Displaying posts published in

October 2019

EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Administration Calls Out Bias in Middle East Studies Programs by Raymond Ibrahim

By on October 21st, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15005/bias-middle-east-studies

“[T]here is a considerable emphasis placed on understanding the positive aspects of Islam, while there is an absolute absence of any similar focus on the positive aspects of Christianity, Judaism, or any other religion or belief system in the Middle East.” — US Department of Education, Notice of a Letter Regarding the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies, September 17, 2019.
Virtually all Middle East Studies departments on campuses everywhere can, to varying degrees, be accused of focusing on irrelevant and superficial topics, sidelining language skills, whitewashing Islam — in short, indoctrinating students in highly distorted views.
The letter also raises questions concerning… foreign funding. A 2018 report , for instance, found that “elite U.S. universities took more than half a billion dollars” from Saudi Arabia in gifts and donations “between 2011 and 2017.” Why would a nation that treats women like chattel, teaches Muslims to hate all non-Muslims… that has elite units dedicated to apprehending witches and warlocks — become a leading financial supporter of America’s liberal arts? The answer is regularly on display: so that recipients can show their gratitude by indoctrinating students in a fictitious Middle East and Islam—both of which are supposed victims of America.
The reason U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has tended towards disaster is arguably because policymakers depend on advisors and analysts who are products of such Middle East studies departments — as are the many scholars and “experts” who insist that Islam is a “religion of peace.” Until such time as Middle East Studies teach their topics with objectivity, balance, and above all, honesty, failure is likely to continue dominating America’s response.

The Trump administration recently called out and threatened to cut federal funding for the Consortium for Middle East Studies (CMES), a program run by Duke University and the University of North Carolina. CMES was accused by the U.S. Department of Education of misusing a federal grant to advance “ideological priorities” and unfairly promote “the positive aspects of Islam,” particularly in comparison to Judaism and Christianity.

The Department of Education summarized its position in an August 29 letter that opens with a reminder that institutions of higher education may receive federal funding via Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965:

The Secretary is authorized–

(i) to make grants to institutions of higher education, or combinations thereof, for the purpose of establishing, strengthening, and operating comprehensive foreign language and area or international studies centers and programs; and

(ii) to make grants to such institutions or combinations for the purpose of establishing, strengthening, and operating a diverse network of undergraduate foreign language and area or international studies centers and programs.

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BOOKS, HISTORY Comments turned off

Women Under the Spell Augusto Zimmermann

By on October 21st, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/10/women-under-the-spell/

The connections of early feminism with secular ideologies such as liberalism and socialism are well known. I have myself written about these in several of my articles, including a chapter in my book on Western legal theory. However, the spiritual dimensions that underpinned the early feminist movement in the nineteenth century were entirely unknown to me until I discovered this important book on the subject.

Dr Per Faxneld obtained a PhD in History of Religions at Stockholm University in 2014. He is a professor at Stockholm University, was a visiting professor at Cambridge University in 2014, and is currently a post-doctoral fellow at Mid-Sweden University. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on the history of Satanism and Western esotericism.

Satanic Feminism is based on Faxneld’s doctoral dissertation, which was awarded the Donner Institute Prize for Eminent Research on Religion. It discusses how prominent feminists—primarily between 1880 and 1930—used Satan as a symbol of their rejection of the so-called “patriarchal traits of Christianity”. It shows that these women were inspired by the period’s most influential new religion, Theosophy, and how the anti-Christian discourses of radical secularism affected feminism.

Satanic Feminism sheds a new light on the early feminist movement. It discusses neglected or unknown aspects of the intellectual connections of early feminism with Satanism in a way that nobody before Faxneld has dared to do. In doing so, he richly illustrates how leading figures of the early feminist movement, such as the suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the actress Sarah Bernhardt and the poet Renée Vivien, viewed God as the precursor of patriarchy and Satan as an ally in the fight against it.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Fat black professor of gender studies blames Trump for black female obesity By Thomas Lifson

By on October 21st, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/fat_black_professor_of_gender_studies_blames_trump_for_black_female_obesity.html

No, this is not from the Babylon Bee.

