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February 2024

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Dems Roll Out Welcome Mat for World’s Criminals We’re the suckers. Betsy McCaughey

By on February 13th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/dems-roll-out-welcome-mat-for-worlds-criminals/

Maria Manaura, who’s been arrested at least eight times in the six months since she arrived in New York City from Venezuela, is living at the Row NYC hotel, once hailed for its unbeatable Times Square location and front-row view of the theater district. Now it’s drug-infested and violent, but still costs taxpayers $500 a night for each of the 1,300 rooms given over to migrants.

Manaura was busted again Jan. 30 for snatching a woman’s cellphone on the No. 6 train. She was charged with grand larceny and resisting arrest, but instead of getting locked up, Judge Jay Weiner granted supervised release, likely in time for her to make it back to the hotel and another prepared meal paid for by you and me. It’s sickening.

Migrants like Manaura who rack up clashes with police should be made ineligible for the city’s largesse. Handing out hotel rooms and free meals to repeat thugs makes it easier for them to commit crimes and makes us into patsies.

The Democratic Party is turning New York City into a Shangri-La for international theft rings and migrants here to rob and burglarize. Taxpayers foot the bill for the thieves’ hotel accommodations, plus three meals a day and a long list of other benefits, even free bus tickets if they have to skip town in a hurry. If you’re a criminal, what’s not to like?

This stupidity isn’t new. For over a year, New York City has coddled criminal migrants with long rap sheets, sheltering and feeding them while they continue their crime spree.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Do Leftists Now Believe Leftism Doesn’t Work? Victor Davis Hanson

By on February 13th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/12/do-leftists-now-believe-leftism-doesnt-work/

It is hard to destroy a naturally beautiful city like San Francisco, with ideal weather and stunning infrastructure inherited from far better earlier generations.

Yet San Francisco continues its much-publicized and self-inflicted doom loop. The productive classes still flee the increasingly crime-ridden city and its self-induced pathologies. The city is eroding not because of the doomsayers and not because of what people say about San Francisco, but because of what San Franciscans have done to San Francisco.

In 2023, more than 40,000 crimes were reportedly committed in San Francisco. The great majority of the perpetrators were either not arrested or never jailed, indicted, or convicted.

Downtown office vacancy rates exceed 35 percent—and are climbing. Tourists have ostracized the city, given the thousands of homeless that occupy sidewalks and downtown. San Francisco claimed to be on the cutting-edge of the woke green movement, proud that it had enacted the most stringent environmental laws and regulations in the world—except when it came to defecation, injection, and urination on the sidewalks, doorways, and parks and during storms, when the toxic, effluviant human waste escapes sewage treatment and flows into the once-cherished bay.

In a mere five years, the city went from being one of the most envied and wealthy in the world with a vibrant nightlife and new high-tech start-ups to a West-Cost Detroit.

Now billionaires are trying to heal San Francisco by returning it to the old normality in the era before the progressive city councils, the boards of supervisors, and mayors defunded the police, allowed the homeless to absorb the downtown, and promoted prosecutors who refused to enforce the laws.

The rich are rallying to undo the damage wrought by the very officials whom they and the majority of the city voted into office. Their principles seem simple—start doing the very opposite of the progressive agenda: enforce laws; arrest, convict, and incarcerate criminals; balance city budgets; and insist that the homeless leave the streets, follow the laws of the city, and relocate to shelters.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Monstrous complicity As UN links to Hamas are revealed, the BBC-led media airbrush these away Melanie Phillips

By on February 13th, 2024

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/monstrous-complicity?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

In a sane universe, the discovery of a Hamas data centre and server farm in a tunnel 700 metres long and 18 metres deep directly underneath the headquarters of the UN Works and Relief Agency in Gaza would be of huge significance.

Ariel Kahana reported in Israel Hayom:

I saw with my own eyes the cables connecting UNRWA’s communication room on the first floor of the building to Hamas’ server room exactly underneath it.

