The University of New Mexico Becomes IBM Q Hub’s First University Member – Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

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The NC State IBM Q Hub is a cloud-based quantum computing hub, one of six worldwide and the first in North America to be part of the global IBM Q Network. This global network links national laboratories, tech startups, Fortune 500 companies, and research universities, providing access to IBMs largest quantum computing systems.

Mainstream computer processors inside our laptops, desktops, and smartphones manipulate bits, information that can only exist as either a 1 or a 0. In other words, the computers we are used to function through programming, which dictates a series of commands with choices restricted to yes/no or if this, then that. Quantum computers, on the other hand, process quantum bits or qubits, that are not restricted to a binary choice. Quantum computers can choose if this, then that or both through complex physics concepts such as quantum entanglement. This allows quantum computers to process information more quickly, and in unique ways compared to conventional computers.

Access to systems such as IBMs newly announced 53 qubit processor (as well as several 20 qubit machines) is just one of the many benefits to UNMs participation in the IBM Q Hub when it comes to data analysis and algorithm development for quantum hardware. Quantum knowledge will only grow with time, and the IBM Q Hub will provide unique training and research opportunities for UNM faculty and student researchers for years to come.

How did this partnership come to be? Two years ago, a sort of call to arms was sent out among UNM quantum experts, saying now was the time for big ideas because federal support for quantum research was gaining traction. Devetsikiotis vision was to create a quantum ecosystem, one that could unite the foundational quantum research in physics at UNMs Center for Quantum Information and Control (CQuIC) with new quantum computing and engineering initiatives for solving big real-world mathematical problems.

At first, I thought [quantum] was something for physicists, explains Devetsikiotis. But I realized its a great opportunity for the ECE department to develop real engineering solutions to these real-world problems.

CQuIC is the foundation of UNMs long-standing involvement in quantum research, resulting in participation in the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) passed by Congress in 2018 to support multidisciplinary research and training in quantum information science. UNM has been a pioneer in quantum information science since the field emerged 25 years ago, as CQuIC Director Ivan Deutsch knows first-hand.

This is a very vibrant time in our field, moving from physics to broader activities, says Deutsch, and [Devetsikiotis] has seen this as a real growth area, connecting engineering with the existing strengths we have in the CQuIC.

With strategic support from the Office of the Vice President for Research, Devetsikiotis secured National Science Foundation funding to support a Quantum Computing & Information Science (QCIS) faculty fellow. The faculty member will join the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering with the goal to unite well-established quantum research in physics with new quantum education and research initiatives in engineering. This includes membership in CQuIC and implementation of the IBM Q Hub program, as well as a partnership with Los Alamos National Lab for a Quantum Computing Summer School to develop new curricula, educational materials, and mentorship of next-generation quantum computing and information scientists.As part of the Q Hub at NC State, UNM gains access to IBMs largest quantum computing systems for commercial use cases and fundamental research. It also allows for the restructuring of existing quantum courses to be more hands-on and interdisciplinary than they have in the past, as well as the creation of new courses, a new masters degree program in QCIS, and a new university-wide Ph.D. concentration in QCIS that can be added to several departments including ECE, Computer Science, Physics and Astronomy, and Chemistry.

Theres been a lot of challenges, Devetsikiotis says, but there has also been a lot of good timing, and thankfully The University has provided support for us. UNM has solidified our seat at the quantum table and can now bring in the industrial side.

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The University of New Mexico Becomes IBM Q Hub's First University Member - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

The impact of spycraft on how we secure our data – ComputerWeekly.com

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The cyber security industry has come a long way since its inception. The ancestors of cyber were the men and women working at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, long before the introduction of what we would consider modern cyber security practices but even before then, humans used codes and ciphers to keep information safe for millennia. Even Julius Caesar popularised a cipher which was named after him.

More recently, developments have been driven by the intelligence and defence sectors, which have a real need to uncover as well as keep sensitive intelligence safe. Some of these innovations were showcased recently at the Science Museums Top Secret exhibition, which ran from July 2019 to February 2020 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of GCHQ, the UKs intelligence, security and cyber agency.

It also gives us the context as to where developments have originated, and the ways in which they will subsequently impact how businesses keep their data safe from cyber criminals in the future.

The threats organisations face today are varied from organised crime groups to nation-state hackers, as well as individual hackers. One of the ways organisations try to defend themselves is through encryption.

Ciphers have been around for centuries in one form or another from non-standard hieroglyphs in the walls of tombs built in ancient Egypt almost 4,000 years ago, to substitution ciphers developed 1,200 years ago by Arab mathematician Al-Kindi. The rise of electronic communications during the Cold War led to monumental developments in ciphers and encryption technology, which were used to keep phone conversations secure.

Today, the focus for many organisations and businesses is the use of encryption on mobile devices, enterprise networks and cloud services. Given the impact of mobile devices and digital communication on how organisations conduct their business with partners and customers globally, this has been a key development ensuring conversations remain private while enabling fast and secure communication.

Today, encryption is used in all sectors for medical data in healthcare, customer information in banking, and much more. This highlights the importance of all areas of industry, outside of tech and IT, learning from the intelligence communitys experience developing advanced solutions to secure communications and data.

Many technologies initially developed by the intelligence community have become commonplace in keeping our everyday communications secure, according to Elizabeth Bruton, curator of the Science Museums Top Secret exhibition.

Randomness has always been used to disguise messages, she said. Though the technology today is radically different, the basic principles of encryption using long strings of random characters letters and numbers have changed very little over the past 100 years. The Top Secret exhibition features letter tiles used by the Government Code and Cypher School staff at Mansfield College, Oxford, during the Second World War.

GC&CS staff pulled these tiles out of a bag to create long strings of random numbers or letters, she said. They were used to make encryption keys and one-time pads to keep British wartime messages secure. Today, randomness underpins some of the encryption systems we use to keep our communications secure.

Also featured in the Top Secret exhibition is a chaotic pendulum used by the internet security company Cloudflare to help keep online messages secret. Cloudflare uses readings from devices such as this pendulum and a wall of lava lamps to make long strings of random numbers, said Bruton. These random numbers help create keys that encrypt the traffic that flows through Cloudflares network.

Although its interesting to see how todays cyber security solutions have been influenced by the past, emerging technologies can also help us gaze into the future. One of the exhibits in the Top Secret exhibition consists of parts from a quantum computer. This new computing paradigm has the potential to rewrite how we use technology.

Quantum computers could significantly weaken our cyber defences by processing information in a manner completely different to that of traditional computers. Work is already underway to develop quantum-resistant encryption that is likely to become a common business practice in the next decade.

Breakthroughs such as quantum computing are a reminder that organisations should constantly be thinking about how the threats they face evolve. After all, cyber crime is set to cost businesses over $2tn this year alone. Todays new tech could be tomorrows threat, and bad actors such as organised cybercriminals and nation-state attackers will always look to exploit the latest and greatest tech.

Cyber criminals are often quick to use new technologies. Since they dont operate in regulated industries or need to consider customers and users, they can be more efficient at harnessing these technologies for harm than organisations are at harnessing them for good.

The cyber security sector is experiencing tremendous growth, driven by our dependence on technology. Global cyber security spending is expected to reach $248bn by 2026.

As such, its prudent for all organisations to look at both the past and the future if they want to remain safe from cyber criminals and invest wisely. The crossover between what technologies the intelligence sector has developed and how these have been adopted into mainstream cyber security solutions highlights the many years of research it takes to keep data safe.

As organisations face ever more threats, they should look to learn as much as they can from every sector and be open to sharing best practices to ensure robust defences.

Subject to the anticipated reopening of the UKs museums as Covid-19 pandemic restrictions ease, the Top Secret exhibition is scheduled to open at Manchesters Science and Industry Museum in October 2020.

Mark Hughes is senior vice-president of security at DXC Technology

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Riverlane partner with bio-tech company Astex – Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

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Riverlane builds ground-breaking software to unleash the power of quantum computers. Chemistry is a key application in which quantum computing can be of significant value, as high-level quantum chemistry calculations can be solved far faster than using classical methods.

World leaders in drug discovery and development, Astex Pharmaceuticals apply innovative solutions to treat cancer and diseases of the central nervous system.The two companies will join forces to combine their expertise in quantum computing software and quantum chemistry applications to speed up drug development and move us closer to quantum advantage.