It actually comes from the Oprah Winfrey Network, and a segment featuring Professor Britney Cooper, who sports a PhD from Emory University and who currently is an associate professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. With that sort of background, perhaps it isn’t surprising to eternalize blame for obesity on racism and seem to indict President Trump for it. In fairness, she only mentions Trump before launching her indictment of racism as the cause of black female obesity.

Here are few screen grabs of her subtitled rant, followed by the entire segment embedded in a tweet, in case you want to hear her, the moderator, and the audience all enthusiastically accept the theory that white people in general and President Trump in particular are what make a disproportionate number of black women obese.

While this is all funny, it is also tragic. Obesity is unhealthy and unhappy to endure. Blaming others doesn’t ever lead to change in a positive direction.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Like Him or Not, Trump is Uniquely Suited for Such a Time as This By Scott S. Powell

By on October 21st, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/10/like_him_or_not_trump_is_uniquely_suited_for_such_a_time_as_this.html

With the constant drumbeat from the mainstream media, Democrats now hope that the whirlwind in Washington of the so-called impeachment investigation will spread so much smoke that people won’t be able to see what’s going on, except to subliminally conclude that with all that smoke around Donald Trump, there must be a fire, and that it’ll die down with his removal from office.  

In fact, President Trump has so much smoke around him because history has thrust on him the role of American firefighter-in-chief charged with extinguishing corruption in government and in the media, as well as fighting a myriad of other smoldering battles — from protecting the nation’s sovereignty and borders and redressing unfair trade deals and cost-sharing of military defense alliances to promoting policies to secure energy independence and drive economic growth, with a particular passion to deliver opportunity for those at the bottom.   

With a second term, Trump is likely to become a historically consequential political realignment leader — what Andrew Jackson was to the Democrats and Abraham Lincoln was to the Republicans.  He has already broadened the base of the Republican Party, and with a little more political jujitsu he can easily make more inroads and gain support from minorities and other constituencies who feel they’ve been neglected, or worse — have been used as political pawns by the Democrat Party elites, election cycle after election cycle.  

The United States is absolutely unique in human history being founded on two bedrock tenets.   First, the American people are endowed with unalienable individual rights that come from God and not the state — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, along with privacy rights, due process and a presumption of innocence.  Secondly, the legitimacy of the American government established by the Constitution comes solely from the will of the people determined by their choice through elections. States and districts choose their senators and representatives by popular vote, but the chief executive — the President — is elected by an Electoral College system, with electors being proportionally equal to each state’s number of U.S. House Representatives plus one for each of its two U.S. senators. The Founders’ wisdom regarding a need for an Electoral College thus established a blueprint for a governing a large and diverse country by balancing the preferences and will of the people living in sparsely populated states with the different priorities of densely populated states and urban areas that typically have a greater concentration of government dependency and welfare — and the sort of patronage and political corruption that comes with that.   

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Hillary Targets Tulsi When all Clinton opponents become “Russian assets.” Lloyd Billingsley

By on October 21st, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/hillary-targets-tulsi-lloyd-billingsley/

“Trump won the election in 2016.”

That was Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard last Tuesday, one of the few factual statements in the CNN “debate” that was more of an impeachment inquest and socialist shout-out. The studio audience cheered every leftist platitude and call for impeachment but Gabbard’s statement that Trump won the 2016 election brought only stunned silence.

Tulsi Gabbard was saying, in effect, “Hillary Clinton lost the election in 2016,” a clear violation of the Democrat speech code and progressive eschatology. Progressives believe history is on their side, so if the progressive candidate loses it must be due to trickery and theft by the opponent. True to form, dame Clinton has been repeating her claim that she defeated Donald Trump.

“Obviously, I can beat him again,” she recently told PBS, and she was panting for a “rematch.” In that frame of mind, Tulsi Gabbard’s observation that “Trump won the election in 2016”  was bound to provoke Clinton, who saw Russia’s evil hand at work.

