ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Welcome to Hamassachusetts By Frannie Block and Will Sussman

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/welcome-to-hamassachusetts?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

‘Rampant and ubiquitous antisemitism’ is making its way into the largest teachers union in New England, lawmakers say.

Inside the Massachusetts statehouse on Monday, State Representative Simon Cataldo displayed the image of a dollar bill folded into a Star of David in front of a packed audience of teachers, activists, and staffers. They were there to attend a hearing on the state of antisemitism in Massachusetts public schools.
(All visuals courtesy of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism)

“You’d agree that this is antisemitic imagery, correct?” Cataldo, who co-chairs the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism, asked Max Page, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA)—the largest union in New England, representing 117,000 members.

“I’m not gonna evaluate that,” Page responds calmly.

Cataldo pressed him. “Is it antisemitic?”

Page continued to sit stoically, before breaking into a smile. “You’re trying to get away from the central point,” Page said, “which is that we provide imagery, we provide resources for our members to consider, in their own intelligent, professional way.”

In fact, this image is referenced in materials recently made available to Massachusetts educators for teaching about the Middle East. Entitled “Resources on Israel and Occupied Palestine,” the union’s Training and Professional Learning Division developed the framework “for learning about the history and current events in Israel and Occupied Palestine, for MTA members to use with each other and their students.” Last December, the union published the resource document on a webpage accessible only to MTA members.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Virtue Signaling Now Means You Have To Sell That Tesla

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/02/18/virtue-signaling-now-means-you-have-to-sell-that-tesla/

Remember when all the best people, the elites and elitists among us, the correct thinkers, the self-appointed guardians of all things good, were buying electric vehicles, particularly Teslas? What a terrific way for them to demonstrate their green street cred. But that’s passé. The latest in look-at-me virtue signaling is selling that Tesla to make an important political statement.

Because Tesla CEO Elon Musk is aiding President Donald Trump in rooting out federal waste and corruption, he’s become a villain to the left. To be caught in one his cars is simply an embarrassment to status seekers and the prigs obsessed with placing themselves on Barack Obama’s “right side of history.” So like entertainer Sheryl Crow, they have to unload their Teslas, and, naturally, do it as loudly as possible.

Last week, Crow “dramatically bid adieu to her black Tesla,” the New York Post reported, to protest the man she tagged on her Instagram account as “#PresidentMusk.”

Crow took to social media on Friday to reveal she had sold the electric car and was donating the money to NPR, “which Musk has repeatedly called to defund as his Department of Government Efficiency looks to slash federal funding.”

“My parents always said … you are who you hang out with,” wrote Crow. “There comes a time when you have to decide who you are willing to align with. So long Tesla.”

IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Understanding the Fight Over Birthright Citizenship By John Fonte

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://tomklingenstein.com/understanding-the-fight-over-birthright-citizenship/

President Donald Trump has triggered the beginning of a national debate on automatic birthright citizenship. On his first day back in office, the president signed an executive order ending the practice. Almost immediately a court temporarily blocked the executive order. At the same time, legislation was quickly introduced in Congress to end automatic birthright citizenship, essentially supporting the executive order. No doubt this dance will continue with appeals and counter-appeals in the courts and actions in the Congress. 

Let us step back and review the over 150-year history of birthright citizenship and its significance for the core American principle of “government by the consent of the governed.” 

The majority of the American political and legal establishment argues that the 14th Amendment is clear: Anyone born in the United States (with the exception of the children of foreign diplomats and enemy soldiers) is automatically an American citizen whether their parents are in the country legally or illegally.

The relevant clause of the 14th Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Although there is no explicit exception for diplomats and enemy soldiers, these exceptions have long been understood to be covered by “jurisdiction.”

The Contours of the Debate

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Don’t Be Fooled: The Palestinian Authority Did Not Halt Payments To Terrorists by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21401/palestinian-authority-payments-to-terrorists

“Abbas claims to have ended the ‘Pay for Slay’ program – but it’s just a rebranding… Terrorists and their families will still receive payments, just through a ‘foundation’ under Abbas’s control instead of a ministry. The new foundation remains tied to the PA, making this a deceptive move, not real reform. The PA must truly end terror payments and incitement – not just change how they guise them.” — Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, X.com, February 12, 2025.

The Palestinian Authority has made it clear that it is making this change not because it believes it is wrong to fund terror, but because it needs US money. The Arabic version of the decree clearly states that the main goal is to “restore international aid programs that were suspended in the past years, which we need to implement development and economic recovery programs.”

While several international media outlets continue to argue that Abbas halted the payments to the terrorists, Monica al-Jaghoub, a senior official with the PA’s ruling Fatah faction (headed by Abbas), denied the claims.

The reality is that Abbas did not — and never will — stop the payments to terrorists and their families.

Did Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas halt payments to Palestinian terrorists and their families? Or is he just trying to fool the Americans to persuade them to resume financial aid to the PA?

