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Ruth King

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Harvard’s Federal Funds at Risk over Anti-Semitism Investigation By Eric Lendrum

By on March 27th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/26/harvards-federal-funds-at-risk-over-anti-semitism-investigation/

Harvard University could lose over $500 million in federal funding after it has been accused of obstructing a congressional probe into anti-Semitism on campus.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the threat was made by Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which is leading the investigation into allegations of systemic anti-Semitism at Harvard and other elite universities in the United States. In the aftermath of the October 7th attacks on Israel, there have been numerous riots, protests, and other instances of anti-Semitic rhetoric, committed overwhelmingly by college-aged agitators and sometimes taking place on campus. Jewish students have been increasingly harassed by anti-Israel activists in the months since the war began.

Harvard received $625 million in federal funds alone in the year 2021, making up 67% of its total sponsored revenue. The Ivy League school could be at risk of losing all of this money after it has stonewalled the committee’s efforts to further investigate the nature of such anti-Semitism on campus, as well as possible lenience on the administration’s part towards the anti-Israel forces.

“The ultimate thing is obviously, trying to hold back some of their money if they’re just not going to make the students safe,” said Foxx in an interview. “That’s always an option for us.”

In February, the committee issued a subpoena for Harvard regarding documents that detailed the university’s handling of anti-Semitism. The university has been slow in handing over documents, including sending numerous documents that were heavily redacted.

“It’s hard to know whether it’s arrogance, ineptness, or indifference that is guiding Harvard,” Foxx continued. “They know the investigation is not going away.”

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MEDIA Comments turned off

NBC News Officially Bans Republicans From Working There “No organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned.” by Daniel Greenfield

By on March 27th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/nbc-news-officially-bans-republicans-from-working-there/

For the longest time, the media played this game of pretending that it doesn’t consist entirely of a bunch of leftist activists who exist to promote their political agenda and attack those of their political opponents.

The pretense is wearing thin. And who knew that Ronna McDaniel of all people would be the breaking point? But it’s kind of like the way that the media’s attacks on dishwater liberals like McCain and Romney, portraying them as Hitler 2.0 just because they posed a threat to Obama, helped kill the media’s credibility.

The attacks on McCain and Romney made it clear that it wasn’t about “conservatives” or “right-wingers”, the media was out to destroy anyone running as a Republican and would tell the same lies about them.

Now NBC News has officially banned Republicans, even ones like Ronna McDaniel, from working there.

Ceasar Conde, the Chair of NBCUniversal News, issued a statement purging Ronna McDaniel while declaring that, “no organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned.”

Conde claimed that McDaniel was hired in order to present “audiences with a widely diverse set of viewpoints”, but that gets in the way of a “cohesive and aligned” newsroom where everyone shares the same politics.

In his conclusion, Conde claims that NBC News still wants to “seek voices that represent different parts of the political spectrum.”

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Trump Could Pull Off The Greatest Political Comeback In American History Paul F. Petrick

By on March 27th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/03/27/trump-could-pull-off-the-greatest-political-comeback-in-american-history/

Having secured sufficient delegates to become the first thrice-nominated Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon and the only person to bear the GOP standard in three consecutive elections, Donald Trump moves closer to completing the greatest political comeback in American history.

A Trump triumph in November would far surpass any previous political rehabilitation, including Nixon’s 1968 victory. Despite the effortless manner in which Trump dispatched his intraparty rivals, the road to a Trump Restoration remains perilous. Not since Napoleon returned from Elba has the global establishment been so focused on the defeat of one man. Luckily for Trump, he is an authority on comebacks.

“Not since Napoleon returned from Elba has the global establishment been so focused on the defeat of one man.”