As part of the collaboration, Astex are funding a post-doctoral research scientist at Riverlane. They will apply very high levels of quantum theory to study the properties of covalent drugs, in which protein function is blocked by the formation of a specific chemical bond.So far in this field of research, only empirical methods and relatively low levels of quantum theory have been applied. Riverlane will provide access to specialised quantum software to enable simulations of the target drug-protein complexes.

Dave Plant, Principal Research Scientist at Riverlane, said: This collaboration will produce newly enhanced quantum chemical calculations to drive efficiencies in the drug discovery process. It will hopefully lead to the next generation of quantum inspired pharmaceutical products.

Chris Murray, SVP of Discovery Technology at Astex said: "We are excited about the prospect of exploring quantum computing in drug discovery applications. It offers the opportunity to deliver much more accurate calculations of the energetics associated with the interaction of drugs with biological molecules, leading to potential improvements in drug discovery productivity."

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Bipartisan push for US$100 billion investment in science – University World News

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UNITED STATES

The Endless Frontier Act was introduced by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat, New York), Senator Todd Young (Republican, Indiana), Representative Ro Khanna (Democrat, California) and Representative Mike Gallagher (Republican, Wisconsin).

The preamble to the act warns that although the United States has been the unequivocal global leader in scientific and technological innovation since the end of World War II, and as a result the American people have benefited through good-paying jobs, economic prosperity and a higher quality of life, today this leadership position is being eroded.

Far too many of our communities have tremendous innovation potential but lack the critical public investment to build the nations strength in new technologies, while our foreign competitors, some of whom are stealing American intellectual property, are aggressively investing in fundamental research and commercialisation to dominate the key technology fields of the future.

It says: Without a significant increase in investment in fundamental scientific research, education and training, technology transfer and entrepreneurship, and the broader US innovation ecosystem across the nation, it is only a matter of time before Americas global competitors catch-up and overtake the US in terms of technological primacy: whichever country wins the race in key technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, advanced communications, and advanced manufacturing will be the superpower of the future.

The bill argues that the US government needs to catalyse US innovation by boosting investments in the discovery, creation and commercialisation of new technologies that ensure American leadership in the industries of the future.

The bill would rename the National Science Foundation (NSF) the National Science and Technology Foundation (NSTF) and task a new deputy director with executing the new funding of fundamental research related to specific recognised global technology challenges with geostrategic implications for the United States and create within it a Technology Directorate.

The authorisation for the new directorate would be US$100 billion over five years to reinvigorate American leadership in the discovery and application of key technologies that will define global competitiveness.

Connecting disadvantaged populations

An additional US$10 billion would be authorised over five years for the Department of Commerce to designate at least 10 regional technology hubs, awarding funds for comprehensive investment initiatives that position regions across the country to be global centres for the research, development and manufacturing of key technologies.

There would be a drive to connect disadvantaged populations and places to new job and business opportunities developing key technologies.

Peter McPherson, president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities which comprises 239 public research universities, land-grant institutions, state university systems, and affiliated organisations said: Public research universities applaud Senators Schumer and Young and Representatives Khanna and Gallagher for their work across the aisle to bolster US discovery and innovation.

The Endless Frontier Act, whose name is taken from a 1945 report that issued a clarion call for what would become the National Science Foundation, serves as a key step in driving US global scientific leadership in the 21st century.

Now more than ever, we need a national commitment to science and research on a grand level. Research and innovation can create new sectors of the global economy, drive economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and ultimately deliver long-term economic growth.

The Science Coalition, which represents more than 50 leading public and private research universities, issued a statement saying: In recent years, America has fallen behind its global counterparts in overall support and funding for fundamental scientific research, and this imbalance jeopardises our global economic competitiveness and our national security.

These lawmakers are right to prioritise funding for NSF and a new generation of cutting-edge research and technology. We commend their commitment to our researchers and STEM workforce pipeline that would chart a new course for American science and innovation.

According to the bill, the new directorate would fund research in the following areas:

Artificial intelligence and machine learning; High performance computing, semiconductors and advanced computer hardware; Quantum computing and information systems; Robotics, automation and advanced manufacturing; Natural or anthropogenic disaster prevention; Advanced communications technology; biotechnology, genomics and synthetic biology; Advanced energy technology; Cybersecurity, data storage and data management technologies; and Materials science, engineering and exploration relevant to the other focus areas.

The authorised activities would include:

Increases in research spending at universities, which can form consortia that include private industry, to advance US progress in key technology areas, including the creation of focused research centres.

New undergraduate scholarships, industry training programmes, graduate fellowships and traineeships and post-doctoral support in the targeted research areas to develop the US workforce.

The development of test-bed and fabrication facilities.

Programmes to facilitate and accelerate the transfer of new technologies from the lab to the marketplace, including expanding access to investment capital.

Planning and coordination with state and local economic development stakeholders and the private sector to build regional innovation ecosystems.

Increases in research spending for collaboration with US allies, partners and international organisations.

McPherson said the bill was needed to enable the US to compete with global rivals.

Federal investment in R&D has languished in recent decades. As a share of the economy, its a third of what it was at its peak. China, and other countries, meanwhile, have vastly expanded their investments in research and development, he said.

The current pandemic has underscored the critical need to redouble public investment in research and development. We must ensure more of these innovations and advancements take place in the US rather than elsewhere around the globe, he added.

This bill would not only advance US innovation, but also would help ensure the fruits of innovation are broadly shared. Investing in research across the country and in critical sectors such as quantum computing, biotechnology and robotics will help secure our place as home to the worlds most dynamic and advanced economy, McPherson said.

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Bipartisan push for US$100 billion investment in science - University World News

IIT Mumbai alumnus Rajiv Joshi, an IBM scientist, bags inventor of the year award – Livemint

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Indian-American inventor Rajiv Joshi has bagged the prestigious Inventor of the Year award in recognition of his pioneering work in advancing the electronic industry and improving artificial intelligence capabilities.

Dr Joshi has more than 250 patented inventions in the US and works at the IBM Thomson Watson Research Center in New York.

He was presented with the prestigious annual award by the New York Intellectual Property Law Association early this month during a virtual awards ceremony.

An IIT Mumbai alumnus, Joshi has an MS degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a PhD in mechanical/electrical engineering from Columbia University, New York.

His inventions span from novel interconnect structures and processes for more scaling, machine learning techniques for predictive failure analytics, high bandwidth, high performance and low power integrated circuits and memories and their usage in hardware accelerators, meant for artificial intelligence applications.

Many of these structures exist in processors, supercomputers, laptops, smartphones, handheld and variable gadgets and many other electronic items. His innovations have helped advance day-to-day life, global communication, health sciences and medical fields.

Necessity and curiosity inspire me," Dr Joshi told PTI in a recent interview, adding that the identification of a problem and providing out of the box solution as well as observe and think help him immensely to generate ideas.

Joshi claimed that stories about great, renowned inventors like Guglielmo Marconi, Madame Curie, Wright Brothers, James Watt, Alexander Bell, Thomas Edison inspired him.

In his acceptance speech, Dr Joshi said that cloud, artificial intelligence and quantum computing not only remain the buzzwords, but their utility, widespread usage is advancing with leaps and bounds.

All these areas are very exciting and I have been dabbling further in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and quantum computing," he said.

Quantum computing, which has offered tremendous opportunities, also faces challenges, he noted, adding that he is involved in advancing technology, improving memory structures and solutions and their usage in AI and contributing to quantum computing to advance the science. (With Agency Inputs)

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IIT Mumbai alumnus Rajiv Joshi, an IBM scientist, bags inventor of the year award - Livemint

What’s New in HPC Research: Astronomy, Weather, Security & More – HPCwire

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In this bimonthly feature,HPCwirehighlights newly published research in the high-performance computing community and related domains. From parallel programming to exascale to quantum computing, the details are here.

Developing the HPC system for the ASKAP telescope

The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope (itself a pilot project for the record-setting Square Kilometre Array planned for construction in the coming years) will enable highly sensitive radio astronomy that produces a tremendous amount of data. In this paper, researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) highlight how they are preparing a dedicated HPC platform, called ASKAPsoft, to handle the expected 5 PB/year of data produced by ASKAP.

Authors: Juan C. Guzman, Eric Bastholm, Wasim raja, Matthew Whiting, Daniel Mitchell, Stephen Ord and Max Voronkov.

