Free Republic

Elizabeth Warren turns out to be a special pleader for her own industry... Warren’s example illustrates as well as ours the point about the trouble with defining “middle class” in terms of annual income. But the combination of her two examples illustrates something about her, too. What did Warren do before her recent foray into politics? She was a professor at Harvard. What policy does she suggest to “strengthen America’s middle class”? Pouring more federal money into subsidizing the already heavily subsidized industry where she spent her career. What is her archetypal example of a middle-class American? Someone who both...

When a course is entitled “History of the U. S. for Policymakers, Activists, and Citizens,” you can bet that the target audience is the second group of constituents. According to the Kennedy School at Harvard, “This is a course intended for policy students, both from the U.S. and from abroad, who would like to enlarge or shore up their knowledge of U.S. history. The course will deal with the major themes, issues, and turning points in the evolution of the modern U.S. (largely post-1900) with an eye towards developments that are likely to be relevant to understanding current and future...

With Congress still at an impasse over a deal that would end the government shutdown and extend the nation’s debt limit before the looming Oct. 17 deadline, several undergraduates said the recent government instability has affected, for better or for worse, their interest in pursuing careers in government. “I’m thinking about whether working for the government is working for an effective institution anymore,” said Benjamin J. Hughes ’14, who is considering a job on Capitol Hill or at a federal agency after graduation. “It seems like it’s really hard to get things done in Washington right now, so as somebody...

If Rufus McDonald were white, you'd already know his name, and he'd be on the path to pushing George Zimmerman aside as the most hated man in America. But because he is black, you probably have never heard of him, unless you live in Chicago. You see, Mr. McDonald was cleaning out an attic and discovered some papers. As Kim Janssen of the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday: Hidden in a dusty trunk in an abandoned and looted Englewood home, the papers of Harvard's first black graduate, Richard T. Greener, had long been thought lost to history. (snip) Several museums and...

When the stars come out, it is not always nighttime. Take, for instance, the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal ceremony on Wednesday afternoon at Sanders Theatre. The six medalists included a White House adviser (Valerie Jarrett), a playwright with a Pulitzer Prize (Tony Kushner), a U.S. representative called “the conscious of Congress” (John Lewis), an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (Sonia Sotomayor), the commissioner of the National Basketball Association (David Stern), and a Hollywood director with three Oscars (Steven Spielberg). The medals, awarded since 2000, go to writers, artists, philanthropists, and others for outstanding contributions to African-American culture. Jarrett...

A pregnant woman who was a recent Harvard School of Public Health graduate was among more than 60 people murdered by Islamic terrorists in an upscale Kenyan mall, along with the father of her unborn child. HSPH faculty members recalled yesterday Elif Yavuz, 33, as an expert on malaria, and as a remarkable student who had a flair for colorful fashion and a great sense of humor.“We are all in shock. She was such a wonderful person,” Thomas Bossert, director of the school’s international health services program, told the Herald. -

In a recent interview with Salon, outspoken progressive Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) hailed the rise of what he called “stealth socialism” through America’s recent monetary policy decisions.Asked by interviewer David Dayen whether the financial system has become “safer” in the years since the financial collapse and subsequent government interventions like 2010′s Dodd-Frank bill, Grayson praised the Federal Reserve for its “unconventional” policies that have “put us back on a low-level track toward growth.”Asked about the Fed’s expanding balance sheet, the Florida Democrat said: “We’ve had a government takeover of the bond market. Stealth socialism’s been created. Government simply ends up...

Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy has just released a study of the relative effects of stringent gun laws. They found that a country like Luxenbourg, which bans all guns has a murder rate that is 9 times higher than Germany, where there are 30,000 guns per 100,000 people. They also cited a study by the U.S.National Academy of Sciences, which studied 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and it failed to find one gun control initiative that worked. In fact, in many cases it found that violence is very often lower, where guns are more readily...

Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy has just released a study of the relative effects of stringent gun laws. They found that a country like Luxenbourg, which bans all guns has a murder rate that is 9 times higher than Germany, where there are 30,000 guns per 100,000 people. They also cited a study by the U.S.National Academy of Sciences, which studied 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and it failed to find one gun control initiative that worked. In fact, in many cases it found that violence is very often lower, where guns are more readily...

After some tumultuous years in transition, the Hiphop Archive is firmly settled back at Harvard. And it’s about to raise its profile significantly, with a new fellowship named for the rapper Nas, a widely recognized leader of hip-hop’s “knowledge is power” movement.

