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When I was a little girl, my mother used to call me her “Mississippi Masala.” A term of endearment and, as I would later come to find out, a reference: the nickname almost perfectly encapsulated my particular diasporic experience. My Pakistani parents moved to the United States in the 1990s, settling down in Mobile, Alabama—a town that is just about as south as you can get before plunging into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. People are shocked when my birthplace is revealed. To many, a Muslim South Asian family has no place in the flattened conception of...

A federal judge handed down a stiff sentence to a man who turned political rage into arson, and it matters. Casey Robert Goonan was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison after a string of firebombings and arsons in the Bay Area. The court applied a terrorism enhancement, and the result should remind anyone tempted by violent activism that the system takes these attacks seriously. On June 1, Goonan placed a bag of six incendiary devices under a UC Police Department patrol car near the UC Berkeley campus, an act caught on surveillance video. Ten days later he attacked an...

As long as your heart is in the right place, who cares, right? As long as your heart is in the right place, who cares if you are a multiple arsonist who throws fire-bombs and endangers lives? And you have a well-placed heart as big as the Ritz if you hate Israel and want to see it disappear, to be replaced by a 23rd Arab state. More on the antisemitic and pro-Hamas supporters who have rallied round the pyromaniacal comically-named Casey Goonan, can be found here: “Anti-Israel serial arsonist receives support from Columbia encampment protest groups,” by Michael Starr, Jerusalem...

The co-founder of Code Pink is married to Neville Roy Singham who provides funding to communist and far-left leftist groups and efforts. Singham reportedly funded the recent anti-ICE protests across the US. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, the chairwoman of the Taskforce on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, called on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to freeze all assets of Neville Singham, the billionaire funder of the communist Code Pink organization, ANSWER Coalition, National Students for Justice in Palestine and several other anti-American leftist organizations. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) posted the news on a...

An infantilizing charlatan and quack—who owes a huge apology for attempting to pass himself off as African American. That’s what black leaders are calling Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani who, despite his airs of being “the great, brown hope,” continues to flounder with demographics his entire campaign is supposed to help. Insiders say black voters are not warming up to the Democratic socialist since roundly rejecting him in June’s primary. “He owes us an apology, for the community. How dare he?” Chantel Wright, a 59-year-old Harlem resident, bishop, and educator, told the Post in an impassioned interview. Wright was referring...

Michael O’Hanlon — an appointee to the Central Intelligence Agency External Advisory Board under the Obama-Biden administration — visited a Chinese Communist Party-run think tank identified by the U.S. government as conducting “undercover intelligence gathering” operations and seeking to coerce foreign actors into backing the Chinese Communist Party’s “preferred policies.” Also at the Director of the Brooking Institute’s Foreign Policy Research Team and adjunct professor at Georgetown and Columbia Universities, O’Hanlon visited the China Association for International Friendly Contact (CAIFC) on August 23rd, 2012 – the same year his Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) External Advisory Board stint ended. Under President...

NEW YORK — For years, Marianne Hirsch, a prominent genocide scholar at Columbia University, has used Hannah Arendt’s book about the trial of a Nazi war criminal, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,” to spark discussion among her students about the Holocaust and its lingering traumas. But after Columbia’s recent adoption of a new definition of antisemitism, which casts certain criticism of Israel as hate speech, Hirsch fears she may face official sanction for even mentioning the landmark text by Arendt, a philosopher who criticized Israel’s founding. For the first time since she started teaching five...

Columbia University will pay $200 million to resolve allegations that it discriminated against Jewish students, in exchange for the restoration of federal grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars. “While Columbia does not admit to wrongdoing with this resolution agreement, the institution’s leaders have recognized, repeatedly, that Jewish students and faculty have experienced painful, unacceptable incidents, and that reform was and is needed,” the university said in a statement announcing that it had reached a deal with the federal government. In addition to a cash settlement, Columbia University will also implement a series of reforms announced earlier this year. In...

You might remember Mahmoud Khalil. He was anti-Semitic student at Columbia who SoS Marco Rubio tried to remove from the country as an undesirable. America-hating democrats have chosen him as their cause celebre and have decided he is worthy of beatification. Khalil made the rounds with those America hating left-wing politicians for photo-ops yesterday. I had a productive meeting with Mahmoud Khalil today who was illegally detained by the Trump admin. Students continue to be wrongfully disciplined for exercising their First Amendment rights and protesting a taxpayer-funded genocide in Gaza.Our institutions shouldn’t fuel an… pic.twitter.com/8vl1nj0h49— Rep. Summer Lee (@RepSummerLee) July...