Creating an open infrastructure for sharing and reusing HPC knowledge

In an expert field like HPC, institutional memory and information-sharing is crucial for maintaining and building on expertise but institutions often lack cohesive infrastructures to perpetuate that knowledge. These authors, a team from North Carolina State University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, introduce OpenK, an open, ontology-based infrastructure aimed at facilitating the accumulation, sharing and reuse of HPC knowledge.

Authors: Yue Zhao, Xipeng Shen and Chunhua Liao.

Using high-performance data analysis to facilitate HPC-powered astrophysics

High-performance data analysis (HPDA) is an emerging tool for scientific disciplines like bioscience, climate science and security and now, its being used to prepare astrophysics research for exascale. In this paper, written by a team from the Astronomical Observatory of Trieste, Italy, the authors discuss the ExaNeSt and EuroExa projects, which built a prototype of a low-power exascale facility for HPDA and astrophysics.

Authors: Giuliano Taffoni, David Goz, Luca Tornatore, Marco Frailis, Gianmarco Maggio and Fabio Pasian.

Using power analysis to identify HPC activity

Monitoring users on large computing platforms such as [HPC] and cloud computing systems, these authors a duo from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory write, is non-trivial. Users can (and have) abused access to HPC systems, they say, but process viewers and other monitoring tools can impose substantial overhead. To that end, they introduce a technique for identifying running programs with 97% accuracy using just the systems power consumption.

Authors: Bogdan Copos and Sein Peisert.

Building resilience and fault tolerance in HPC for numerical weather and climate prediction

In numerical weather and climate prediction (NWP), accuracy depends strongly on available computing power but the increasing number of cores in top systems is leading to a higher frequency of hardware and software failures for NWP simulations. This report (from researchers at eight different institutions) examines approaches for fault tolerance in numerical algorithms and system resilience in parallel simulations for those NWP tools.

Authors: Tommaso Benacchio, Luca Bonaventura, Mirco Altenbernd, Chris D. Cantwell, Peter D. Dben, Mike Gillard, Luc Giraud, Dominik Gddeke, Erwan Raffin, Keita Teranishi and Nils Wedi.

Pioneering the exascale era with astronomy

Another team this time, from SURF, a collaborative organization for Dutch research also investigated the intersection of astronomy and the exascale era. This paper, written by three researchers from SURF, highlights a new, OpenStack-based cloud infrastructure layer and Spider, a new addition to SURFs high-throughput data processing platform. The authors explore how these additions help to prepare the astronomical research community for the exascale era, in particular with regard to data-intensive experiments like the Square Kilometre Array.

Authors: J. B. R. Oonk, C. Schrijvers and Y. van den Berg.

Enabling EASEY deployment of containerized applications for future HPC systems

As the exascale era approaches, HPC systems are growing in complexity, improving performance but making the systems less accessible for new users. These authors a duo from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich propose a support framework for these future HPC architectures called EASEY (for Enable exAScale for EverYone) that can automatically deploy optimized container computations with negligible overhead[.]

Authors: Maximilian Hb and Dieter Kranzlmller.

Do you know about research that should be included in next months list? If so, send us an email at[emailprotected]. We look forward to hearing from you.

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What's New in HPC Research: Astronomy, Weather, Security & More - HPCwire

Is the ‘endless frontier’ at an end? | TheHill – The Hill

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The COVID-19 pandemic is intensifying U.S. concerns about Chinas technological strength. Unfortunately, much of the resulting policy debate has centered on ways to limit Chinas capacities when what we need most is a systematic approach to strengthening our own. In any race, success comes from training harder and running faster not from hoping that your challenger will trip. To guarantee our nations future economic health and national security, we need a comprehensive, forward-looking national strategy to keep the U.S. at the forefront of science and technology.

Fortunately, a bipartisan bill has emerged that offers the blueprint the moment demands. Introduced by Sens. Chuck SchumerCharles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerJudd Gregg: Biden a path to the presidency, or not Montana barrels toward blockbuster Senate fight Federal judges should be allowed to be Federalist Society members MORE (D-N.Y.) and Todd YoungTodd Christopher YoungHillicon Valley: House FISA bill in jeopardy | Democrats drop controversial surveillance measure | GOP working on legislation to strip Twitter of federal liability protections GOP senators urge Trump not to restrict guest worker visas Lawmakers introduce bill to invest 0 billion in science, tech research MORE (R-Ind.) and Reps. Ro KhannaRohit (Ro) KhannaHillicon Valley: Twitter flags Trump tweet for 'glorifying violence' | Cruz calls for criminal investigation into Twitter over alleged sanctions violations | Senators urge FTC to investigate TikTok child privacy issues Khanna calls for internet 'fairness doctrine' in response to controversial Trump tweets Khanna: Coronavirus has 'accelerated' the need for rural broadband MORE (D-Calif.) and Mike GallagherMichael (Mike) John GallagherRep. Banks launches bid for RSC chairman Hillicon Valley: House FISA bill in jeopardy | Democrats drop controversial surveillance measure | GOP working on legislation to strip Twitter of federal liability protections Lawmakers introduce bill to invest 0 billion in science, tech research MORE (R-Wis.), the Endless Frontier Act would provide a visible, focused and sustained commitment to U.S. research, education and technology transfer, as well as to economic development precisely the combination of remedies that will secure the nations future.

The bill recognizes that since World War II, federal research funding has been a central contributor to U.S. economic dominance. Its no accident that sectors like aircraft and information technology that have benefited most from decades of federal research support have been the leading U.S. exporters and emblems of U.S. leadership. The legislation would authorize $100 billion in new funding over five years for research and related activities.

But the bill also reflects the fact that, to counter Chinas very different model for economic growth, we not only need to invest more in science and technology now, we also need to invest differently than in the past. We simply must move more effectively from scientific success to market impact. With that in mind, the bill would establish a new technology directorate at the National Science Foundation that would fund fundamental research with an eye toward advancing 10 pivotal technologies, including artificial intelligence and quantum computing. To complement this research, the bill also calls for supporting more students pursuing undergraduate and advanced studies in relevant fields and for developing new ways to move ideas more effectively from lab to market, including by creating test beds for new developments.

The aim of the new directorate is to support fundamental scientific research with specific goals in mind. This is not about solving incremental technical problems. As one example, in artificial intelligence, the focus would not be on further refining current algorithms, but rather on developing profoundly new approaches that would enable machines to learn using much smaller data sets a fundamental advance that would eliminate the need to access immense data sets, an area where China holds an immense advantage. Success in this work would have a double benefit: seeding economic benefits for the U.S. while reducing the pressure to weaken privacy and civil liberties in pursuit of more training data.

Supporting fundamental research with an eye to real-world challenges is the kind of thinking that drove the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop what became the internet. Such use-inspired basic research, funded by NSF a trusted and experienced civilian agency that understands research and researchers is whats needed to retain U.S. leadership in both science and technology, to keep us prosperous and secure.

The bill would also encourage universities to experiment with new ways to help accelerate the process of bringing innovative ideas to the marketplace, either via established companies or startups. At MIT we started The Engine, an independent entity that provides private-sector funding, work space and technical assistance to start-ups that are developing technologies with enormous potential but that require more extensive technical development than typical VCs will fund, from fusion energy to a fast, inexpensive test for COVID-19. Other models may suit other institutions but the nation needs to encourage many more such efforts, across the country, to reap the full benefits of our federal investment in science.

Some may worry that this new approach could impair NSFs vital mission, but I believe it is a natural complement, in keeping with the agencys impressive record of adapting to the nations needs. The U.S. has the top universities in the world because we have combined the best strategies of the past with the flexibility to respond to new challenges; this legislation is designed to protect and maintain support for curiosity-driven basic research across scientific fields the mainstay of NSFs work that serves the nation so well even as it furthers NSFs mission and gives it additional tools.

Nations, like individuals, do not succeed by sitting still and hoping that others will fail. Success comes to those that build on their own strengths, learning from what has worked in the past but not being constrained by it.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the report that launched the postwar U.S. research enterprise, Science: The Endless Frontier. That enterprise has helped give Americans decades of unparalleled prosperity, a rising quality of life and military confidence. The Endless Frontier Act would enable us to capitalize on what has worked and retool it for todays world, with its new challenges and challengers.

Dr. L. Rafael Reif is president of MIT.