“I’m not making any predictions,” she told POTUS 44 retread David Plouffe,  “but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” a clear reference to Tulsi Gabbard.  “She’s the favorite of the Russians,” Clinton said, “They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.” Plouffe closed out the interview citing Hillary’s “belief that Tulsi Gabbard is going to be a third-party candidate, propped up by Trump and the Russians.”

The former First Lady and Secretary of State cited no evidence for her claim and the Russian bots and such seem to have an existential problem. So no surprise that Clinton’s claim became the new party line for the Democrat-media axis.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Facebook and Free Speech Zuckerberg says progressives shouldn’t abandon liberal values. Progressives object.

By on October 21st, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-and-free-speech-11571602853

Mark Zuckerberg offered a stalwart defense of liberal values on free speech last week, and it’s a sign of our illiberal times that progressives were his biggest critics. A Joe Biden spokesman accused the Facebook CEO of using “the Constitution as a shield for his company’s bottom line,” and pundits on Twitter raged at his refusal to censor ads for Donald Trump.

Mr. Zuckerberg’s offense was standing up for John Mill’s liberal marketplace of ideas that liberals used to stand for. At Georgetown University and in our pages Thursday, he committed Facebook to uphold a wide definition of free expression. This is good news with major implications for how information is distributed in the 21st century if Facebook honors this pledge.

When Facebook and other social-media sites took off in the 2000s, an elite consensus held that freewheeling debate advanced democratic government and liberal social causes. Then came the 2016 election. Many liberals saw Mr. Trump’s victory as a democratic malfunction and blamed Facebook, though they had previously lionized the platform for its role spreading candidate Barack Obama’s message.

The pressure on the platform to referee America’s political back-and-forth has increased with polarization. Mr. Zuckerberg’s comments seemed aimed at reminding the political left that it suffered most from censorship amid the polarizing episodes in the 20th century, citing the World War I-era prosecution of socialist Eugene Debs.

Today, conservatives are more likely to perceive that their views are suppressed on social media, and Republican Members of Congress have made it a top issue. A recent controversy of note was Facebook’s temporary suppression of a video produced by the pro-life group Live Action.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

An Exciting Finish in Canada’s Election Conservative Andrew Scheer has pulled into a dead heat with Justin Trudeau.By Mary Anastasia O’Grady

By on October 21st, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-exciting-finish-in-canadas-election-11571599515

As Canadians head to a federal election on Monday, polls have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party and Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer in a dead heat.

Mr. Scheer has turned out to be a more serious contender than many, including many conservatives, expected. But Mr. Trudeau’s biggest headaches are on his left, where Jagmeet Singh, the personally engaging candidate of the New Democratic Party, and Bloc Quebecois candidate Yves-François Blanchet threaten to siphon off progressive votes from the Liberals. This has greatly increased Mr. Scheer’s chances of winning a minority government.

Voter surveys say the race is too close to call. As Darrell Bricker of the polling company Ipsos put on Oct. 15, the multiparty jockeying “points to an Election Night which could be full of surprises and close calls.”

Some meaningful number of Canadians appear ready to punish Mr. Trudeau for his performance since taking office in 2015. A carbon tax that wasn’t supposed to hurt a bit has harmed consumers in key provinces. Liberals promised fiscal discipline but Mr. Trudeau finishes four years with a C$20 billion deficit. The ruling party now counsels Canada not to expect a balanced budget until at least 2040.

The prime minister’s authenticity deficit is his bigger problem. The self-described champion of women and minorities took a hit when photos emerged last month showing that in years past, more than once, he darkened his face at costume parties.

Mr. Trudeau has apologized profusely and by most accounts Canadians don’t brand him a racist. For good measure he got President Obama to endorse him last week.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Radical Climate-Change Protests Coming Soon to a City Near You? By John Fund

By on October 21st, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/extinction-rebellion-climate-change-protests-european-cities/

European cities are the model for extremists’ latest stunts, with commuter trains stopped during rush hour and thousands arrested.

