Non-STEM professors reportedly push for boycott of UC Berkeley 'Free Speech Week'

Citing the threat to the student body’s “physical and mental safety,” 177 professors at the University of California, Berkeley, have signed an open letter calling for a boycott of the campus’ so-called “Free Speech Week.

The speakers scheduled for the week—from Sept. 24 to 27— reportedly include Milo Yiannopoulos, Steve Bannon and Ann Coulter.

The San Francisco Chronicle described the event as “four days of rallies and speeches.”
The report said that—even without the boycott—it is unclear if the event will go through. Organizers did not pay for the facilities, the report said. The price tag for such an event is expected to be exorbitant. It cost $600,000 to secure a recent speech by conservative Ben Shapiro.
The letter from the professors said the event forces some students to risk their “physical and mental safety in order to attend class.”
A spokesman for the school told the paper that faculty members can decide where or when to teach their classes.
The Daily Californian, the student newspaper, reported that only five professors who teach STEM courses on campus signed the letter.
Michael Cohen, a co-author of the letter, said the amount of STEM professors on the letter does not show any differences of opinions. The letter was released last week, and they could still join. He told the paper that the humanities buildings are near where these protests often take place.
Kristie Boering, a chemistry professor, told the student paper that she plans on holding her class as planned.
“I have a job to do,” she said.

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Pres. Trump Takes Pride in Strong U.S. Stock Market, Massive Job Growth

FILE – In this Sept. 15, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump waves as he walks from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington to Marine One for the short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Trump is taking pride in the country’s economic performance.
In a tweet Saturday, the president says a great deal of good things are happening in the U.S including jobs and the stock market, which are seeing all time highs.
Since taking office the president has helped create more than one million new jobs.
The stock market has also seen record highs, including the Dow Jones which hit over 22,000 in August for the first time ever.
Additionally, the nation’s unemployment rate fell to 4.3% last month matching a 16 year low.

NY Times reporter slammed after saying boy mowing White House lawn sends bad signal on child labor

Steven Greenhouse, left, tweeted that the lawn-mowing gig was 'not sending a great signal on child labor, minimum wage & occupational safety.'  (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

A former New York Times labor reporter has been slammed on social media for a snarky tweet hitting the White House for letting an 11-year-old boy mow the Rose Garden lawn last week.

Steven Greenhouse, who worked for the Times for 31 years and still writes for the paper on occasion, took issue with the feel-good story of the boy, Frank Giaccio, of Falls Church, Va., who showed up at the White House Friday to cut the grass at the invitation of President Trump.

“Not sending a great signal on child labor, minimum wage & occupational safety >> Trump White House lets a 10-year-old volunteer mow its lawn,” Greenhouse, who covered unions for much of his time at the newspaper, tweeted.
The Daily Wire website slammed Greenhouse’s tweet as the “dumbest” ever posted on Twitter.
Others were just as critical.
“The sanctimonious and humorless finger-wagging of nanny state progressivism in one tweet,” conservative commentator and journalist Bill Kristol tweeted.
Trump accepted the Virginia boy’s offer after he wrote to the president saying it would be his “honor to mow the White House lawn.” Frank, who was 10 when he wrote the letter but has since turned 11, also enclosed a menu of his landscaping services, including weed-whacking.
Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said at the White House press briefing Friday that it was an “honor” to host Frank.
“The president has always loved go-getters like Frank,” she said.
After his initial tweet, Greenhouse engaged in a spirited back and forth with other Twitter users who disagreed with his view and let him have it. He tweeted later, “What this kid wants to do is noble, but sorry, I'm mindful of problems--I've written lots about child labor & kids being hurt by machinery.”

Listen up, UN -- Trump means what he's telling you

To all you besuited, bespectacled, and soon-to-be bewildered diplomats slogging around the United Nations General Assembly this week, try to understand this: Donald Trump means every word of what he's going to tell you. Which is: the United States is done with being blamed for everything that goes wrong in the world, and then paying to fix it.

For decades since the UN's founding in 1945, ambassadors and their ever-sprawling staffs have lived, eaten and parked at taxpayer expense, enjoying a life far beyond the means most of them could ever hope to afford in their homelands. 

The UN has become a symbol of globalist elitism, of willful ignorance about real world conditions. It has passed resolutions condemning Israel for its policies toward Palestinians, while failing to note that Palestinian terror is still an everyday threat to Israelis. It has given lip-service to condemning North Korea's escalating nuclear ambitions, but been unable even to agree on a way to freeze the millions in assets of its unhinged boy-king, Kim Jong Un.
It has chided the United States -- a democracy whether far-left Democrats think so or not -- for voting irregularities in some of its elections, but failed to inquire how Vladimir Putin got twice as many votes as his nearest rival in a country whose economy is tanking or how Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro just neutered his country's national legislature.

The assembled multitude at the UN this week will get to hear first-hand what Trump means where he talks about making America Great Again and America First. The only things threatened by those twin dogmas are the status quo that has long ignored or scorned U.S. leadership and values.