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Is the 'endless frontier' at an end? | TheHill - The Hill

Ethnicity, eugenics, and the SAT the way forward – Christian Post

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By Richard D. Land, Christian Post Executive Editor | Friday, May 29, 2020 (Photo: The Christian Post/Katherine T. Phan)

Editor's Note: This op-ed will substitute for the weekly "Ask Dr. Land" column this week.

Last week the University of California systems trustee board, which provides oversight to some of the USAs very best colleges (UC Berkeley, UCLA, Caltech, etc.) voted to completely phase out using the famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) completely in its admissions process by 2025. Why? The board said that the SAT was very unfair to ethnic minorities. They made this decision to abandon the SAT in spite of the fact that their own task force found that SAT scores were a better indicator of college success than high school grade point averages and that the standardized tests actually give a leg up to black, Latino, and low income students.

This real ambiguity expressed by the University of California system reflects the fact that there is actually not an open and shut case either for or against the SAT. For example, The New York Timesop-ed, "Will the Coronavirus Kill College Admissions Tests?" and the Los Angeles Times' "Editorial:Despite complaints about bias, the University of California shouldnt dump the SAT and ACT".

At this point, in the interest of full transparency, I need to disclose my own somewhat ambivalent relationship with the SAT. The SAT is a flawed barometer of human intelligence. It measures a particular kind of linear, left-brained intelligence, one that is particularly valued by graduate and professional schools that grant MDs, MBAs, and PhDs. However, whenever I acknowledge that fact, I feel like a terrible ingrate because the SAT has been very, very good to me. When in 1964, as the son of a blue collar family in a largely working class and lower middle class high school, I scored an almost perfect score on the verbal half of the test, and ranked among the top percentiles over all, and it literally change the course of my life. My SAT performance enabled me to attend Princeton University on a full academic scholarship. I have no illusions that I would have ever been admitted to Princeton without my SAT scores, despite the fact that I was in the top 3% of my graduating class, graduating summa sum laude and was named Outstanding Senior Boy.

When I enrolled at Princeton in September 1965, I was part of the first class in the universitys history to have more public than private school students. Freshman year the preppies did better academically than we proles as we called ourselves (i.e., proletariat). They had been better educated in their elite prep schools than we had been, and just as importantly, they were used to being away from home while many of us suffered from excruciating home-sickness, at least until our first Christmas.

We public school boys also had to cope with the psychological adjustment referred to by President Goheen in our first assembly as a class in the first week on campus. The president looked us over and said, Boys, most of you are used to being the smartest boy in class. Here you are just one of the boys! (Princeton did not go coed until the year after we graduated in 1969.)

After our freshman year, however, we generally did better academically than our prep school classmates. And, we had to score higher on the SAT in order to get in because our high school academic class standing meant less to the admissions committee than the preppies diploma from elite boarding schools did.

Now, having paid due homage to the SATs role in my life, I can now reiterate the fact that the SAT is a flawed evaluative tool. The question is how flawed is it, and should it be abandoned unless we have something more useful and objective to replace it?

The SAT does have rank racism and elitism in its family tree. The SATs founder, a young Princeton psychology professor named Carl Brigham, who developed the SAT in the 1920s, was an avid eugenicist who, along with significant numbers of fellow eugenicists, believed in the intellectual superiority of the Nordic race (Endiya Griffan, Teen Vogues).

Sadly, eugenics was very popular in America in the 1920s and 1930s. Eugenics was the so-called science of seeking to improve the human race through selective breeding. Eugenics was largely invented and popularized by Francis Galton (1822-1911), the English statistician, anthropologist, and proto-geneticist. He was deeply influenced by his cousin Charles Darwins On the Origin of the Species (1859), and this led to the publication of Galtons Hereditary Genius in 1869.

Eugenics was the Frankenstein monster offspring of Darwins theory of evolutionary origins being mated with Galtons racially-tinged genetics. In their outrageous hubris, they thought they could selectively breed bigger and better human beings the way you would breed animals, and the definition of bigger and better were contaminated by racism and by their faulty and sinful definition and understanding of these terms. (More about this hugely popular and influential de-humanizing movement and its current scientific manifestations next week.)

Certainly the SAT has for many years done its best to eliminate the overt racism in which it was birthed. However, its critics assert that the SAT is still racially and economically discriminating in effect, if no longer in intent.

The proof, the SATs critics say, is shown by the SATs ethnic disparity in testing outcomes. For example, in 2019, for the percentages of test-takers who scored at least 1200 (out of a possible 1600 and a score that would get you into many competitive colleges just below the Ivy League level), the results were as follows: Asian American (55%), Caucasian Americans (45%), Hispanic Americans (12%), and Blacks (9%).

However, the question must be asked, do those scores reflect bias in the SATs testing procedures, or is it more a reflection of existing socio-economic conditions among the various ethnic groups in current American society? It does, for instance, almost perfectly reflect the current percentage of stable family formation of these various comparative ethnic groups. Could it be the SATs results, rather than revealing bias, instead unmask the catastrophic impact of fatherlessness and divorce on the current generation of high school students? (And it is impossible to separate fatherlessness from significantly worse economic circumstances, which impacts the quality of the public schools students attend. Eliminating the SAT will not ameliorate those negative social forces and the impact they have on the education of our nations children.

If you assume, as I do, that the human race is one race (Eve is the mother of living) and that genius and academic prowess are evenly distributed by our Heavenly Father among the various human ethnic groups, then the measurable differences in academic prowess are functions of socio-economic factors, and the SAT helps to distillate them out for examination and remediation.

As I said earlier, I attended a large (3,600 students), urban, public high school in a working and lower middle class neighborhoods of Houston, Texas. I was given an education in that public school (and the elementary and junior high school that preceded it) which allowed me to compete successfully for a full academic scholarship to Princeton and prepared me to make the Deans List my sophomore, junior, and senior years and to graduate magna cum laude.

When I attended my 50th high school reunion in 2015, at least a couple dozen of us were talking about how fortunate we were to go to high school back then. Goodness knows, none of us grew up in affluence. The vast majority of us were disproportionately oldest children since our dads came home from WWII in 1945 and 1946, and we were the first children of the historic baby boom. Most of our dads went to work with their names on their shirts and showered when they got home from work like my dad the welder did. However, none of us grew up in a broken home. Our parents worked hard, stayed married, and held high aspirations for their children to study hard and go to college (and about 85% of us did). I do not believe you can overestimate how that home environment impacted each member of the class of 1965 in terms of positive academic performance. It sounds like a lost world, doesnt it?

Yet, it doesnt have to be. I am not nave enough to believe that all of our parents had happy and fulfilling marriages. However, they had made promises and commitments, and they focused on fulfilling their responsibilities and keeping their commitments rather than giving priority to their desires and wishes. God bless them. We, the children, benefited greatly from their commitments and personal sacrifices.

I personally believe that the two greatest tragedies in current American civilization today are first, the millions of babies we throw away every year through abortions. God had a plan and a productive purpose for every one of these precious future fellow citizens. Second, is the millions of young people, disproportionately brown and black, who are being systematically under-educated by our nations school systems K-12 and as a consequence, their vast human potential is being wasted, underdeveloped thrown away.

If we truly want to address and seek to eliminate inequities in our nations educational system, focusing on eliminating the SAT is focusing on the wrong end of the problem. Yes, try to find ways to improve the SAT and other evaluative tests. But if we really want to address the problem, we need to focus on K-5 education and the social and familial breakdowns that are so ravaging to our nations children and their future prospects.

I admit its a lot easier to just banish and exile a messenger like the SAT, but if we truly want to rescue millions of our children who are failing through no fault of their own, we must address the systemic inequalities in our society which are grievously exacerbated by the social and familial breakdown we have witnessed at all levels of American society since the 1960s.

Let us be about our Heavenly Fathers business and seek to rescue the little ones the innocent who have been victimized by what amounts to collective societal child abuse expressed through abortion, illegitimacy, divorce, and epidemic fatherlessness.

Dr. Richard Land, BA (magna cum laude), Princeton; D.Phil. Oxford; and Th.M., New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, was president of the Southern Baptists Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) and has served since 2013 as president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, NC. Dr. Land has been teaching, writing, and speaking on moral and ethical issues for the last half century in addition to pastoring several churches.

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Ethnicity, eugenics, and the SAT the way forward - Christian Post

‘One is the subject of one’s genes’: Clip of Cummings’s father-in-law goes viral – The National

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A CLIP of Dominic Cummingss father-in-law discussing the quality of peoples genes has been shared widely online.

