failing to properly declare the embryos. According to the News Hour, A typical customs violation results in a fine, but Petrova had her visa revoked, was detained and flagged for deportation.

In moves more common in a police state, where people are swiftly moved from place to place to avoid detection, ICE first sent Petrova to a cell at the airport. The next day they transferred her to a jail in Vermont. She spent the next week there. Then ICE flew Petrova to detention in Louisiana. She has now been imprisoned at the Richwood Detention Facility in Louisiana for two months in a one-room facility with 89 other women, wall-to-wall beds and almost no personal privacy. Yes, for two months now.

The News Hour reported that Petrova has been a vocal critic of the Russian government and its actions in Ukraine and fears persecution if deported there. “I am afraid that, if I come to Russia, I will be arrested, because we have in Russia special law,” she said. “If you say something against current war, you will be imprisoned, and you can be imprisoned for 15 years.”

“ICE is required to detain individuals … only if they are a flight risk or a danger to the community. Ms. Petrova is neither,” said her attorney, Gregory Romanovsky. “Her continued detention serves no purpose and wastes limited government resources.”

The Trump administration, banking on the support of its most dedicated backers, is running roughshod over human rights right here in America. 

Where is the outrage? 

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Identity Politics is Alive And Well at The New York Times

I’m a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, one of the largest men’s collegiate fraternities in North America.  If I ran for office, would you assume all 12,000 voting-age collegiate members of my fraternity and all the living TKE alumni would support me?  

Ronald Reagan was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, too. When he ran for president, did the news media assume the votes of all his TKE fraternity brothers were a sure thing?

The New York Times seems to think that members of all the Black Greek-letter sororities and fraternities at US colleges are a ready-made bloc of Kamala Harris supporters in her quest for the presidency because she’s been a member of the Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha since her undergraduate days at Howard University. 

“As Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign rushes to shore up its base, its efforts will be bolstered by a ready-made coalition: the more than two million members of Black Greek-letter organizations who have quickly united to mobilize Black voters nationwide,” the Times reported today.  

“A united Black Greek front has the potential to offer even more significant political advantage, as their voter engagement programs reach millions every four years,” the Times added. 

Maya King, the Times reporter who wrote the story, says in her bio, “As a native Southerner, I have been most fascinated by the ways the region has changed politically, culturally and demographically over the last few presidential election cycles — and how those changes are connected.”

But King barely acknowledged those changes in her article. The cheerleading article barely mentioned that there have been signs of deteriorating Black support for the Democratic ticket and growing Black consideration of Donald Trump. 

In November 2023, the Times reported that Black voters were  more disconnected from the Democratic Party than they have been in decades, frustrated with what many saw as inaction on their political priorities and unhappy with President Biden, a candidate they helped lift to the White House. Polls by the Times and Siena College found that 22 percent of Black voters in six of the most important battleground states said they would support former President Trump in the 2024 election, and 71 percent would back President Biden.

Erosion of Black support for the Democratic Party has also been found by the Pew Research Center. The Center reports that although the majority of Black voters across education levels are Democrats, there has been a decrease in affiliation with the Democratic Party in recent years. While 93% of Black voters with college degrees identified with or leaned toward the Democratic Party in 2012, that number decreased to 79% in 2023.

Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential contest and Harris’  ascension may well change some Black voters’ preferences, but it’s not likely to be a universal shift. Harris, for example, is a progressive Democrat, but only 28 percent of black Democrats consider themselves liberal, according to the Pew Research Center, while 70 percent identify as moderate or conservative.

On June 25, the Times reported on data  captured by a new Harvard study that shows Black voters  have slightly shifted toward Trump since 2020. “One possible explanation is that some Black voters’ economic gains have allowed them to focus more on noneconomic issues — such as abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. rights — on which they are more conservative than typical Democrats,” the Times said.