“The Art of the Comeback” (1997) was published by Random House almost exactly 10 years after the same publisher released “The Art of the Deal” (1987). Sequels, being derivative in nature, are rarely superior to the first installment. But this one is because Kate Bohner is a better ghostwriter than Tony Schwartz. Nevertheless, the volumes are similar. In both books, Trump’s edifice complex is on full display. Each is essentially a photo album of skyscrapers. But “Comeback” is more relevant to Trump’s present situation.

“Comeback” contains the story of Trump’s return from near insolvency when the early 1990s recession devastated the New York real estate market. “Survive ‘til ‘95” was the mantra Trump put into practice via a complex restructuring of his business’ debt, much of which he had personally guaranteed. His back against the wall, Trump persuaded creditors that they were better off if he were a going concern. And when the economy roared back stronger than ever, so did Trump. Other developers were not so fortunate.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China’s ‘Unrestricted Warfare’: Is It Here Already? by Pete Hoekstra

By on March 27th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20519/china-unrestricted-warfare

China-linked hackers appear to be looking to attack U.S. infrastructure, especially key components such as the electrical grid, water reservoirs and treatment plants, pipelines, and transportation and communications systems, among other targets.

The goal is seemingly to disrupt the U.S. everything critical to life – if you have no electricity, your cellphone will not work; no water will come out of the tap; gas pumps will not pump gas; flights and trains will stop, and disease from disabled sewage treatment plants will spread. There will be havoc and panic. The government and military will be unable to protect the nation. That is what is meant by “unrestricted warfare.” Not a bullet was fired. It did not have to be. According to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, it is perfect.

What are some of the steps that should be taken?

The West has correctly identified the CCP as the malign threat that it is; now we have a responsibility to put into place the measures and deterrents to prevent it from attacking us through cyberspace or any other way. Let us not wait until we experience a 9/11-scale cyberattack that could be far more damaging to the U.S. than what took place on that dark day more than 20 years ago.

If there is one thing FBI Director Christopher Wray has been consistent on, it is the threat of Communist China across a wide range of fronts. At an unprecedented event on July 6, 2022, Wray and his British counterpart, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum, held a joint public appearance – the first ever — to discuss the growing security challenge posed by China. Evidently, they saw the matter as urgent.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Evan Gershkovich’s Year in a Russian Prison Vladimir Putin believes there’s no downside to arresting Americans.

By on March 27th, 2024

https://www.wsj.com/articles/evan-gershkovich-one-year-in-prison-russia-vladimir-putin-journalism-677f9c50?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Friday marks the ugly anniversary of Russia’s arrest and continuing imprisonment of our reporter Evan Gershkovich. On Tuesday he was ordered held for another three months at the request of Russia’s Security Service, though he hasn’t been formally charged or put on trial.

The Kremlin claims he is suspected of spying, but his real offense is honest reporting. If he does go to trial, any charges and evidence will be wholly invented.

By the accounts of those who have seen Evan, he has held up remarkably well in notorious Lefortovo prison. That’s a tribute to his character and upbringing. His parents have been relentless advocates and kept his case in front of the public and U.S. officials. The 32-year-old is a brave and sturdy man coping as well as anyone can with unjust confinement and the uncertainty of when it will end.

The Journal has also not let up in its campaign to free Evan. A publication like ours asks reporters, especially the young and intrepid, to shine a light on often dangerous places for the benefit of our readers. Reporters know risk is part of the job, but we do as much as possible to reduce that risk.

Yet there is no protection against a willful regime intent on taking an American hostage. Evan is the first American journalist taken by the Kremlin since the end of the Cold War, and he was accredited to report in the country by the Russian Foreign Ministry. His last dispatch before his arrest described how the Russian economy isn’t as healthy as advertised and made news worldwide.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

2024 artificially inflated Palestinian demography Yoram Ettinger

By on March 27th, 2024

http://bit.ly/3IPDd5S

Palestinian demographic numbers are highly-inflated, as documented by a study, which has audited the Palestinian data since 2004.  For example:

*500,000 Arabs, who have been away for over a year, are included in the census, contrary to international regulations. 325,000 were included in the 1997 census, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, and 400,000 in 2005, according to the Palestinian Election Commission. The number grows steadily due to births.