The video, which was part of a 2012 documentary programme called The Guest Wing, shows the baronet saying one is the subject of one's genes.

Cummings, the Prime Ministers top adviser currently facing calls to resign over a 260-mile lockdown trip to Durham while sick with Covid-19, hired someone earlier this year who promptly resigned amid a row over race and eugenics.

READ MORE:Ridiculous quote from Dominic Cummings' father-in-law article goes viral

Super forecaster Andrew Sabisky was found to have advocated enforced contraception to stop teenage pregnancies and claimed giving children mental performance-enhancing drugs is worth a dead kid once a year.

He had also preached that black people are less intelligent than whites.

Now a clip of Humphry Wakefield, who owns Chillingworth Castle, has been retweeted thousands of times.

In the footage, he says: The quality is everything. In general, to be elitist, I think the quality climbs up the tree of life. And therefore in general high things in the tree of life have quality, have skills, they get wonderful degrees at university, and if they marry each other that gets even better.

Hes then asked by a guest at his wine tasting event: So you wouldnt have minded if one of your children had met someone from a lower socio-economic group who was intelligent and talented?

Wakefield replies: Intelligent and talented is lovely but I want parents and grandparents whove had hands-on success running their battles well and proving theyre wonderful. Because one is the subject of ones genes. And I like the idea of them being successful genes and winning through to successful puppies.

The guest challenges Wakefield, telling him: Some things havent been in genes though have they. There have been some outstanding people and geniuses who have been first-generation, the first of their family.

He replies: No there arent. There are very few first-generation geniuses.

Sam Knight, who originally unearthed the video, said: This is incredibly disturbing footage.

Sir Humphry Wakefield stands in his crypt, sipping red wine and discussing genetics.

The video appeared online after it emerged Cummingss father-in-law had named his horse Barack because it was half black and half white.

Byline Times editor Peter Jukes rejected claims that the baronets comments were not in the public interest. He said: This, and his father-in-law's interest in genetic determinism has been made a matter of acute public interest because the Cummings' have tried to use their personal life (see Speccie piece before current furore) to defend their public positions.

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'One is the subject of one's genes': Clip of Cummings's father-in-law goes viral - The National

Our Mission at St. Thomas Law Compels us to Tackle the Justice Gap – University of St. Thomas Newsroom

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As I write this, we are several weeks into a pandemic-required transformation into a fully online law school. I am grateful for the technology that permits us to stay connected, but I miss the daily face-to-face interactions with students and colleagues. When I reflect on the magazines theme for this issue the justice gap I think back fondly to the hustle and bustle of a full atrium on the first day of orientation.

During orientation week at St. Thomas, the first case our students read is Buck v. Bell, the Supreme Courts 1927 ruling in which Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes proclaimed that three generations of imbeciles are enough in upholding forced sterilizations against women deemed mentally deficient. While students are alarmed by the state laws in force at the time the product of the eugenics movement they are also troubled to learn that the states evidence of three generations of imbeciles was flimsy at best, and readily available positive evidence of Carrie Bucks intelligence was never even presented to the courts. Indeed, no evidence was introduced on Bucks behalf, as her conflicted attorney made no meaningful attempt to advocate for her.

Buck v. Bell is a jarring example of the injustices that result when our legal system does not give a voice to those whose lives depend on it. Unfortunately, the voiceless are very much with us today. The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) reports that 86% of the civil legal problems experienced by low-income Americans receive inadequate or no legal help. According to the World Justice Projects survey data, the United States ranks dead last (36th out of 36) among high-income countries on the question of whether people can access and afford civil justice.

As a Catholic law school, what is our responsibility? Pope Francis has urged all of us to recognize our duty to hear the voice of the poor. As lawyers, we not only have the duty to hear the poor, we have the power to lift the voices of the poor, to ensure that they are heard by the legal systems decision-makers.

This recognition must shape who we are as a law school community, and who we aspire to be. In choosing Buck v. Bell as the first case our students read, we hope that they are jolted by injustice. But thats only the starting point on a career-long journey. We hope that our students and alumni will always view St. Thomas Law as a community that helped motivate and equip them to confront and challenge injustice. This issue of St. Thomas Lawyer explains how were working every day to make that hope a reality.

If you have ideas for how we can improve in this effort, please contact me at rkvischer@stthomas.edu or (651) 962-4838.

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Our Mission at St. Thomas Law Compels us to Tackle the Justice Gap - University of St. Thomas Newsroom

The Readers’ Forum: Monday’s letters | Letters To The Editor – Winston-Salem Journal

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Today, June 1, marks the 70th anniversary of a daring speech made on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Maine Republican Margaret Chase Smith, at a time when others avoided speaking out for fear of having their careers destroyed:

I speak as a Republican. I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. ... Surely it is clear that this nation will continue to suffer as long as it is governed by the present ineffective Democratic administration (the Truman administration).

Yet to displace it with a Republican regime embracing a philosophy that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to this nation. The nation sorely needs a Republican victory. But I dont want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny: Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear.

Recently, the question has been asked if the state of North Carolinas phasing in of safe protocols for its citizens might be fast enough for Trump and the Republicans to hold their National Convention in Charlotte in August.

That is, will the COVID-19 phased guidelines of North Carolina Gov. Roy Coopers reopening plan be at the stage where the anticipated 50,000 Republican attendees will be allowed to gather in Charlottes NBA arena?

As a liberal Democrat, this writer dislikes seeing the name of North Carolina associated with anything of a Republican nature at such a national level. But thats just me.

However, its my nature to provide a solution when I bring up a problem, so here you go:

Move the Republican Convention to Russia.

Vladimir Putin could easily find a willing facility in Moscow to host the Republicans. And, instead of hiding his illegal support for Trump as was done in 2016, Putin could do it out in the open. And, instead of working through intermediaries to help write the Republican platform, Putin could be hands-on. And, the biggest benefit of all, would be that Trump and Putin could have their behind-the-curtain meetings at morning, noon and night.

While visiting the Ypsilanti, Mich., Ford plant on May 21, President Trump said, The company founded by a man named Henry Ford. Good blood lines, good blood lines. If you believe in that stuff, youve got good blood.

Thats actually what Ford would have said about himself; he was an anti-Semite and one of Americas staunchest proponents of eugenics.

During World War II, Fords company produced vehicles for the Nazi regime.

This is nothing esoteric; its pretty common knowledge.

Its hard to know what excuse would be more disturbing: That Trump had no clue what he was talking about because hes just that ignorant, or that Trump knew exactly what he was saying. We shouldnt have to hope our president is just too dumb to understand the words coming out of his mouth. And given his history of racist statements, its not like he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

The fact that Trump has a Jewish daughter and son-in-law which some people have used in his defense is irrelevant, the same way its irrelevant when a racist white person claims to have black friends.

Please, please, vote for Joe Biden in November. Its so embarrassing to our whole country to have Trump in the White House.

Please submit letters online, with full name, address and telephone number, to Letters@wsjournal.com or mail letters to: The Readers Forum, 418 N. Marshall St., Winston-Salem, NC 27101. Letters are subject to editing and are limited to 250 words. For more guidelines and advice on writing letters, go to journalnow.com/site/forms/online_services/letter/

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The Readers' Forum: Monday's letters | Letters To The Editor - Winston-Salem Journal

BILL COTTERELL | How to assess candidates gaffes – St. Augustine Record

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We can all agree that Joe Biden made a horrifying error probably his worst, hardly his first when he said any black voters who are undecided between himself and President Trump aint black.

The former vice president and soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee quickly apologized. Biden said he didnt mean to take black votes for granted or suggest anyones political choices should be dictated by their ethnicity.

Major figures in his own party, black and white, rallied around him. The Trump campaign turned the gaffe to its advantage, accusing Biden and the Democrats of racism.

U.S. Rep. Val Demings of Orlando, one of the black women among Bidens vice-presidential prospects, expressed surprise at the nerve and gall of Trump whipping out the ol race card on anyone. Theres a cliche in politics about being called ugly by a toad.

But as the campaign heats up in the summer, it would be good to consider what we call a gaffe as part of the political landscape. The media have to report them, although Trump will claim his two-fisted style is purposely twisted to sound offensive while the media downplay Biden blunders.

Whether in a presidential race or a little city commission contest, we ought to consider the source. Did the speaker make an unfortunate slip, an oafish attempt at humor, or to be casual and down-home with an audience? Or does an offensive remark fit well with a lifetime of insensitivity, political cynicism, or racial, sexist or religious bigotry.