“Columbia has more progress to make before Jewish students can truly feel safe on its campus,” said Rep. Tim Walberg. The Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University, April 21, 2024). Columbia University penalized more than 70 students involved in violent and other disruptive anti-Israel protests on the Manhattan school’s campus, according to the New York Post. The school’s disciplinary actions include suspensions of between one and three years for over 80% of the rioters, with a small number expelled from the university. Degree revocation and probation were also included

As he runs for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani has made his identity as a Muslim immigrant of South Asian descent a key part of his appeal. But as a high school senior in 2009, Mr. Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, claimed another label when he applied to Columbia University. Asked to identify his race, he checked a box that he was “Asian” but also Black or African American,” according to internal data derived from a hack of Columbia University that was shared with The New York Times.

Claire Shipman, the acting president of Columbia University, issued a private apology this week after leaked messages revealed she suggested removing a Jewish trustee over her pro-Israel advocacy, sparking a firestorm amid ongoing federal scrutiny of the university’s handling of antisemitism on campus. “The things I said in a moment of frustration and stress were wrong. They do not reflect how I feel,” Shipman wrote Wednesday in an email obtained by Jewish Insider, which she sent to “trusted groups of friends and colleagues.” The messages, sent in 2023 and 2024 while Shipman was co-chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees, were...

Michael Madigan, connected to Obama, Bill Ayers and Andrew Weissmann, was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison this past week for corruption. Who would have predicted this? Michael Madigan ran the state of Illinois like a mobster for more than three decades. He used his power to crush anyone and any entity that dared oppose him on anything. He is the definition of a pure politician. He is now going to prison. Michael Madigan, the country’s longest-serving state House leader, served as speaker of the Illinois House from 1983 until 2021, with the exception of two years. Along the way,...

Columbia University graduate student and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has landed in New Jersey, telling reporters that he will continue to fight for his country 'even if they kill me.'

Anti-Israel protester Mahmoud Khalil lamented leaving behind some “incredible men” on Friday as he left a Louisiana detention facility, which he hopes becomes a museum to what he described as “America’s racist policies.” “I leave some incredible men behind me, over 1,000 people behind me, in a place where they shouldn’t have been in the first place,” Khalil told reporters after walking out of the La Salle Detention Facility in Jena, La. “I hope the next time that I will be in Jena is to actually visit this as a museum on America’s racist policies against immigrants,” the former Columbia...

Protests against the arrest of a pro-Palestine Columbia graduate student are being organized by a Marxist revolutionary group that is pro-Communism, anti-Israel, and has potential links to the Chinese Communist Party. Mahmoud Khalil, a leader in the pro-Palestine and anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University, was detained earlier this month by the Trump administration, with the Department of Homeland Security arguing that he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” The People’s Forum helped organize some of the campus chaos and is now organizing protests to free Khalil. Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) is the pro-Palestine and anti-Israel group...

Politics Judge orders release of Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil from ICE detention By Updated on: June 20, 2025 / 3:13 PM EDT / CBS News A federal judge in New Jersey on Friday ordered that Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil must be released from detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as his immigration proceedings play out. During a hearing before U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz, Khalil's attorneys asked him to free Khalil from detention or transfer him to New Jersey. Farbiarz agreed, determining that Khalil is not a threat to the community, not a flight risk and that his detention...

Hamas supporter Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder who led pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University in New York City, will not be released from ICE custody, a New Jersey District Judge ruled on Friday. New Jersey District Judge Michael E. Farbiarz rejected Khalil’s request for release, ruling on Friday that the anti-Israel agitator “did not put forward factual evidence as to why it might be unlawful to detain him” on a second charge, and “failed to make meaningful legal arguments.” “The Court preliminary enjoined the Respondents from detaining the Petitioner on a particular charge,” Judge Farbiarz wrote, noting, “It would be...

The U.S. Education Department said Wednesday that Columbia University has failed to meet the standards for accreditation because it “is in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws” for allegedly tolerating harassment of Jewish students on campus. The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights notified the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, an accrediting institution that Columbia belongs to, of the alleged violation. The department noted that federal regulations, “accreditors are required to notify any member institution about a federal noncompliance finding and establish a plan to come into compliance.” “If a university fails to come into compliance within a specified period,...

In a recent interview, a well-known professor who taught at Columbia University for 46 years questioned whether or not President Obama actually attended the Ivy League school. Prominent Columbia professor Henry Graff says he isn’t sure President Obama ever attended the Ivy League school. “I taught every significant politician that ever studied at Columbia,” said Columbia Emeritus Professor of History Henry Graff, in an interview last week with Wayne Root, a contributor at The Blaze. “Between American History and Diplomatic History, one way or another, they all had to come through my classes.” “Not Obama,” he continued. “I never had...