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Nixing visas is a wise US response to Bob Vylan's naked Jew-hate

Nixing visas is a wise US response to Bob Vylan's naked Jew-hate

New York Posta day ago
Kudos to the State Department for revoking the visas for British punk-rappers Bob Vylan: Our country doesn't need to let naked antisemites in for a tour.
The pair led the Glastonbury Musical Festival crowd in chants of raw hate, including 'From the river to the sea, Palestine must be, will be, inshallah, it will be free,' and 'Death, death to the IDF.'
The first is a demand to expel or kill all the Jews of Israel; the latter, transparently, is an outright call for the slaughter of the Jewish state's defenders.
With tens of thousands joining in from the audience, it was a truly Hitler-worthy spectacle.
But also ample reason for the feds to nix the duo's visas for a coming tour: No foreigner has a right to visit this nation and make big money for promoting hate and terrorism.
Bob Vylan also faces backlash back home: Prime Minster Keir Starmer and a host of other pols have denounced them; the BBC is squirming over having broadcast the performance and the United Talent Agency says it will stop repping the band.
They also face a police investigation, but the UK's efforts to police speech are a mess full of double- and triple-standards.
To be clear: US citizens have the right to blare hate speech as vile as Bob Vylan's, but the First Amendment doesn't mean we need to let Nazis come visit.
Cheers to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Justice Department's Leo Terrell for their attention to this matter.
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Michael Goodwin: Cuomo remains NYC's best shot to keep socialist Mamdani from being mayor – or the city will never be the same
Michael Goodwin: Cuomo remains NYC's best shot to keep socialist Mamdani from being mayor – or the city will never be the same

New York Post

time2 hours ago

  • New York Post

Michael Goodwin: Cuomo remains NYC's best shot to keep socialist Mamdani from being mayor – or the city will never be the same

He lost the primary by a stunning 12-point blowout, but as strange as it sounds, the ball is again back in Andrew Cuomo's court. Is he going to run a serious campaign in the general election, or is he ending his political career with a humiliating defeat? That's the key question for him, but it's also vital for the November election. Cuomo's answer is crucial because the Democrats' full-blown socialist nominee, Zohran Mamdani, is a heavy favorite to win. If he does and is able to implement even half of his radical agenda, New York will never be the same. It's teetering under the flawed leadership of Mayor Adams, but Mamdani is a human wrecking ball whose City Hall would make these troubled days look like a Golden Age. His policies would destroy Gotham's economy and shred the fragile social fabric. Nepo baby disaster His plan to freeze rents on 1 million privately owned apartments would turn the housing crisis into an unfixable disaster. What private developer is going to build apartments if it means losing money on the whims of a nepo-baby mayor who never held a job in the private sector? And if government becomes the major builder, look to the perpetually troubled Housing Authority projects for a vision of the hellscape future. Follow The Post's coverage of the NYC mayoral race Mamdani's racist plan to tax white-owned property higher than others and his support for antisemitic policies are beyond the pale. On top of his backing for the BDS movement, his refusal to condemn the odious phrase 'globalize the intifada' offers tacit support for violence against Jews in Israel and around the world. He's also a 33-year-old elitist who joined the 'defund the police' mob and has talked about dismantling the jail system. Next to him, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a throw-away-the-key champion of law and order. New York has never had a mayor so far out of the mainstream. The closest was Bill de Blasio, and Mayor Putz was the worst leader the city had in 50 years. Which brings us back to Cuomo. The November ballot essentially comes down to a four-person race. In addition to Mamdani on the Dem line, Cuomo and Eric Adams hold independent lines, and Curtis Sliwa is the GOP nominee. Cuomo I believe, is the only one with a realistic chance of defeating Mamdani. Yes, yes, I know that's a hard sell in the immediate aftermath of the thumping the former governor suffered last week. Mamdani beat him by 7 points on the straight vote counting, and the final margin grew to 12 points when the ranked-choice votes were tabulated. Full of regrets The difference reflected the cross-endorsement arrangements Mamdani made with like-minded lefties that enabled him to pick up much of their support when they were eliminated. But the key was the record turnout of 100,000 new voters from ages 18 to 30, who went overwhelmingly for the Queens lawmaker. Polls didn't pick up the surge until the very end, with Cuomo consistently a dominant front-runner since March. One result was that Cuomo was too cautious, acting like an incumbent playing not to lose instead of playing to win. His Rose Garden strategy of skipping candidate forums and granting few interviews reflected what the polls were saying: that his lead was safe. It wasn't and I'm told he's now full of regrets and admits he ran a terrible race. He acknowledged as much in a brief statement to me late Tuesday, in which he said the 'buck stops with me' and that 'I should have focused on a simpler affordability message even in these complex times.' After saying that 'Effective social media is paramount,' he added, 'We're going through the data, but there's no question a fall campaign needs to be a different effort informed by the lessons of this one.' His points reflect the fact that his ads, including those of his well-funded PAC, were good enough in a vacuum, but never countered his opponent's appeal to new voters. In addition, Cuomo was saddled with his own disgraceful exit from Albany four years ago over sexual harassment allegations. He also carries the baggage of his fatal Health Department order requiring nursing homes to take COVID patients, and he never owned and apologized for either, apparently assuming they were too far in the past to matter. He's wrong, and to run in the fall, he must express honest regret to voters. Poll optimism Still, there is already one poll looking ahead that is giving his team some optimism. It was conducted in the first two days after the primary, but got little attention. It deserves more. The Cuomo-aligned Honan Strategy Group found that, going into the general, Cuomo and Mamdani are essentially tied at 39%, with Adams at 13% and Sliwa at 7%. 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Those findings suggest Adams has almost no chance of winning. The numbers haven't escaped the Cuomo camp, which also believes Sliwa cannot win. Party infighting Part of their confidence in a potential comeback is that Cuomo, although elected four times as a Democrat — once for attorney general and three times as governor — has long had a tense relationship with the party's progressive wing that dominates primaries. Clearly, that wing has grown dramatically in the city, but his team believes the mix of general election voters would be more moderate and more receptive to his ideas. They also believe the fear over a Mamdani mayoralty, even among top Dem officials, works in his favor. One part of his agenda that could be important is Cuomo's plan to hire 5,000 more police officers and keep the popular and successful Jessica Tisch as commissioner of the NYPD. The contrast with Mamdani's anti-police rhetoric and 'defund' record deserves more attention than it got during the primary. My prediction is that Cuomo, after licking his wounds and sounding out key donors and supporters, will throw himself into the November race. At this point, foolish pride is the only thing he has left to lose.