The fact is, Black candidates can’t rely on group solidarity. “It’s certainly true that black voters support black Democratic candidates at higher rates, … but analysis of past elections and campaigns shows that black voters have never prioritized simple descriptive representation over other factors, like party affiliation, campaign viability, candidate electability, preexisting relationships with the black community and a sense of authenticity,” according to the New York City-based Brennan Center for Justice. 

For the New York Times to publish a story assuming Black solidarity for a Black presidential candidate who’s a member of a Black sorority is irresponsible journalism.

As James Bennett, who was the editorial page editor at The New York Times from May 2016 until his forced resignation in June 2020 over a controversial op-ed, has said, “The reality is that the Times is becoming the publication through which America’s progressive elite talks to itself about an America that does not really exist.”

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A Message to Protesters: Show Your Face

A group of more than 40 interns working in President Biden’s  White House and other executive branch offices have sent a letter to Biden and Vice President Harris accusing them of having “ignored” the “pleas of the American people” and calling on the Administration “…to demand a permanent cease fire.”

“We, the undersigned Fall 2023 White House and Executive Office of the President interns, will no longer remain silent on the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people,” 

But despite the “We the undersigned” start to the letter, there were no names and signatures included. 

The demand for anonymity among protesters these days is cowardly, frustrating and annoying.

When Patrick Henry implored “Give me liberty, or give me death!” on March 23, 1775, he didn’t wear a face mask or send an anonymous letter to King George. He spoke up in a speech to the Second Virginia Convention at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia.

But many of today’s most virulent protesters want no such personal exposure. They’d rather blend in with the mob, obscuring their individual responsibility. They want free speech without consequences. 

Observe the videos and photographs of ““From the river to the sea!” protests around the United States. 

In early October, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee put out a statement on its Instagram page that was originally co-signed by 33 other Harvard student organizations saying they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” in the wake of a deadly invasion of Israel by the Islamist militant group Hamas. 

But after an intense local and national backlash from lawmakers, professors, and other students, the organizers removed the list of student organizations from the open letter.

At a pro-Palestinian “Vigil for the Martyrs of Palestine,” by Georgetown University students, nearly every one of the students hid their face with a mask. Similarly, when Several hundred people gathered in Bruin Plaza at UCLA for a walkout and march in support of Palestine, and when pro-Palestinian students at Princeton staged a walk-out and demonstration, many wore masks. 

Come on now. Wouldn’t it be better for people to stand behind their convictions?

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Eileen Gu Wants to Have Her Cake and Eat It, Too

Olympian standout, Eileen Gu, clearly wants it all. The 18-year-old California native wants the Olympic medals, the modeling jobs, the rich sponsorships, and public adulation. But she also wants to be both an American and Chinese hero.

The perky, confident young woman, who goes by the name Eileen Gu in the US and Gu Ailing in China, was born in San Francisco, CA to a Chinese mother who was born in Beijing and emigrated to the United States. 

Neither Gu nor her mother have disclosed any information about her father other than to say he is an American-born graduate of Harvard University.  For some unexplained reason, American media have not verified that information, simply noting that there is no public record of her father. Even The New York Times has apparently accepted Gu declining to comment when asked if she knows anything about her father. It’s not clear why much of American media is treating her with such kid gloves.

In June 2019, when she was a 15-year-old child, Gu announced that she would switch country affiliations and compete for China in the Beijing Games. “This was an incredibly tough decision for me to make,” Gu wrote on Instagram, “The opportunity to help inspire millions of young people where my mom was born, during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help to promote the sport I love. Through skiing, I hope to unite people, promote common understanding, create communication, and forge friendships between nations.”

But had she given up her American citizenship?

In February 2021, Forbes reported that Gu had announced on Instagram that she had become a naturalized Chinese citizen and planned to compete for China in the 2022 Beijing Games. But that was incorrect. Gu had said only, “I have decided to compete for China in the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics.”