Did Thomas White, UNRWA Gaza director since the summer of 2021, not notice the trucks removing soil for years from the compound he managed? Did he not wonder who the people walking around his headquarters were when he didn’t employ them? Was he not puzzled by the computers, air conditioners, servers, batteries, cement mixers, cables, tiles, steel doors, and even the motorcycles that arrived in his backyard without him ordering them? Did he not notice the fibers that very strangely dangled from his communication room to an unknown destination underground? Did he never once have a doubt that made him think to report to his superiors at the UN?…

The UNRWA headquarters above ground and Hamas’ “brain” below ground are a physical reality connected by thick cables, and not just as a metaphor…After we again sank into the mud, crawled through the tunnel, walked hunched over for hundreds of meters, and came out into Gaza’s trembling skies, the IDF APCs brought us to UNRWA’s headquarters. There, among offices, schools, kindergartens, and SpongeBob drawings, the commander of 401st Brigade, Col. Benny Aharon, shows us the agency’s own server room.

“We’re in UNRWA’s server room. Coincidentally — I say this cynically — it’s located right above the server room you found underground,” he says. “Notice that all the cables are ripped and disconnected, they left almost nothing, only what they managed to cut off. We’re lucky a few cables remained that they didn’t manage to cut off some of the cables that going down below. They took out all the DVRs and computers from here. Only someone who has something to hide does something like this. What kind of international humanitarian organisation that only has good intentions behaves this way?”

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

The stalemate on illegal immigration The deadlock is part of even bigger problems Charles Lipson

By on February 13th, 2024

https://thespectator.com/topic/stalemate-illegal-immigration-border-crime/

Few moments are less promising to reach a bipartisan deal than the months before a presidential election. And few issues present greater obstacles than limiting illegal immigration. Even the word “illegal” is contested. Progressives say it is too harsh. Conservatives say it is simply truthful.

It is no surprise, then, that the compromise “border-security bill” gasped its final breath this week. The Senate bill, negotiated by a Democrat, a Republican and an Independent, met a hostile reception as soon as the text was released. House Speaker Mike Johnson declared it “dead on arrival.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reluctantly brought it up for a procedural vote, where it went down in flames.

Why such stiff opposition? Because the bill contains not one but two divisive issues. The first is that the “immigration bill” also funds Ukraine’s war with Russia and, to a lesser extent, Israel’s war with Hamas and Hezbollah. Funding for Israel has broad support, but funding for Ukraine does not. There is considerable opposition among Republicans and some progressive Democrats to giving Ukraine another $60 billion. (Faced with the defeat of the combined bill, Schumer is considering a separate package to fund Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, with no mention of immigration.)

The second problem goes to the heart of the immigration bill. It includes provisions that would allow some 5,000 to 8,000 migrants to cross illegally into the US each day before tougher restrictions kick in.

Almost every Republican, including many moderates, are appalled by those numbers. They remember when President Obama’s secretary of Homeland Security called 1,000 illegal crossings per day a crisis. If that was a crisis, they say, what do you call five- to eight-times that many?

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Boeing’s Lost Bolts Reveals an Even Larger Leadership Crisis for America by Lawrence Kadish

By on February 13th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20394/boeing-leadership-crisis

There was a time when any aircraft Boeing built was a flying example of American innovation, excellence, and aviation dominance. They were the cornerstone of a multi-billion dollar sector of our nation’s economy.

Shockingly, that is no longer the case, as they suffer a series of issues with the latest news that crucial bolts were never replaced in a 737 MAX 9 from which a door plug blew off in mid-flight.

While the issue of safety is paramount, Boeing’s apparent loss of manufacturing quality control has the means to deprive the United States of global leadership in this crucial arena. And Boeing’s airliner woes are not their only issue. Their military contracts are also facing problems, in the form of the much troubled KC-46 tanker.

Overseas, Airbus, a one-time distant second in manufacturing airliners, has a book of backorders that runs far into the future. And the Chinese are acquiring subcontracting work on airline components that is anything but a casual sideline.

Make no mistake. Boeing’s woes are ours as well, for this onetime leader in aviation has made a series of missteps that go far beyond their own financial and reputational damage. The company has compelled a worldwide market to ask whether the United States has slid into mediocrity. In aviation, that is nothing less than catastrophic. Wall Street analysts may do the numbers regarding Boeing’s future, but we need to ask ourselves, especially this year, have Americans lost their sense of pride in the work they do? In our nation? In our future? Is Boeing’s crisis symptomatic of our nation’s challenges at a time when deliberate disinformation is designed to break our spirit and abdicate our leadership?