For those same decades, American presidents have taken the podium of the General Assembly in September and temporized, telling their audiences what fine chaps and ladies they are, how the United Nations is doing important work, and how proud they are to be standing in its hallowed headquarters on the East River of Manhattan.
President Trump will deliver no such encomiums. He has already demonstrated a signature willingness to insult his hosts, lecturing fellow NATO leaders on their failure to pay their fair share for defense, in pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord despite some chilly Gallic stares directed at him, or in demanding that the NAFTA free trade agreement be renegotiated in a way more advantageous to the U.S.
Speaking of paying a fair share, Trump is also likely to remind his listeners that the United States coughs up an outsize 22 percent of the UN's overall budget and 28 percent of its peacekeeping funds. He may also allude to the fact that some of those so-called peacekeepers are guilty of rape, another topic too sensitive for the refined world body to act upon.
Trump won't even feel out of place. After all, New York is as much his town as it is the UN's home, although there are probably as many New Yorkers who wish he'd get out as would like to say farewell to the hundreds of diplomats lucky -- or corrupt -- enough to live there.
Trump will meet with leaders of so-called allies like Britain and Germany, even though both Prime Minister Teresa May and Chancellor Angela Merkel have recently, and publicly, rebuked him for his policies and statements.
Perhaps most important, the assembled multitude this week will get to hear first-hand what Trump means where he talks about making America Great Again and America First. The only things threatened by those twin dogmas are the status quo that has long ignored or scorned U.S. leadership and values, and the hope that no one would notice that a so-called global economy works in favor of some nations like China and India, but not the United States.
Donald Trump won election last year promising to change that. His opponents -- and he has many -- should pay close attention to what he says this week. He means it.
John Moody is Executive Vice President, Executive Editor for Fox News. A former Rome bureau chief for Time magazine, he is the author of four books including "Pope John Paul II : Biography."

Russia and China Notably Absent at UN Reform Powwow

Russia, China and several other large United Nations member states are among a small but powerful group of countries that look to be dodging Monday’s U.N. reform summit hosted by the President and Secretary-General António Guterres, according to a list of countries to be in attendance, as seen by Fox News.
Fox News obtained a brief outline of a United States drafted 10-point plan for U.N. reform known as a “Political Declaration for U.N. Reform High Level Event,” which gives U.S. support to Guterres’s reform efforts at the world body.
On Friday, the United States U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters at the White House that the U.N. reform event being chaired by the president was “very, very important.”
“We asked other countries to sign on to their support of reform, and 120 countries have signed on and will be in attendance. That's a miraculous number,” she said.
All those 120 countries had to first sign the declaration before being allowed to attend the event. There are 193 member states of the United Nations.
Among those not attending are Russia and China — the two most powerful members of the BRICS group of nations, which has been working actively to counterbalance U.S. influence on the world monetary system. BRICS is the acronym for a group of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The group is estimated to make up some 41 percent of the world population.
India is the only BRICS member that shall attend.
While Russia and Chinese hold significant influence at the world body, their contributions to the U.N. budget is but a small fraction of what the U.S. doles out each year in contributions.
“It’s not surprising that some countries, especially those who have taken on geopolitically competitive positions to the United States, would shun this initiative,” said Jonathan Wachtel, a former spokesman for Ambassador Haley and director of communications at the U.S Mission to the U.N.
“In pushing back they would probably argue that any reform agenda taken up at the U.N. shouldn’t be driven by one country but rather by all member states of the U.N.,” Wachtel said.
Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador, Sergey Kononuchenko, railed against the Secretary-General’s report on advancing the U.N.’s development system, all part of Guterres’s U.N. reforms.
In a speech earlier this summer at the U.N., obtained by Fox News, the ambassador said the Secretary-General’s reform was an attempt to weaken control by member states.
“We have carefully studied the report, which, unfortunately, raises not hopes, but rather serious concerns for the future of the United Nations development system,” Kononuchenko said in response to the Secretary-General’s earlier presentation to member states.
The United States is by far the biggest contributor to the United Nations paying 22 percent of its regular budget, 28 percent of its peacekeeping budget and hundreds of millions in voluntary contributions to U.N. bodies such as UNICEF.
Wachtel told Fox News that while the Russian and Chinese governments likely agree with some of the proposed reforms, the U.S. still plays a bigger role.
“The United States, the largest single contributor to the United Nations, has every right to demand that U.S. taxpayer money is not wasted,” he said.
Questions sent to both the Chinese and Russian U.N. missions went unanswered.

Tillerson Considers Closing Embassy in Havana Where Diplomats Mysteriously Got Sick

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday that the Trump administration is considering whether to close the U.S. Embassy in Havana following a string of unexplained incidents that have damaged the health of American diplomats.

“We have it under evaluation,” Tillerson told CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “It's a very serious issue.”

At least 21 Americans have been confirmed to have suffered some kind of medical harm in Havana. Tillerson also confirmed the State Department has brought home some of the people affected.

He has previously called the episodes "health attacks." But the State Department now refers to them as "incidents."

Their cause and culprits have yet to be determined. However, U.S. officials said the victims suffered from hearing loss and, in some cases, mild brain damage, possibly from sound waves. Cuban President Raul Castro has claimed his government had nothing to do with it.

Tillerson spoke amid calls from some U.S. senators to shutter the embassy in Cuba’s capital.

Last week, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert acknowledged the administration was at least considering pulling some staff from the embassy.

Nauert said it “obviously” was a dangerous situation, adding, “We are tremendously concerned about that. … Our folks can come back to the United States if they wish to do so. It shows the bravery, the hard work and the dedication of Americans, whether they are serving in Cuba or whether they are serving anywhere across the world. … I want to recognize them and let them know that we care, we certainly have not forgotten about them, and that this investigation is aggressive.”

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