When George Wallace promised segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever in 1963, it wasnt a gaffe. It was how he ran his campaign and wanted to govern. When Spiro Agnew showed his boorish insensitivity in 1968, he was showing who he really was.

But when Jimmy Carter used the term ethnic purity in 1976, he wasnt making some coded appeal to eugenics, he just made a really bad choice of words. In a debate that year, President Ford said there was no soviet domination of Eastern Europe; he meant to say the people of Poland dont accept Kremlin control, but in an instant a president put himself on the level of a former Georgia governor in foreign affairs.

Sometimes, a word choice thats not offensive that wouldnt mean anything for some other candidate might bite a candidate like Biden. During debates last year, he referred to parents honing childrens learning by, among other things, turning on the record player at home.

Record player? Harmless in itself, his word choice re-enforced questions that maybe the 77-year-old candidate is living in an episode of Happy Days.

More important for Biden, he referred to then-Sen. Barack Obama as clean and articulate in 2008. Thats not cool, but a review of Bidens 50-year record on social justice earns him some indulgence.

Thats what we should look at when candidates misspeak -- what theyve stood for throughout their careers. On the campaign trail, speaking casually or doing interviews, candidates cant gaffe things up too badly they just use a simple three-step process for deciding whether to say something flippant about race:

1.Consider how supporters will react.

2.Consider how opponents will react.

3.Then dont.

Bill Cotterell is a retired Tallahassee Democrat capitol reporter.

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BILL COTTERELL | How to assess candidates gaffes - St. Augustine Record

How Is Jeffrey Epstein Still So Elusive? – The Atlantic

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Filthy Rich is the first of a wave of Epstein works headed for television. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter, is writing a book thats simultaneously being adapted into an HBO series; Lifetime and Sony also have Epstein shows in progress. Based in part on a 2017 book about Epstein co-written by the crime novelist James Patterson, and directed by Lisa Bryant, Filthy Rich is notable mostly because its airing on Netflix, which virtually assures it the kind of mass audience and exposure that might shake more information loose; on Thursday, it was No. 1 on Netflixs most-watched list in the United States. Over four episodes, theres almost nothing in the way of fresh information, other than a new eyewitness account implicating Prince Andrew, again, in sexual misbehavior facilitated by Epstein and his then-partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. (Prince Andrew has repeatedly denied Virginia Roberts Giuffres allegations that she was coerced into having sex with him when she was 17.) Instead, the documentary focuses on the women who say they survived abuse at Epsteins hands. Again and again, these women describe being lured into Epsteins circle and subjected to sexual assaults, some as adults, and some while they were still in middle school.

Theres indisputable value in giving voice to people who were rendered voiceless for most of their adult lives, and in letting them explain how the systems that were supposed to protect them repeatedly failed. But Filthy Rich also suffers from a lack of clarity, hovering over its primary subject rather than targeting its punches. The series is eminently watchable, and enraging. But it comes no closer to unraveling Epstein than any previous reportorial attempts have managed. This matters not because Epstein himself is so worthy of forensic analysis, but because so many figures in his circle continue to evade attention. The monsters are still out there, and theyre still abusing other people, Roberts Giuffre, one of Epsteins accusers, tells the camera at the end of the final episode. Why they have not been named or shamed yet is beyond me. Why indeed? And why not here, in a show that seems capable of doing so?

Presumably, the ongoing reason for tiptoeing around Epsteins co-conspirators is the same one that protected him for much of his life, which is the lopsided legal sway that the rich and powerful can claim over the unprivileged, and even over documentarians making series for massive entertainment platforms. Of all the allegations resurfaced by Filthy Rich, one I cant stop thinking about is how Florida prosecutors (led by the future secretary of labor Alex Acosta) responded when asked why theyd cut Epstein such a bafflingly generous deal. The sheer might of Epsteins army of legal superstars, Acosta implied in a 2011 letter defending the deal, was unconquerable. Epstein had amassed such influential lawyers, who were so intent on digging into their opponents, that any deal at all should be interpreted as a win. In other words, justice has no chance when its pitted against the unscrupulous force of big-name criminal defense attorneys.

Variations of this equation seemed to protect Epstein for much of his life, Filthy Rich suggests. Surround yourself with powerful enough people and make life difficult enough for anyone who threatens you, and you can insulate yourself from any consequences. The second episode dips into Epsteins origins in Coney Islandhow he briefly attended Cooper Union without graduating and, while teaching at the Dalton School, charmed his way into a job at Bear Stearns. By the time it was discovered that Epstein had lied on his rsum, he was dating his bosss daughter. Later, he went to work for Towers Financial Corporation, whose former CEO, Steven Hoffenberg, pops up in a comically honest interview. Epstein definitely appealed to us, Hoffenberg says, because we were running a Ponzi scheme and he could deliver results in this criminal enterprise. Epstein became Hoffenbergs literal partner in malfeasance, doing the crimes alongside me daily.

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How Is Jeffrey Epstein Still So Elusive? - The Atlantic

‘They Have to Reinvent Her’: Margaret Sanger’s Fans Work to Clean Up Her Racist Past – CBN News

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As the founder of the American Birth Control League which later became Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger was no doubt a controversial figure with disturbing views on eugenics, race, and population control.

Some argue she wanted to exterminate the black race, while others are trying to erase that part of her past.

"In the eyes of some, Margaret Sanger has been a heroine," news anchor Mike Wallace said in a 1969 interview with Sanger. "In the eyes of others, she's been a destructive force."

In her own words, Sanger strived for a society that limited births to those she deemed fit to have children.

"I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being practical; delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things, just marked when they're born," Sanger told Wallace.

In 1916 Sanger opened the country's first birth-control clinic. And as a member of the American Eugenics Society, she advocated improving the 'genetic composition of humans through controlled reproduction of different races and classes.'

She often wrote about the issue in the journal she founded called The Birth Control Review.

Margaret Sanger's Beliefs About Race and Eugenics Exposed

In 1919 in an article called "Birth Control and Racial Betterment," she wrote, "I personally believe in the sterilization of the feeble-minded, the insane, and the syphilitic."

And in 1921 in a piece called, "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda," she said, "The most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective."

Many point to a 1923 New York Times interview as proof of Sanger's racist and eugenic motives, in which she referred to some groups of people as "human weeds."

"Birth Control is not contraception indiscriminately and thoughtlessly practiced," she said in the article. "It means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination, and eventual extirpation [destruction]of defective stocks - those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization."

Hayden Ludwig, an investigative researcher for the Capital Research Center, has extensively studied Sanger's life and writings.

"She talked about the need for race betterment through controlling these weeds, basically undesirable people," Ludwig told CBN News.

Singing Sanger's Praise While Ignoring Her History

In 1939, after opening another clinic in Harlem, the birth control activist launched the Negro Project, an initiative supported by black leaders such as civil rights activist W.E.B Dubois.

Critics claim the program used the pretense of better health and family planning for poor blacks in the South as an attempt to limit the black race.

Ludwig says some on the left grapple with Sanger's past and how to interpret her legacy.

"They know when she writes about weeds, they know it's repulsive," explained Ludwig. "They know it's disgusting. "The left will never abandon Margaret Sanger because she's the foundation of so many of their views," he continued.

Sanger once shared her vision for a preferred race at a women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan, writing in page 366 of her autobiography, "Always, to me, any aroused group was a good group."

Despite those views, liberals praise Sanger's work while ignoring her history.

Hillary Clinton: "I Am Really in Awe of Her"

In 2009, Hillary Clinton received Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger award. During an acceptance speech, she praised the group's founder.

"I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision," said Clinton. "I am really in awe of her," she continued.

Ryan Bomberger, the founder of the pro-life group Radiance Foundation, says abortion proponents are working to clean up Sanger's past and what she stood for.

"They have to reinvent her every time they talk about her in order to justify their celebration of her," explained Bomberger.

Abortion Industry Insiders "Trained" to Overlook Sanger's Racist Views

Former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson said those inside the abortion industry are trained to overlook Sanger's racist views.

"They gave you an answer like, 'Well, I mean yes Margaret Sanger was a racist but everybody was a racist back then.' "You accept it because she is your hero and she has to be your hero and you cannot question Planned Parenthood," said Johnson.