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

‘Why Doesn’t Hamas Go to Hell and Hide There?’: Other Voices from Gaza by Bassam Tawil

By on February 13th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20383/voices-from-gaza

One can understand why Al-Jazeera and Arab media journalists are so anti-Israel that they do not want to provide a platform to any Palestinian to criticize Hamas. Yet, one cannot understand why the foreign media is turning a blind eye to the critical voices coming out from the Gaza Strip and Palestinians and Arabs living outside the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave.

Why? These journalists are busy searching for stories that reflect badly only on Israel.

“Anyone who questioned Hamas’s motives or objectives has been painted as a cowardly collaborator. To demand better living conditions or more political liberties was akin to treason…. Others are reluctant to speak out against Hamas for fear of seeming disloyal or pro-Israel. If people outside of Gaza find it difficult to question the forced conformity, imagine how much more challenging it is for many inside the coastal enclave.” — Ahmed Fouad Al-Khatib, X (Twitter), January 6, 2024.

“You’re either going to govern and develop the place, or you’re going to be a resistance group, but you can’t do both at the same time…. Hamas could have made different choices that would have opened new political pathways for Palestinian unity and the development of Gaza. Instead, they chose to hold their people hostage and divert materials and resources into a futile armed resistance project that has set Palestinians back by decades.” — Ahmed Fouad Al-Khatib, X, February 4, 2024.

“Those who don’t have to live with the consequences of Hamas’s “resistance” are understandably the group’s most fervent supporters and excusers (weirdly especially in London). Leave it to lousy beneficiaries of Western privilege to defend a terror group that oppresses its own people and uses them as cannon fodder in its suicidal adventures… Never forget that over 30,000 Gazans would still be alive today if Hamas kept its fighters at home on October 7. The pro-Palestine movement deserves better ‘allies’ and ‘supporters’ than overt & covert Hamas enthusiasts.” — Ahmed Fouad Al-Khatib, X, February 2, 2024.

“Anti-Hamas = Zionist. Call for coexistence = Zionist. Condemn Hamas = Zionist. Both sides’ lives matter = Zionist. Sympathize with Israeli hostages = Zionist. How many definitions are there for Zionist? …. I forgot the most important one: Peace supporter = Zionist.” — Hamza, X, February 5, 2024.

[Palestinian writer Majdi Abd Al-Wahhab] called on the international community and the Arab world to act to eliminate all the Palestinian organizations and stop their military and civilian activity, “so that the Palestinians will be rid of them and their harm and can start blazing a new, straight path for themselves, far from destruction, killing and devastation.”

“The destruction caused by Hamas to Gaza will not end even if Israel’s war on Gaza does stop. The destruction will continue, as is evident from the ‘glorious’ history of our [Palestinian] organizations.” — Majdi Abd Al-Wahhab, Elaph, January 9, 2024.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Our Crazy Cousins North Of The Border

By on February 13th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/02/13/our-crazy-cousins-north-of-the-border/

If there ever were a sign that Canada has gone cuckoo, it has to be a bill introduced in Parliament that would censor speech about fossil fuel. No, we’re not joking, though we hope the bill’s author is. We fear, however, he isn’t.

One Charlie Angus, a New Democratic Party member of the House of Commons from Timmins–James Bay in Ontario, has brought before that chamber Bill C-372. It clearly states that “it is prohibited for a person to promote a fossil fuel, a fossil fuel-related brand element or the production of a fossil fuel except as authorized by the provisions of this Act or of the regulations.”

Under the legislation, it is further “prohibited for a person to promote a fossil fuel or the production of a fossil fuel … i​​n a manner that states or suggests that a fossil fuel or the practices of a producer or of the fossil fuel industry would lead to positive outcomes in relation to the environment, the health of Canadians, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples or the Canadian or global economy; or … by using terms, expressions, logos, symbols or illustrations that are prohibited by the regulations.”

Does “nuts” adequately describe the thinking behind this bill? It is most certainly outrageous.