The International Olympic Committee requires athletes to hold passports for the countries they represent, and China says it does not accept dual citizenship.

” …state media have previously reported that the 18-year-old renounced her U.S. citizenship after she became a Chinese national at the age of 15,” Reuters reported. But Gu herself has repeatedly dodged questions on her citizenship. And so far, she’s gotten away with it. 

“She tends to avoid questions of geopolitics in interviews,” the New York Times reported earlier this month. “When I’m in the U.S., I’m American, but when I’m in China, I’m Chinese,” Gu has said.

“Nobody can deny I’m American, nobody can deny I’m Chinese,” Gu was quoted in the South China Morning Post.

In December 2021, when the media asked Gu about China during a slope-side interview in Colorado, her sports agent, Tom Yaps, tried to end the interview. “I’ll pass,” Gu said. “There’s no need to be divisive.”

ESPN reported  on Feb. 1, 2022 that after The Wall Street Journal inquired about a story on Red Bull’s website that mentioned Gu had indeed given up her U.S. passport, the passage disappeared from the story without explanation.

Conjecture on her citizenship status arose when she registered for the US Presidential Scholars Program in 2021. Applicants are required to be US citizens or legal permanent U.S. residents to be eligible for the program. Gu did not, however, get into the program. 

Gu will also face questions when she registers for Stanford, where she has been admitted. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security requires that international students have F-1 or J-1 visas. 

Wherever the citizenship issue settles, Gu has already felt the sting of some Americans who see her as abandoning the US for personal gain.

And if China continues to treat Gu as one of their own, there may be ramifications if she falters down the road that she likely did not consider at the tender age of 15. (It’s interesting that the media has not paid much attention to the fact that Gu made her decision at such a young age, in contrast to the media attention given to concerns about all the pressure put on Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian phenom who was allowed to compete even after disclosure that she tested positive in December for trimetazidine, a drug that boosts blood flow to the heart.)

Figure skater Zhu Yi knows how things can turn. A U.S. born athlete with Chinese parents who is competing at the Olympics for China, Zhu Yi came under blistering attack in China when she crashed into a wall during a team event and was blamed for pushing her team into fifth place.

“There’s no next time,” a Weibo user, posted under a video of Zhu crying at the end of her performance. “How shameful.” The comment was liked more than 45,000 times.

“Go back to America,” read another comment accompanied by a US flag emoji.

Gu may also face Chinese criticism if she continues her outspoken support for girls and women in a country where gender roles are much more rigid and feminist activism is discouraged.

She has racked up an impressive number of sponsorships deals with Chinese companies, including Bank of China, China Mobile, Luckin’ Coffee, that are said to be worth millions. She has also become a highly bankable model in China and globally. In China, she’s been on the cover of Chinese editions of GQ and Elle. And as guest editor of Vogue China’s Gen-Z-focused bimonthly issue, Vogue+.

But Chinese sponsors, like American corporations, can be fickle and gun shy in the face of controversy. And controversy can come out of nowhere in Xi Jinping’s China.

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Stop the madness: Obama’s extravagant Presidential Center

$1 billion. That’s what The Obama Presidential Center in Chicago was expected to cost.

“Eight years is only the beginning,” the Obama Foundation, which is driving creation of the Center, says on its website. “As President Obama has said, the change we seek will take longer than one presidency. The Obama Foundation is where the work we started together will continue.”

I’m reminded of an observation by Anthony Clark in his book, The Last Campaign: How Presidents Rewrite History, Run for Posterity, and Enshrine Their Legacies: “We once held the office of president, as well as its occupant, in high regard. As we have lowered our opinions of both, presidential libraries, consequently, have grown larger and more powerful—and, not incidentally, less truthful.”

Do we really need another extravagant, pretentious library and a recklessly large foundation funded by influence seekers and built by a legacy-hungry ex-president?

cartoon_rock_obama

It seems like our presidents are getting more and more concerned about their legacy and continued influence.