I was chased out of MIT — and it was all because I'm Jewish
I was chased out of MIT — and it was all because I'm Jewish

New York Post

time2 hours ago

  • New York Post

I was chased out of MIT — and it was all because I'm Jewish

Before Oct. 7, 2023, I was the literal poster boy for a Ph.D. student at MIT. I was featured in a July 2023 profile in MIT News, which relayed my background and aspirations. 'Although he has just two years of graduate school under his belt,' it said, 'Sussman is considering a career in academia.' That career is no longer available to me. In January, I left MIT because of the antisemitism I experienced on campus. Now I'm suing the university. Advertisement The antisemitism didn't start on Oct. 7. I joined the board of MIT Grad Hillel during my first year on campus because, as I told MIT News, 'I think it's important to demonstrate Jewish culture at a time when antisemitism is on the rise.' Three months after the profile was published, Hamas terrorists waged the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust — and my fellow students at MIT celebrated, posting, 'Victory is ours.' Chanting for violence As president of Grad Hillel, I had to cope not only with my own grief but also with that of my community members who sought support in the face of antisemitism that they encountered on campus. We witnessed our peers chant for violence against Jews, take over buildings, interrupt classes with antisemitic rants, and harass, intimidate and bully Jews for being Jewish. This hostile environment was exposed to the world in December 2023 when MIT's president, Sally Kornbluth, was called to Congress alongside the presidents of Harvard and Penn, to answer for the antisemitism on her campus. Advertisement She testified, now infamously, that calls for the elimination of the Jewish people can be antisemitic 'depending on the context.' After that day, calls for the genocide of Jews continued, and the climate of terror on campus intensified. It became increasingly difficult to focus on my computer science research. Students were arrested for unruly protest both inside and outside my office building. A man urinated on the window of the MIT Hillel Center. When demonstrators erected an encampment in the middle of campus, MIT Hillel was forced to move and postpone its long-planned annual celebration of Israel's Independence Day. With MIT doing nothing to curb the escalating antisemitism on campus, the situation spiraled out of control. In November 2024, a tenured MIT professor posted online that a 'Zionist 'mind infection' ' is being funded by 'Jewish student life organizations' such as Hillel and Chabad. Advertisement When I pointed out that his message was extremely dangerous rhetoric, the professor began targeting me personally in X posts to his 10,000 followers. He did so over and over again. In his sixth post, for example, he referred to me as 'an excellent case study.' I sent the professor an email with a simple request: 'Please leave me alone.' He then emailed the entire Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, including students and faculty, promising to use me in his upcoming seminar as a 'real-life case study' of the Jewish 'mind infection.' He continued targeting me in a relentless series of mass emails, copying high-level administrators, including President Kornbluth. In one of these emails, he stated that I have 'powerful connections' to the media and to 'influential friends in Congress like Rep. Elise Stefanik' — which is false. Staying silent Suddenly, I became the target of widespread harassment. Students, staff and non-affiliates piled on, amplifying the professor's vitriol against me. One staff member sent a mass email painting me as a racist. My mother worried I would be killed. Advertisement The most disturbing aspect of this whole episode was that President Kornbluth — who was copied on the exchange where the harassment was on display in real time — stayed silent, as did the other high-level administrators. Not one of them intervened. On the morning of the seminar, flyers were slipped under the doors in the graduate dormitory where I used to live, containing an article advocating for violent 'resistance' against Jews. The flyer specifically targeted me. It contained a graphic styled after Hamas headbands that read, 'This article and the author were banned from MIT after Zionists tweeted about it.' I was one of the Jews who had tweeted about the article, which says, 'We will burn the ground beneath your feet' next to the logo of a US-designated foreign terrorist organization. Then the professor followed through on his awful promise, beginning his seminar — titled 'Language and linguistics for decolonization and liberation and for peace and community building from the river to the sea in Palestine and Israel to the mountaintops in Haiti and beyond' — by discussing me. 'There was one student . . . I won't mention his name, but you probably know who he is,' the professor said. 'Let us not forget that as we engage in this academic exercise that there is a genocide going on.' I filed a formal complaint with MIT's Institute Discrimination and Harassment Response Office, but the staff decided 'not to pursue a discrimination investigation' and stated their decision 'is not subject to appeal.' Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters Incredibly, they claimed that the professor's conduct was not antisemitic because his use of the term mind infection refers to 'settler-colonial Zionist propaganda' that he believes 'is funded by the Israeli government.' Advertisement I was left with the distinct impression that MIT's own antidiscrimination office had used common antisemitic tropes to reject my antisemitism complaint, and I felt there was nowhere left to turn. No other choice It was the privilege of a lifetime to study computer science at MIT. But when it became clear that the university would not protect me from the ongoing harassment and threats, I had no choice but to leave my Ph.D. program and abandon my dream. All because I am Jewish. From Tablet magazine. Will Sussman is the lead plaintiff in a new lawsuit against MIT. He served as president of MIT GradHillel from 2023–2024. Follow him @realWillSussman