If we read the Canadian version of English correctly, merely pointing out the indisputable fact that civilization would break down without fossil fuels would be a lawbreaking offense. So would arguing that vehicles with internal combustion engines are better for the environment than trendy electric vehicles, or pointing out that natural gas is a cheaper, more reliable source of energy that wind and solar.

The punishment depends on which provisions are violated, with the most punitive corrective measures being $1.5 million fines and two-year prison terms.

Not all Canadians are crazy, of course. Yet the effete, shallow yet odious Justin Trudeau is in his third term as prime minister, so there is an abundance of poor thinking among the electorate.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

NOAH BECK: A THANK YOU LETTER FROM HAMAS TO THE MEDIA AUGUST 9, 2014

By on February 13th, 2024

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5114/a_thank_you_letter_from_hamas_to_the_media

You in the mainstream media have been amazing in your support for Hamas, and we’re so grateful to you. This really helps us in spreading anti-Semitism, and starting new rounds of terror at will. Blessings be upon you, love from Hamas

Dear Members of the Mainstream Media,

You’ve been awesome! Everyone knows that we start unwinnable wars with Israel because the real victory happens when you predictably side with us each time. And you’ve been so supportive of our strategy that we really want to acknowledge your helpfulness. In particular, we thank you for:

–Focusing so much more on our suffering than anyone else’s. Nigerians must die in far greater numbers before you take notice, so we’re glad that you value our lives so much more.

-Minimizing your coverage, if any, of our attacks that led up to Israel’s military response and generally providing so little context that outsiders think that Israelis kill Palestinians just for fun. We’re especially grateful to the French media for this.

Their distortions of the conflict are so one-sided that they incite Muslims across France to attack Jews and synagogues, and that is welcomed by our anti-Semitic worldview (although, unfortunately, such attacks remind everyone why Jews need a state).

-Emphasizing our civilian death toll without explaining that (1) our casualty reports are hasty and inflated, and (2) we maximize that total by using Palestinians to shield our weapons and by urging them to stay in the very areas that the IDF — in its annoying effort to minimize our civilian deaths — warns Gazans to evacuate.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on February 11th, 2024

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

B.D.S.? Indeed! Israel is “Beneficent. Diverse. Special.” Can you name another small country besieged by geography and enemies, libels and bias. and barbaric attacks, that contributes technology, science and medicine that brings humanitarian relief from epidemics, famine and natural disasters to the entire globe? Every week Michael Ordman proves the foregoing. rsk

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
Cowboys to the rescue. (TY UWI & ILTV News) Ruthie’s horse farm in Binyamin, home to many troubled teens, faced closure when its male workers were called up. Then the Christian cowboys of Montana came to walk the horses, clean and maintain the farm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0HRRrTdkow
 
If it could only talk. IDF troops in Gaza have rescued many abandoned pet dogs and cats, at least one parrot and three horses. One dog was a purebred Malinois, a.k.a. Belgian sheepdog. It responded to commands in Hebrew, which probably meant it (like many of the rescued animals) was looted on Oct 7.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-troops-rescue-of-animals-in-gaza-fuels-pro-palestinian-looting-charges/
 
Fauda star released from hospital. (TY Yanky) Actor and singer Idan Amedi, star of Israel’s Fauda TV series, was released from hospital after 8 weeks. Although badly burned in Gaza, he now hopes to be in Fauda season 5. He said, “The Israeli people are the strongest in the world. When we are united, we are invincible.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/no-one-recognized-me-says-fauda-actor-idan-amedi-of-injury-from-gaza-blast/
 
20% of IDF reserves are hi-tech workers. Although hi-tech workers constitute only 10% of Israel’s employees, they make up 20% of the IDF’s reserve forces.  Interesting, but not sure what to make of that!
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hku9ilrq6
 
No place like home. (TY Yanky) After 10 weeks in limbo in an Eilat hotel, over 400 Kibbutz Re’im members have moved into two towers in Tel Aviv. A Tel Aviv Municipality banner welcomed relocated Kibbutz Re’im residents with this message: “There is no place like home, but in the meantime, feel at home.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-oct-7-entire-kibbutz-temporarily-resettles-in-two-newly-built-tel-aviv-towers/
 