*350,000 East Jerusalem Arabs are doubly-counted – by Israel and by the Palestinian Authority. The number grows steadily due to births.

*Over 150,000 Arabs, who married Israeli Arabs are similarly doubly counted. The number expands steadily due to births.   

*A 413,000 net-emigration (since the 1997 first Palestinian census) is ignored by the Palestinian census, overlooking the annual net-emigration since 1950. A 23,445 net-emigration in 2022 and a 20,000 annual average in recent years have been documented by Israel’s Population and Migration Authority in all international passages.  

*A 32% artificial inflation of Palestinian births was documented by the World Bank (page 8, item 6) in a 2006 audit.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

A new word to trick Israel Moshe Phillips

By on March 27th, 2024

https://worldisraelnews.com/a-new-word-to-trick-israel/

A change from ‘demilitarized’ to ‘nonmilitarized,’ didn’t just slip through without anybody noticing.

Nineteen Democratic U.S. senators have called on President Biden to “recognize a nonmilitarized Palestinian state.” Until now, congressional supporters of Palestinian statehood have always used the term “demilitarized.” Why the sudden change?

There’s just no way it was an accident. Letters signed by U.S. senators are reviewed and revised by a large team of writers and public relations advisers. In this case, the staffs of nineteen different senators reviewed and approved this letter dated March 20. A change like this, from “demilitarized” to “nonmilitarized,” didn’t just slip through without anybody noticing.

Especially when “nonmilitarized” is such a peculiar term. Throughout modern history “demilitarized” has always been the conventional term. Somebody made a conscious decision to change the word. Here’s a theory as to why. It involves two reasons.

The first reason for the change is rhetorical. A major problem for advocates of “demilitarization” is that it has a long history of not working. The most famous example is the German territory of the Rhineland, which was supposed to be demilitarized after World War One—that is, until Hitler decided to remilitarize it. And the world stood idly by.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

America’s abstention gives hope to Hamas:Ruthie Blum

By on March 27th, 2024

https://www.jns.org/americas-abstention-gives-hope-to-hamas/

All one needs to know about U.N. Security Council Resolution 2728 is that Hamas was pleased with its passage. Following Monday’s near-unanimous vote—from which the United States disgracefully abstained—the terrorist organization that openly aims to annihilate the Jewish state praised the UNSC for its decision.
In an online statement, the murderous regime that rules the Gaza Strip called on the United Nations to “pressure the occupation [its name for Israel] to adhere to the ceasefire and stop the war of genocide and ethnic cleansing against our people.”

Never mind that Hamas carefully planned and proudly executed the Oct. 7 massacre, committing the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust. Forget that its foot soldiers chose the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, which fell on the Sabbath, to go on a sadistic spree of sexual abuse, torture, arson and abduction of innocent men, women and children.

Ignore the fact that it still holds 134 hapless victims of its carefully planned rampage in brutal captivity. The simple truth, which Hamas grasps and uses as an additional weapon in its now-shrinking arsenal, is that the world cannot bear to see Israel fight back; certainly not against Palestinians or their Islamist backers in Tehran.
Imagine Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar’s dismay, then, when the Obama-cloned White House and State Department not only paid lip service to “Israel’s right to defend itself,” but put its money where its mouth was with a supply of arms to assist in the war effort.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Steeped in Fragility Jonathan Haidt describes how a smartphone-based childhood works against making children resilient.Carolyn D. Gorman

By on March 26th, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/how-smartphone-based-childhood-works-against-making-children-resilient

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, by Jonathan Haidt (Penguin Random House, 400 pp., $30)

In 2018’s The Coddling of The American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt contended that kids are inherently “antifragile”—that is, they benefit from adversity. But instead of “preparing the child for the road, not the road for the child,” parents have surrendered to bad ideas and practices that foster a culture of emotional fragility, with its calls for safe spaces, trigger warnings, and censorship.

Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation, is a thematic extension of this argument. It describes how Gen Z—those born after 1995, the first “to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets”—has been made fragile by the transition from a play-based to a smartphone-based childhood. The virtual environment of social media, Haidt contends, amplifies extreme ideas and worsens cognitive distortions, swelling this cohort’s rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, and self-harm.

Haidt chronicles how the shift to a phone-based childhood affects learning. It deprives children of experiences that make them productive participants in a democratic society. One reason that kids play is to practice adult skills like independently resolving conflicts. Virtual environments don’t offer this practice—kids can just log off or leave a chat to avoid disputes—while crowding out time spent on real-world activities that do. Unsupervised physical play, with opportunity for low-cost mistakes and even some criticism and teasing, are crucial for learning interpersonal skills and building resilience.

Ironically, while we overemphasize protecting children from the slightest physical or emotional harm in the real world, the virtual world has greater potential for danger. In this realm, parents can’t reward kids with increasing levels of responsibility and independence as they get older. Age does not exist online; little more is needed than, say, checking a box without verification to access a webpage meant for those over 18.

Social media exploits our natural sensitivity to others’ opinions and actions. Haidt describes how evolutionary pressures have rewarded those who learn to conform and who pick the right people to copy. Millions of followers or likes on a post tell young people what they should do to fit in. Social media’s architecture is designed to make the most extreme content go viral. It’s easy to see how constant exposure to the pseudo-norms of a virtual environment, whether radical political ideas or unattainable standards of wealth, beauty, and success, can lead to sustained negative feelings.

The virality of social media presents other dangers. A social miscalculation among a few kids on the playground can help children calibrate their behavior; the same mistake on the Internet can result in thousands—or even millions—of harassing comments and will live online forever.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, BOOKS Comments turned off

The New American Anti-Semitism: The Left, the Right, and the Jews by Benjamin Ginsberg

By on March 26th, 2024

The New American Anti-Semitism: The Left, the Right, and the Jews is a clarion call—not only to Jews, but to all Americans. As a nation, we must wake up and face the rising anti-Semitic threat and act accordingly.

But that threat is not coming from its usual source. The most virulent form of anti-Semitism today, Ginsberg warns, is the result of toxic identity politics and anti-Israeli sentiment coming from today’s political Left.

Perhaps the most persecuted people in all of history, Jews have stood tall in the face of unprecedented persecution in all places, at all times. Their culture’s rigorous emphasis on education and achievement catapults them, Ginsberg argues, to the upper echelons of the societies in which they live. But their success too often breeds resentment and jealousy, leading to an ugly anti-Semitism that has led, historically, to unspeakable violence.

In this urgent new work, Dr. Benjamin Ginsberg—political scientist, professor, and bestselling author—exposes the ugly face of this new, progressive anti-Semitism (which is also thriving in Europe). To combat it, he urges American Jews to form new political alliances, particularly with evangelical Christians.

The stakes of not doing so, says Ginsberg, are horrifically high—not only for the survival of the Jewish people, but for America’s survival. After all, the Jews have contributed immeasurably to America’s scientific, cultural, and economic achievements. Jews have been good for America; and America has been good to the Jews. But what once was so can change … and Jews can never afford to forget their history.

Read this book and learn:

Why the Jews have always persisted in the face of persecution;
Why the new face of Jewish persecution has found a home on university campuses, Left-leaning media outlets, and other unlikely places;
The high and horrible costs of anti-Semitism;
The profound benefits of philo-Semitism;
The details of the new alliances that must be made to ensure the continuing success of American Jews—and America itself;
And much, much more…

In this must-read tour de force, Ginsberg enlightens readers by tracing the history of the Jewish people—starting from the children of Abraham and ending with Jews today—and urging all Jews and all Americans to learn the lessons of that history. Now.

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