In 1997 Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute wrote about the push to repackage Margaret Sanger in an article in the Wall Street Journal.

"The reason I call it the repackaging of Margaret Sanger is because after the Nazi regime destroyed the legitimacy of eugenics forever, they then went back and said, 'Oh she was just an early feminist. She was just an early supporter of family planning,'" said Mosher.

He went on to say, "No, she wasn't. No, she was a supporter of giving IQ tests to people. She was in favor of using those IQ tests to determine who should be sterilized and who should have children."

In a response, titled "The Demonization of Margaret Sanger," Alexander Sanger, her grandson and president of Planned Parenthood at the time, called Mosher's editorial unfair. In the same piece, Esther Katz, director of NYU's Margaret Sanger Papers Project, claimed evidence revealing, "...Sanger did not rationalize her support for birth control on racist grounds, that she never advocated genocidal policies aimed at racial, ethnic or religious groups, and that she, in fact, believed access to birth control would benefit, not eliminate minority populations."

Dr. Katz turned down our request for an interview, writing, "Our goal hasalways been to offer complete, accurate, and accessible access to the full body of her writings I believe her words and deeds, accurately represented, speak for themselves."

In 1942, Margaret Sanger's American Birth Control League became Planned Parenthood, which has moved to fulfill its founder's goals, helped greatly by the US Supreme Court decision in Roe versus Wade.

"Under the veil of deceit and deception, 60 plus million babies have not been born because they were aborted legally since '73," said Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "One-third of that population belonged to the African American community."

It is a frightening and telling number given that blacks make up only 13 percent of the US population.

Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center says that Sanger's true mission remains alive and well throughout today's abortion industry.

"Just look at the maps, see where the abortion facilities are, they are near places where people are marginalized, people are poor, people are a minority and that's their target market," said Gainor.

Because of allies in the media and academia, Gainor also points out how speech from conservatives and others about Sanger's past, Planned Parenthood practices, and abortion is often classified as hate speech.

He said, "There is nothing as close to a sacrament in the media as abortion. It is a holy writ that abortion is protected. And anybody who comes out against it, any organization, any business, anybody, the media swarm."

And so does social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

"Facebook's new oversight board and this is really concerning, has four co-chairs," explained Gainor. "They're going to be the appeals board for content. One of the four oversight boards is on the board of a pro-abortion group. There are no pro-lifers."

Conservatives say it's also a problem that exists on college campuses across the country.

"I remember at Harvard, they laughed when I was talking about the history of eugenics and they said that doesn't matter," said Bomberger. "Planned Parenthood is not like it was in Margaret Sanger days."

Those who oppose her views say that is not true and are committed to exposing her past for future generations.

"Unfortunately, they've been very effective in recasting who Margaret Sanger is. But we keep on speaking the truth. That's why we're a thorn in their side," said Bomberger.

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'They Have to Reinvent Her': Margaret Sanger's Fans Work to Clean Up Her Racist Past - CBN News

New in Paperback: Sabrina & Corina and Save Me the Plums – The New York Times

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SABRINA & CORINA: Stories, by Kali Fajardo-Anstine. (One World, 240 pp., $17.) The distinctive Latinx voice and vision of this debut collection, a finalist for the National Book Award, emanates from both the authors Philippine roots and the Indigenous cultures of the American West, where she was born. In its fierce and essential stories, our reviewer, May-Lan Tan, observed, history always resurfaces, and the landscape mirrors the cycles at play in the characters lives.

THE PORPOISE, by Mark Haddon. (Vintage, 320 pp., $16.95.) In this provocative novel, Haddon revisits the part of Shakespeares Pericles likely not penned by Shakespeare to grant a princess and her abusers poetic justice. In the words of our reviewer, Sarah Lyall, Haddons writing is beautiful, almost hallucinatory at times.

SAVE ME THE PLUMS: My Gourmet Memoir, by Ruth Reichl. (Random House, 304 pp., $18.) Juicier than a porterhouse steak is how our reviewer, Kate Betts, described the former New York Times restaurant critics poignant and hilarious look back at the 10 years when she was editor in chief of Gourmet magazine.

THE IMPEACHERS: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation, by Brenda Wineapple. (Random House, 592 pp., $20.) Our critic Jennifer Szalai called this analysis of the first impeachment of an American president incisive and illuminating. Wineapple concludes that the process worked, by demonstrating that Johnson was not a king, that actions have consequences and that our government, with its checks and balances, could maintain itself without waging war.

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New in Paperback: Sabrina & Corina and Save Me the Plums - The New York Times

Seeking Information on Individuals Inciting Violence During First Amendment-Protected Peaceful Demonstrations | Federal Bureau of Investigation -…

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The FBI respects the rights of individuals to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights. Our mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution is dual and simultaneous, not contradictory.Accordingly, we are committed to apprehending and charging violent instigators who are exploiting legitimate, peaceful protests and engaging in violations of federal law. The continued violence, potential threat to life, and destruction of property across the United States interferes with the rights and safety of First Amendment-protected peaceful demonstrators, as well as all other citizens.To help us identify actors who are actively instigating violence in the wake of Mr. George Floyds death, the FBI is accepting tips and digital media depicting violent encounters surrounding the civil unrest that is happening throughout the country.If you witness or have witnessed unlawful violent actions, we urge you to submit any information, photos, or videos that could be relevant to the case at fbi.gov/violence.You may also call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) to verbally report tips and/or information related to this investigation.

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Seeking Information on Individuals Inciting Violence During First Amendment-Protected Peaceful Demonstrations | Federal Bureau of Investigation -...

First Amendment RightsIf You Agree With the President – The Atlantic

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Like the president, state legislators who advance these bills arent doing so out of any genuine concern for protecting speech or public safety, as they sometimes claim. In fact, our analysis finds that legislators often explicitly introduce proposals to limit the rights of people whose positions they dislike. Thats not adherence to the First Amendment, which protects the rights of those we disagree withits adherence to self-interest. Specifically, we find a direct correlation between recent years astonishing rise in collective action, particularly by Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock activists, and a rise in attempts to delegitimize and criminalize those very demonstrations.

Lawrence Glickman: How white backlash controls American progress

From session to session and state to state, these bills look remarkably similar. Thats no coincidence. In January 2018, the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, published a model Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, which drew heavily from two Oklahoma anti-trespass bills, H.B. 1123 and H.B. 2128. This bill defined critical infrastructure to include oil pipelines and dramatically raised the penalties for trespass upon such property. Since then, more than 20 bills modeled on it have also passed. Activists are challenging one law in Louisiana that targets protests near gas and oil pipelines. House Bill 727 passed in 2018 and allows for felony charges of up to five years imprisonment for protesters. This, and bills like it, clearly aim to criminalize mass-protest actions such as those against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The similarities are also not coincidental because quite literally the same legislators keep trying the same tactics, even after courts swat away their misguided bills. These zombie bills refuse to die at the end of the legislative session, and keep returning to haunt our constitutional rights. Legislatorss doggedness is appalling: In South Dakota, a bill was rushed through the legislature and signed quickly into law last year, establishing a civil action to sue riot boosters, defined as anyone who directs, advises, encourages, or solicits others toward acts of force or violence. This left the door open for police to arrest people for encouraging violence through First Amendmentprotected expression, such as chanting common protest slogans like No justice, no peace or even leading trainings of prospective protesters about their rights. A federal court struck the law down as unconstitutional, but state legislators were quick to introduce a redrafted bill just months later, tweaked to extend the crime of trespass to critical-infrastructure facilities. That bill has already passed and been signed into law by the governor.

All told, 116 bills to limit protest rights have been introduced since 2015, and 15 states have passed some form of anti-protest proposal, some passing several. And already this legislative session, were tracking 16 similar bills that are working their way through state capitolsdespite the obviously more pressing public-health and public-policy concerns.

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First Amendment RightsIf You Agree With the President - The Atlantic

America’s First Amendment is what sets it apart from the rest of the western world we have a duty to protect it – Highlander Newspaper

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Neal Boortz, former attorney and popular radio host famously said, Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection. In the rest of the western world, speech is not protected. In Canada, comedian Mike Ward was fined $42,000 by the Human Rights Tribunal for telling a joke about young disabled singer, Jeremy Gabriel. In Scotland, stand up comedian and YouTuber Mark Meechan was brought to court and fined $800 by the British government for making a video of his pug doing a Nazi salute. Whether or not one sees the humor in this, by an American standard it is clearly ridiculous that any government would infringe upon a comedians free speech rights.