London — I have seen what may be the future of climate-change protest. It isn’t pretty, and be prepared because it may be coming to American cities near you faster than you think.

I just spent several days in London reporting on the Brexit debate. While thousands of protesters who want to remain in the European Union did surround Parliament this past Saturday, they remained peaceful and law-abiding.

One could not say the same for those who participated in protests in the days before. Much of London was shut down by agitators from Extinction Rebellion (XR), a radical anti-climate-change group that has spent the last two weeks disrupting cities from London to Berlin to Amsterdam. In London, some 1,800 protestors have been arrested.

XR’s London action began when some of its members sprayed beetroot juice on delegates to a fossil-fuels conference. “Eco-warriors” then used a fire hose to douse the Treasury building with 400 gallons of red paint. Breastfeeding mothers then blocked the entrance to key buildings. A protester dressed as Prime Minister Boris Johnson used scaffolding to climb to the top of Big Ben.

As the protesters moved from stunt to stunt, public support for their actions withered. They hit bottom last Thursday when two activists climbed on top of commuter trains during rush hour and blocked their departure. They unfurled a banner that read “Business as Usual = Death.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Barbara Streisand Tweets Cartoon of Bloody Impaled Donald Trump By Megan Fox

By on October 21st, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/barbara-streisand-tweets-cartoon-of-bloody-impaled-donald-trump/

Fake political violence is back in style this week after last week’s outrage over the Kingsman meme where fake violence made everyone angry. This week, Barbara Streisand has joined Tom Arnold and certain CNN employees by wishing for Donald Trump’s death and sharing her sick fantasies about it.

The cartoon Streisand shared on Twitter depicts the president impaled and bleeding on the heel of Nancy Pelosi’s shoe. Absolutely no one on the left is condemning it, nor is anyone at CNN demanding that Nancy Pelosi condemn it. Let us all remember, for a moment, the outrage that the left experienced over Kingsman meme, which the president did not make or share. The upset was so ridiculous, the White House had to respond.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, MEDIA Comments turned off

For Peggy Noonan and her elitist pals…here’s a little plainspeak for you Eric Georgatos

By on October 21st, 2019

www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/for_peggy_noonan_and_her_elitist_palsheres_a_little_plainspeak_for_you.html?fbclid=IwAR2S0oA71PdfOE6ivAtuNT5vE-2DOhD3bgwLH3Dfih7duklNeLRitocWlPE

So many of us with conservative leanings have long respected the prose and insight of Peggy Noonan, now a prominent Wall Street Journal columnist, but initially admired for her work as a Reagan speechwriter.  But her recent columns show she’s come to exemplify the ruling class elitism that simply doesn’t grasp the groundswell in the American heart that elected Donald Trump president.

I consider myself to be right in the heart of that American heart.  Raised in a lower middle-class home in small town America; father with a high school diploma, and mother with a junior college degree earned in middle age.  Taught and embrace the Christian faith, work ethic, and ‘marinated’ in an atmosphere of love for America.  Made it through college and law school; experienced a version of the American dream in terms of achieving a standard of living for my wife and three kids being substantially higher than that of my sister and me growing up.

Well, Peggy, let me help you understand where that background—shared in various forms with millions of Americans—positions my worldview.

I resented the hell out of Barack Obama claiming authority to fundamentally transform America.  He didn’t admit to this mission until very late in his first campaign; there is no way in hell the majority of the American people who voted for him supported a fundamental transformation of this country.

I resented the hell out of the Eric Holder DOJ deliberately running guns to Mexican cartels so that ensuing violence could be traced to American gun manufacturers and morphed into an anti-2nd Amendment media narrative in America.  I resented the hell out of the fact that no one was held accountable for this government-initiated, subvert-the-Constitution deceit.

I resented the hell out of Barack Obama brazenly lying to the American people 27 times about ‘keep your doctor’ and ‘keep your plan’ when he knew he was lying about the facts, intent and design of Obamacare.  I resented the hell out of Nancy Pelosi making a mockery of the legislative process by telling Democrats they needed to pass Obamacare to find out what was in it.

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