Glastonbury Organizers 'Appalled' by Bob Vylan Chants: 'There Is No Place for Antisemitism'
Glastonbury Organizers 'Appalled' by Bob Vylan Chants: 'There Is No Place for Antisemitism'

Yahoo

time4 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Glastonbury Organizers 'Appalled' by Bob Vylan Chants: 'There Is No Place for Antisemitism'

Glastonbury organizer Emily Eavis has condemned anti-IDF chants made by performer Bob Vylan at the U.K. music festival. The rap duo has come under fire for encouraging audiences at the event in Somerset, England, to join in on shouting 'death to the IDF' [the Israel Defense Forces] during their set on the West Holts stage on Saturday. More from The Hollywood Reporter Charli xcx Burns 'Brat' at Packed Glastonbury Set: "I Don't Know Who I Am If It's Over" Kneecap Shocks as Expected With Raucous Glastonbury Set: "The BBC Editor Is Going to Have Some Job" Sony, Crunchyroll Drop First 'Demon Slayer' Trailer Eavis, the youngest daughter of Glastonbury Festival co-founder Michael Eavis, posted to Instagram on Sunday to say that the team is 'appalled' by the band's behavior. 'Their chants very much crossed a line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the Festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech, or incitement to violence,' she wrote. Eavis continued: 'As a festival, we stand against all forms of war and terrorism — we will always believe in — and actively campaign for — hope, unity, peace and love', adding a performer's comments 'should never be seen as a tacit endorsement of their opinions and beliefs… With almost 4,000 performances at Glastonbury 2025, there will inevitably be artists and speakers appearing on our stages whose views we do not share.' Bob Vylan isn't the only act to draw attention to the war in Gaza. At the same stage on Saturday, Irish rap trio Kneecap voiced their pro-Palestine views and used the platform to criticize the U.K. and U.S. governments, as well as the U.S. media. They thanked the Eavis family for allowing them to play despite pushback from U.K. politicians, including Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy. 'A big thank you to the Eavis family,' Kneecap said. 'The pressure that that family was under and they stood strong. Fair play to them.' In May, the Met Police said it would investigate after online videos showed the band calling for the death of British parliament ministers, as well as chanting 'up Hamas, up Hezbollah.' It is illegal in the U.K. to express support for Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim political and military group in Lebanon, as it is considered a terrorist organization in Britain. Glastonbury Festival runs June 25-29. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025 Hollywood's Highest-Profile Harris Endorsements: Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen and More

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