America has a long history of defending even the worst kinds of speech in our society. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which fights for the rights of immigrants, LGBTQ, reparations and reproductive rights, also fights to defend the greatest constitution ever written in the history of mankind, for it provides more civil liberties and freedoms for its people then any constitution ever has.

The ACLU defended the Nationalist Socialist Party of Americas (NSPA) right to march in 1977 in Skokie, Illinois. The Village of Skokie passed three city ordinances which would prevent any future political demonstration like this from ever happening. People could not wear military-style uniforms during demonstrations, the distribution of hate speech literature was prohibited and there was a required $350,000 insurance bond to hold a demonstration. The case was taken to the Supreme Court in National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie in which the ACLUs lawyers argued before the court that to prevent the NSPA from marching was a violation of the First Amendment.

The requirement of a $350,000 insurance bond is similar to todays battle on college campuses over exorbitant security costs on student clubs that want to bring incendiary speakers to campus. These student clubs, aided by groups similar to the ACLU like the FIRE Legal Network which focuses specifically on defending the First Amendment on college campuses, have argued that these security costs prevent clubs from bringing speakers to campus a clear violation of the right of the people peaceably to assemble.

Nevertheless, there are limits to the peoples right to free speech. In the 1969 Brandenburg v. Ohio decision the Supreme Court wrote, Speech aimed at sparking lawless action such as inciting a riot, true threats or words that incite violence. The problem with this is that those seeking to limit college campus free speech have used this case to justify shutting down speakers.

It should be obvious to anyone that the ruling applies to what the speaker says, not how people are offended by it. For example, if an incendiary speaker like Richard Dawkins, who has been denied a platform before by universities such as UC Berkeley, advocates for atheism and then encourages his audience members to go out and harm Christian students on campus, this would violate Brandenburg v. Ohio. Making a criticism of someones belief system or political ideology is not an advocation of violence. It was clearly not the intention of the Founding Fathers that the peoples right to freely assemble should be infringed upon or prohibited because a separate group threatens violence.

What is considered to be hate speech or a controversial idea is ultimately subjective. A Catholic student club might find sexually explicit images offensive while a person who advocates for sex-positivity might consider this to be an element of her free speech. Essentially, all people have strongly held beliefs and an identity which carries an ideology, and when those strongly held beliefs are criticized or challenged, they might very well be offended.

It is important that people do not just use their right to free speech, but they should also devise solutions to remedy violations. First and foremost, the equal time clause, Requires radio and television stations and cable systems which originate their own programming to treat legally qualified political candidates equally when it comes to selling or giving away air time, should be expanded not only to all forms of news media but also to college campuses.

Moreover, social networks should be considered public forums and subject to the First Amendment protections, meaning that companies like Facebook and Twitter cannot mitigate or shut down certain speakers while propagating others. As these social networks become an increasingly popular way in which Americans consume their news, they should be subject to the same equal time clauses as traditional news media companies.

Last but not least, public universities that consume tax dollars who deny any speakers a platform to speak should lose their public subsidies. The dollars of liberals, conservatives, libertarians and socialists, pay to support our public parks, public hospitals and even public universities. Therefore, its very usage is supposed to be available to everyone, because every American, of all ideological backgrounds, pays into the system to support these amenities that improve society.

The whole point of the First Amendment is to allow controversial speech. Words can be restricted when they incite violence or call one to action, but merely offensive words are not an incitement of violence. It was former U.S. Congressman Henry Hyde who said, Free Speech is meaningless unless we tolerate the speech that we hate. Free speech is not a privilege, its an unalienable right, and every new generation of Americans has to fight to preserve it, otherwise it will slowly be chipped away until it is completely eroded and we are left with nothing but rubble.

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Delegate abuses First Amendment Rights | Letters To The Editor – The Central Virginian

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Among the rights listed in the First Amendment are freedom of the press, freedom of speech and the freedom to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.

In a letter in the Jan. 16 edition of this newspaper, Dan Braswell admonished the paper for allowing a reader to exercise their First Amendment right to free speech. Braswell later endorsed Delegate John McGuire (R-56) for U.S. Congress.

In April, McGuire posted on his Facebook page that we the people must be heard, at the same time censoring comments from constituents disagreeing with his position. If you pay close attention, you can detect a high-pitched incessant whine about mistreatment from some voters.

What we have is an advocate for infringement of First Amendment rights, endorsing someone who practices infringement of these rights, for an elected position where those rights are especially crucial. Why treat constituents that way unless you have no intention of speaking on behalf of everyone? If his views and masculinity are so fragile that they cant stand up to honest criticism and questioning, whats the worth of those views and McGuire? There is no honest discourse when someone scurries away for fear of being offended.

Who does McGuire think of as we the people, while actively muzzling our voices? In that post he states, these folks here all reminded us this is the government of the people, by the people, for the people and our voices will be heard. But he still censors. For all the talk of honoring our Constitutional rights, he seems to have lost track of the First Amendment.

An interesting omission is an explanation for his comment, Blue Virginia posted a quote from me to try and bully me into silence. I wonder what that quote from him was and how something that McGuire himself said could be used to bully him. (Maybe there was some unappreciated sarcasm but it sounds like more whining while blocking comments.)

Both McGuire and Braswell tout the bona fides of Navy SEALs as qualification to represent the electorate, relying on some mystical, non-existent tough guy image. Its difficult to distinguish where McGuire stops complaining and tries to talk policy. If this SEAL is that sensitive and insecure, he doesnt even qualify to continue to act as delegate. There are enough people in Washington destroying the foundations of the Constitution; we should be removing them instead of sending reinforcement.

The experiences of McGuire and Braswell indicate that they prefer to deal with a submissive electorate. We should be asking: Why is it important for McGuire to prohibit expressing differences of opinion as provided in the First Amendment? Should we the people acquiesce to someone who not only doesnt bother to listen, but actively shuts down our voices?

We need to elect officials who will listen to all points of view without offense. We cant afford to be silent about McGuire trying to silence us.

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Delegate abuses First Amendment Rights | Letters To The Editor - The Central Virginian

Stand Up for the First Amendment – Flathead Beacon

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Opinion | LetterEveryone who wants to see our freedom of civil discourse continue must speak out

By Matt Regier // May 31, 2020

One of the elements at the heart of the First Amendment is a deep respect for the people. It is the public that has the great responsibility of listening to free speech and determining the validity of that speech. We were entrusted by the framers of our nation to have the discernment to judge for ourselves. That is why I was very concerned to read the Flathead Beacon article, Pressure Intensifies on County to Remove Health Board Member. It quotes the Whitefish City Council saying Dr. Bukaceks right to engage in free speech ends where the publics right to be safe from COVID-19 begins.

A quick search to learn more revealed Dr. Birx (an Obama appointed U.S. AIDS coordinator and White House coronavirus task force appointee) stated, There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust. She also said she was worried the CDC was inflating the COVID-19 death rate by as much as 25% (Washington Post, May 9). No matter where you land on the topic of death rates, CDC, government response etc., should we not be able to have the discussion on these topics?

Health board members or Dr. Birx are not my point in writing. This pandemic will pass and we will be on to something else. What will not pass is a city council that is so scared of the First Amendment and the power that it gives to the people that they feel the need to silence the conversation.

I have many friends that are liberal in their thinking. It is fun to grab a pint with them and chat about government roles and personal freedoms. At times we agree, sometimes minds are changed but most of the time we walk away having had a rousing conversation and a good IPA. The same happens with my conservative friends. However, a leftist does not want to even have the conversation. They make accusations like being a danger to the citizens. This of course is according to them. The underlying notion is they dont trust the publics intelligence enough to think for themselves. They skip the dialog and say things like right to engage in free speech ends where the publics right to be safe from COVID-19 begins.

What is ironic is that the Whitefish City Council does have the First Amendment right to express speech that degrades and limits that very same First Amendment right. It is up to us, the people, to stand up for our rights against those that express anti-constitutional views. There are those that enjoy a good conversation; liberal, conservative, independent or even if you are one who could not care less about politics. Everyone who wants to see our freedom of civil discourse continue must speak out. We can change minds, change votes, and change leadership of those around us. Bottom line is have the conversation. President Ronald Reagan was right when he said Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

Rep. Matt RegierR-Columbia Falls

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Stand Up for the First Amendment - Flathead Beacon