His prayers were answered. IDF Sgt. Major Malchiel ben Yosef saved his comrades from a Hamas terrorist who emerged from a Gaza tunnel behind them with an RPG launcher. Malchiel turned towards Jerusalem to pray the afternoon service and spotted the terrorist. He then alerted his comrades who dealt with the threat.
https://www.jns.org/prayer-of-idf-soldier-saves-fellow-fighters/
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Adapting animal antibodies for humans. (TY UWI & JNS) Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have developed an algorithm to help identify which antibodies, that work on animals, can be adapted for human use. Their CUMAb, algorithm generates 20,000 variants of a mouse antibody and predicts which are most stable.
https://tps.co.il/articles/breaking-barriers-israeli-algorithm-offers-swift-and-cost-effective-antibody-humanization/ 
 
Why some children stop breathing. Researchers at Ben Gurion University and Tel Aviv University have discovered the impact of a genetic defect that causes Congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS) in children. They hope that their findings will lead to a cure to a dangerous form of sleep apnea.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-785213  https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1038/s44318-023-00018-9
 
Ultrasound surgery just got more focused. (TY OurCrowd) Israel’s Insightec has announced Exablate Prime – the next generation of MR-guided focused ultrasound with many new features for incisionless neurosurgery. It comes as the US military and the Dutch government have approved Insightec for essential tremor therapy.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/insightec-announces-exablate-prime-the-next-generation-of-mr-guided-focused-ultrasound-855754708.html
 
Netanya hospital opens pediatric playroom. Netanya’s Laniado Hospital has opened a brand-new playroom, courtesy of Toys for Simcha, based in Brooklyn. Happy Kids Heal Faster,” said Rabbi J.J. Hecht II, president of Toys for Simcha. Hundreds of the 8,000 evacuees living in Netanya have been treated at Laniado.
https://www.jns.org/netanya-hospital-opens-pediatric-playroom-in-wake-of-oct-7/
 
Overcoming trauma. As a boy, Yechial witnessed a bus explode, which motivated him to become a volunteer United Hatzalah EMT. He has helped at many tragedies: Miron, Ukraine, Hurricane Ian, Turkey, Morocco, and Oct 7. One of the last lives he saved was a dog. He now trains therapy dogs, to help others overcome trauma.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qve42g2F0v4
https://www.instagram.com/unitedhatzalahofisrael/reel/C2K78jxtVLt/
 
The medical specialists who answered the call. Israel’s Health Ministry and Nefesh B’Nefesh arranged for hundreds of physicians to fly to Israel to help those in need following Oct. 7. Many world-renowned specialists left their lucrative jobs, families, and children behind to come to Israel and boost the medical system.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/12/21/meet-the-specialists-who-left-everything-behind-to-volunteer-in-israel/
 
Restoring sight to wounded IDF soldiers. Eye specialist Dr Sid Shechet of Baltimore’s Elman Retina Group is volunteering for two weeks at the Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheva.  He has been operating non-stop for more than twelve hours daily, helping to restore vision to severely wounded soldiers and anyone else in need.
https://baltimorejewishlife.com/news/news-detail.php?SECTION_ID=1&ARTICLE_ID=169946
https://www.elmanretina.com/about-us/meet-the-doctor/
 
Partnering for mental health therapy. Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has partnered with Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) to expand the mental health support provided to trauma-suffering war victims. FIDF Funds will help train new Shaba therapists to work in IDF veterans’ rehabilitation centers across the country.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/technology-science/1706964944-israel-sheba-announces-partnership-with-fidf-for-mental-health-of-war-victims
 
 
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
 
Jewish Disabilities Month. JNF-USA is planning a series of events to mark Jewish Disabilities Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month (JDAAIM) and to celebrate their longstanding efforts to improve Israel for residents and visitors with disabilities. Feb donations to support this cause will be matched up to $1.25 million.
https://www.jnf.org/menu-3/press-releases/press-release-stories/february-3–2024
 
A campus for ultra-orthodox students. A consortium led by Ben-Gurion University and several academic colleges is to create a separate ultra-Orthodox campus in the South. A growing number of haredim want to pursue a higher education, but not compromise their beliefs and religious observance.
https://americansforbgu.org/bgu-open-orthodox-campus/  https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-760508
 
