Defund SJP and Deport Hamas-Supporting Visitors

• When Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and slaughtered more than 1,300 men, women, and children dead, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) promptly organized rallies across U.S. college campuses, heralding the murderers as “liberation fighters” showing the “creativity necessary” to accomplish their mission.
• Universities must cease providing SJP access to university facilities, storage units, student government funding, catering services, participation in student fairs, space to hang flyers, and access to staff and leadership training.
• Ongoing funding of SJP also violates civil rights law. Jewish students must be accorded the same civil rights protection as every other racial and ethnic group. University-sponsored or enabled discrimination — including toleration of antisemitic (including anti-Zionist) behavior that goes beyond the bounds of free speech — must stop.
• In addition to defunding SJP chapters, it’s prudent to deport foreign students here on student visas who are “activist” members of SJP and other pro-Hamas student organizations.
• The Immigration and Nationality Act specifies that "any alien who endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization … is inadmissible."
• We lawfully can deport Hamas supporters. As a matter of prudent public policy, such deportations must become reality. As for Hamas-supporting student organizations: No more free pizza, meeting spaces and marketing courtesy of decent, hard-working taxpayers.

Schedule an Interview: Joel Griffith

The Fuse on America's Debt Bomb Just Got Shorter

• As if the 23 percent growth in last year’s deficit wasn’t enough, the Treasury is on track to borrow over $3 trillion this fiscal year, 50 percent more than previously estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.
• Besides the pandemic in 2020, America has never run deficits like the previous, current, or next quarter, at $1 trillion, $776 billion, and $816 billion, respectively. In the four quarters that preceded the pandemic, the Treasury had an average deficit of under $300 billion, about half to one-third of today’s levels.
• To be clear, borrowing was much too high even before 2020. But the fact that borrowing is now almost three times as high speaks volumes about how quickly things are spiraling out of control.
• The federal government’s financial situation resembles a stereotypical bomb from a cartoon or cinema, spherical in shape with an impractically long fuse. As the fuse gets shorter, people more quickly throw the bomb to someone else, and that’s exactly what’s happening with Treasuries (bills, notes, and bonds) today.
• Absent spending reform, eventually no one will be willing to hold the bomb anymore, and the yields on US debt will begin to resemble those in Argentina. That’s when the bomb detonates.

Schedule an Interview: EJ Antoni

Trying to Bar Trump From 2024 Ballot Is Unconstitutional and Lawfare at Its Worst

• As state court proceedings get under way in Colorado, Michigan and Minnesota in lawsuits aimed at barring Donald Trump from appearing as a presidential candidate on the ballot in next year’s presidential election, the judges in those cases should understand that the text, history, and application of the 14th Amendment make it clear that they have no legal authority to take any such action.
• Due to Trump’s supposed actions on Jan. 6, 2021, the challengers are trying to argue that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, the disqualification clause, prevents him from being president even if he is elected, so he should be removed from the ballot by state election officials.
• There are three major legal problems with that claim, however.
• First of all, Section 3 only applies to individuals who were previously a “member of Congress,” an “officer of the United States,” or a state official. Trump has never been any of those.
• Second, no federal court has convicted Trump of engaging in “insurrection or rebellion” in violation of 18 U.S.C. §2383, which makes it a crime to engage in “any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States.”
• Third, there is an argument that can be made—and which was already adopted by one federal court—that Section 3 doesn’t even exist anymore as a constitutional matter.
• These anti-Trump ballot challenges are lawfare at its worst, trying to use the law and the courts as a political weapon. All of these lawsuits should be dismissed.

Schedule an Interview: Hans von Spakovsky