The New York Times reported, for example, that on election night in 1992, James L. “Skip” Rutherford, was celebrating in Little Rock, Ark., when he felt the hand of Herschel Friday, a member of the Clinton finance committee, on his back. “Hey, Skip,” Rutherford, recalled the lawyer saying. “Now we have to start thinking about that presidential library.”

Unfortunately, each successive administration seems to think its library needs to be more extravagant than its predecessor.

The 135,000 sq. ft. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, including endowment of an Institute at Harvard for the study of politics and public affairs, cost $20.8 million. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $72,143,125.55.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Center for Public Affairs, the largest of all the presidential libraries, cost $60 million. Adjusted for inflation, that would be equivalent to a little more than $130 million now.

Obama’s $1 billion project would be twice what George W. Bush raised for his library and its programs.

It is also far more than the $165 million spent on William J. Clinton’s Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Like the Clintons, if Obama hopes to raise $1 billion, he’ll have to hit up moneyed interests, a lot of them, and do a lot of backscratching.

Obama and his people say he plans to raise most of his haul after his presidency, but he’s already on the hunt. According to a report filed with the IRS by the Barack Obama Foundation, in 2014 Obama raised $5,434,877 million from 12 donors.

The donations ranged from $100,000 to $1 million. Michael J. Sacks, a Chicago businessman, gave $666,666. Fred Eychaner, the founder of Chicago-based Newsweb Corp., donated $1 million. Mark T. Gallogly, a private equity executive, and James H. Simons, a technology entrepreneur, each contributed $340,000.

The Foundation reported raising another $1.9 million in 2015, leaving it with a balance of $2.6 million after expenses and a massive fundraising effort needed to reach its goals. Major contributors in 2015, according to the Foundation’sForm 990 report to the IRS, included: the Gill Foundation (Tim Gill) , $347,000; Impact Assets Inc., $250,000; the Sacks Family Foundation, $333,334; Lisa Strickler and Mark Gallogly, $330,000; Marilyn and Jim Simons, $330,000; David and Beth Shaw, $250,000.

Meanwhile, like slimy remoras that attach themselves to sharks, connected Democrats are already at the money trough.

The Foundation’s 2014 expenses include $476,551 to the Smoot Tewes Group, a Washington, D.C. fundraising consultant. Julianna Smoot, served as Obama’s chief campaign fund-raiser in 2008 and 2012. Paul Tewes served as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s National Coordinated Campaign Director in 2001-02 and its Political Director in 2003-04. He also directed Obama’s victory in the 2008 Iowa Caucus campaign.

$230,436 went to SKDknickerbocker, a Washington, D.C. public relations and political consulting firm that specializes in working for Democratic Party politicians. The firm collected another $182,865 in 2015.

SKDknickerbocker is a veritable cornucopia of Democratic operatives, including: Anita Dunn, former Obama White House Communications Director; Jessica Bassett, who has done press and site advance for Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton; Bill Burton, former deputy White House press secretary for Obama and co-founder of the super PAC Priorities USA Action during Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign; and Stephen Krupin, former chief speechwriter to Secretary of State John Kerry, director of speechwriting on Obama’s re-election campaign, and chief speechwriter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

While Obama is still president, it’s clear that he, his Foundation and these firms are already hard at work pressing the 1% to donate to the Obama Foundation. And this is surely only the beginning of what will become a massive fundraising effort, likely leading to all the same conflicts and questions associated with the Clinton Foundation.

This is all getting completely out of hand. It’s time to stop this arms race of ever-expanding presidential libraries and foundations.

The way we’re headed, presidential centers will surpass Egypt’s pyramids as monuments to the egos of leaders. Given that many of the pyramids entombed not only the deceased, but also the deceased’s servants, Obama’s current and former advisors like Valerie Jarrett, John Podesta, David Plouffe and David Axelrod may have reason to be concerned.