Empowering Ethiopian Israelis at Rambam. Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa and Boston-Haifa Connection have launched a 5-month course to educate 20 of its Ethiopian Israeli employees in Hebrew literacy and computer skills. The employees predominantly work in the Housekeeping and Custodian Department.
https://israfan.com/2024/02/08/bridging-cultures-a-leap-forward-for-ethiopian-israelis-at-rambam/
 
Prize-winning, women-led startups. The competition for female-led Israeli startups at an event organized by Yazamiyot (see below) was won by anydish (AI nutrition – see here previously). In 2nd place was Aisap (AI ultrasound heart monitoring – see here previously) and in 3rd was Kinoko (funghi – see here previously).
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/kmvn5pprn
 
It’s all in the Family. In a world that seems to devalue the family unit, Family Day (Yom HaMishpacha) in Israel on Feb 9 is a day to honor the family unit and its centrality to our lives. Israel has 2.25 million families with about half having two parents and at least one child under the age of 17.
https://www.jns.org/2-25-million-families-in-israel-average-of-3-69-members-each/
 
See Israel through the eyes of the IDF. If you, your children, or grandchildren live in the USA, are aged 21-39 and want to gain a deep understanding of IDF soldiers’ mission in the current war, register for the Friends of the IDF’s National Young Leadership Mission to Israel from May 24 to May 30, 2024.
https://www.fidf.org/national-young-leadership-mission-to-israel/
 
Visitors. (TY Nevet) Friendly visitors to Israel in Jan included Chechia President Petr Pavel, former US Vice President Mike Pence, 9 UN envoys, 22 EU lawmakers, 40 US JCC leaders, 50 Hadassah leaders, Palantir directors, US student leaders, Christian Zionists, Indian influencers, Iran’s opposition leader, and many more.
https://www.broaderview.org/visitors/
 
50,000 volunteers mobilized. Last week’s article about Lev Echad (One Heart – see here) supporting wounded IDF soldiers didn’t give the US charity enough credit. Since Oct 7, some 50,000 volunteers have run Israeli mental health hotlines; supported displaced Israeli families and reservists; distributed food, and much more.
https://www.israel21c.org/50000-volunteers-give-from-their-hearts-through-one-heart/

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BOOKS Comments turned off

CHAPTER 5: America Requires an Educational Revolution Space Is No Longer the Final Frontier—Reality Is [upcoming release April 2024]

By on February 11th, 2024

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/27547/chapter-5-america-requires-an-educational

Critical thinking is the objective analysis of facts in order to form a judgment. It is the foundation of rational thought. Critical thinking depends upon accurate information, otherwise known as facts, and therefore relies upon objective reality. The ability to remain in objective reality is threatened when disinformation, misinformation, fiction, and fantasy (all forms of subjective reality) are presented as fact. It is impossible to make an informed decision without an accurate source of information.

Reading is the essential foundational skill individual citizens use to access information and make informed decisions. Together, reading, writing, and arithmetic are the communication tools that equip children with agency. Understanding the psychological concept of agency is extremely important to our discussion. Encyclopedia.com[i]defines and discusses agency:

The concept of agency as a psychological dimension refers to the process of behaving with intentionality. Human beings exercise agency when they intentionally influence their own functioning, environments, life circumstances, and destiny. To posit that human beings have agency is to contend that they are self-organizing, proactive, self-regulating, and self-reflecting rather than reactively shaped by environmental forces or driven by concealed inner impulses.

Reading provides agency for learning because textbooks, including math and science textbooks, require the ability to read. Reading provides a sense of independence, accomplishment, and self-sufficiency. Competence is the mother of self-esteem, and learning to read is a seismic shift in a child’s perception of self. The child begins to feel his or her power. Encyclopedia.com continues:

To exercise human agency, people must believe in their capability to attain given ends. These self-efficacy beliefs are the foundation of human motivation, well-being, and accomplishment. Whatever other factors serve as guides and motivators, they are rooted in the core belief that one has the power to effect changes by one’s actions, that one’s locus of control is internal rather than external. This is because unless people believe that their actions can produce the outcomes they desire, they have little incentive to act or to persevere in the face of difficulties.

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