Former Treasury Secretary Calls Obama, Cites 'Acrimonious' Coming Confirmation

A controversial donor with ties to prominent Democrats who is under investigation by the FBI may not have the qualifications he claims. The resume of Dr. Salomon Melgen, a Florida-based ophthalmologist and controversial Democratic donor, boasts medical education and experience at Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of Missouri. But none of those schools says it can find any record of Melgen, who claims to be a Harvard alumnus, the former chief resident of the University of Missouri’s ophthalmology department, and a former Yale intern. Questions concerning Melgen’s background are also coming to light. According to his biography, posted...

The race for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts has taken a turn toward the absurd. The contest pits two highly qualified candidates — Scott Brown, the incumbent, who made history by snatching Ted Kennedy’s seat away from the Democrats, and challenger Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law professor and whiz-kid of the Obama administration who created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If any election could be counted on to maintain a high-minded tone and stick to important issues, it’s this one. Instead, Topic A is Warren’s facial features. From a campaign standpoint, Warren hasn’t done much to end this silly brouhaha. She...

Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy has just released a study of the relative effects of stringent gun laws. They found that a country like Luxenbourg, which bans all guns has a murder rate that is 9 times higher than Germany, where there are 30,000 guns per 100,000 people. They also cited a study by the U.S.National Academy of Sciences, which studied 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and it failed to find one gun control initiative that worked. In fact, in many cases it found that violence is very often lower, where guns are more readily...

In fact, it appears, bans may actually see them increase. Here’s a summary of the study’s findings: The Harvard study attempts to answer the question of whether or not banning firearms would reduce murders and suicides. Researchers looked at crime data from several European countries and found that countries with HIGHER gun ownership often had LOWER murder rates.Russia, for example, enforces very strict gun control on its people, but its murder rate remains quite high. In fact, the murder rate in Russia is four times higher than in the “gun-ridden” United States, cites the study. ”Homicide results suggest that where...

Former White House regulatory czar Cass Sunstein says the international community hasn’t fought global warming because the people aren’t afraid enough. “An understanding of what human beings fear — and what they do not — helps to explain why nations haven’t insisted on more significant emissions reductions,” writes Sunstein, who is now a professor at Harvard Law School. According to Sunstein, one reason people don’t fear global warming is because they don’t associate it with any “particular tragedy or disaster.” … Sunstein notes, that there “are no obvious devils or demons — no individuals who intend to create the harms...

Once again, a study from an organization that you would never accuse of being “gun-loving” or “right-wing” seems to disprove the myth that the availability of handguns increases murder rates. In fact, it doesn’t. The Harvard study attempts to answer the question of whether or not banning firearms would reduce murders and suicides. Researchers looked at crime data from several European countries and found that countries with HIGHER gun ownership often had LOWER murder rates. Russia, for example, enforces very strict gun control on its people, but its murder rate remains quite high. In fact, the murder rate in Russia...

On the Friday before Christmas, President Obama announced that he was appointing Mohamed A. El-Erian, the CEO of Pacific Investment Management Company, as the chairman of his Global Development Council. The announcement didn’t get much attention, but it should. It exemplifies what’s wrong with Obama’s approach to economic policy, which amounts to: insult rich people as “fat cats,” raise their taxes, and then choose a favored few of them for special access. If you’re not familiar with El-Erian, you must not be watching CNBC or attending the World Economic Forum at Davos. The son of an Egyptian ambassador to France...

By The Editors Mitch Daniels, whom some Republicans would like to see president of something more than Purdue University, is under attack because as governor of Indiana he objected to the use of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States in public-school curricula. In recently published e-mails, the plainspoken Governor Daniels described Zinn’s work as “anti-American” and “crap,” which, when expressed in sufficiently polite language, is the professional consensus: “a polemicist, not a historian,” says Arthur Schlesinger; his work a “deranged” “fairy tale,” says Harvard’s Oscar Handlin; a man who traded in “every left-wing cliché with which the...

Obamacare is an "anti-poverty program" aiding poor blacks and Latinos, especially in inner cities, and will help those minorities win health insurance they otherwise wouldn´t get, according to Harvard´s — and the nation´s — leading expert on poverty. In a paper that marks the 25th anniversary of his groundbreaking study of the poor, "The Truly Disadvantaged," Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson said that without Obamacare and the president´s first-term stimulus programs, poverty in the nation would be far worse. "Quite frankly, I think that Obama´s programs have prevented poverty, including concentrated poverty, from rapidly rising, Drudge: Megyn Kelly to Take