On February 10, the American media outlet Axios reported:

“Abbas has issued a decree revoking the system of payments to families of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails or to families of Palestinians who were killed or wounded during attacks against Israelis.”

The payment program is known as “Pay for Slay.”

PA officials told Axios that they hope Abbas’s decision will improve relations with the Trump administration and with Congress and lead to the resumption of US financial aid to the PA.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Houellebecq’s Annihilation: an unlikely antidote to nihilism His final novel strikes a rare note of hope among his usual cynicism and despair. Neil McCarthy

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/16/houellebecqs-annihilation-an-unlikely-antidote-to-nihilism/

French master Michel Houellebecq has said that his latest novel, Annihilation, will be his last. If that does prove to be true, his departure will deprive us of a rare literary voice.

There is simply no one quite like Houellebecq. Through his novels he is able to explore the mood of the times, our spiritual malaise, in a way few other writers can. Take his last great succès de scandale – his 2015 novel, Submission. It dramatised the self-induced decline of the West and the rise of Islamism. And it did so by convincingly presenting the seemingly impossible – an Islamist political party assuming governmental power in France – as something entirely predictable and chillingly banal. He painted a picture of a political and cultural elite all too eager to collaborate with and ultimately submit to an Islamist regime.

Submission quickly acquired a tragic poignancy. On 7 January 2015, the exact day the novel was due to be published in France, two French-born Islamist gunmen massacred the staff of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on the grounds it had insulted Islam. Houellebecq suspended all promotional activities and left Paris to lie low.

At the same time, in an echo of the themes of Submission, too few among the French political class were willing to stand up for free speech, a fundamental principle of Western liberal democracies. Instead, they criticised Charlie Hebdo for its mockery of Islam. French prime minister Manuel Valls denounced ‘hatred’ and ‘intolerance’ towards Islam and Muslims. Tellingly, he insisted that ‘France is not Michel Houellebecq’.

We’re now a decade on from the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Houellebecq’s Anéantir, originally published in January 2022, was finally translated into English and published as Annihilation in late 2024.

This delay in publishing the translation is striking. Houellebecq’s previous novel, Serotonin, was published in France in January 2019 and the English translation appeared just months later. Contractual difficulties reportedly played a role in the delay of Annihilation. But it’s hard not to suspect that the increasing provincialisation of the Anglosphere played a role, too. In the 1950s and 1960s, the films of François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, or the novels of Françoise Sagan and Marguerite Duras, were part of the culture here as well as in France. Today, the latest French novels or films barely register in the English-speaking world.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

President Trump’s policy toward Israel – underlying assumptions Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

bit.ly/3X0cuLm

 
1. President Trump is not an impartial leader. As expected, he is driven by US interests, determining that Israel’s capabilities and track record have been a unique force and dollar multiplier for the US, commercially and militarily, technologically and operationally.

2. President Trump views Islamic terrorism as a threat to Western democracies, including the US (“The Great American Satan”) – a mutual threat to both the US and Israel. He is aware of NATO’s vacillation (No Action Talk Only), and its unwillingness to flex any effective military and political muscle against Islamic terrorism. Also, all pro-US Arab regimes have the machetes of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood at their throats. Thus, Israel is the most potent, reliable and experienced ally in the US’ battle against Islamic terrorism. Trump views Israel as an essential ally in his attempt to end wars and terrorism, which requires the obliteration – not containment – of the epicenters of war and terrorism (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, Hamas and Hezbollah).

3. President Trump aspires to minimize US military presence in the Middle East. However, he does not ignore the critical role played by the Middle East as the main epicenter of global anti-US Islamic terrorism and drug trafficking, and the site of 48% of global oil reserves. Also, the Middle East is a junction of critical trade routes between Asia and West Europe, stretching between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf and between Europe, Asia and Africa. President Trump considers Israel as the only effective ally to fill in the vacuum created by a US military withdrawal, serving as a US strategic beachhead, while not requiring US military personnel, only US military hardware – the largest US aircraft carrier with no Americans on board.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Trump Calls Education Department a ‘Con Job,’ Wants It Closed ‘Immediately’ “If we’re ranked No. 40, that means something’s really wrong.” by Robert Spencer

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trump-calls-education-department-a-con-job-wants-it-closed-immediately/

Could the Department of Education (DOE), a massive boondoggle that has done nothing but oversee a decline in the quality of American education and the substitution of wokeism for readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic, really go away? If Donald Trump wins yet another victory, it will.

Fox News reported Wednesday that reporters asked Trump how soon he wanted the department closed. “Oh, I’d like it to be closed immediately,” the president replied. “Look at the Department of Education. It’s a big con job. They ranked the top countries in the world. We’re ranked No. 40, but we’re ranked No. 1 in one department: cost per pupil. So, we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, but we’re ranked No. 40.” Trump also “said the last time he looked at where the U.S. ranked in education, it was 38th, but then he looked two days ago, and the country had fallen to No. 40.”

Trump also noted that China’s educational system appears to be in fine condition: “As big as it is, it’s ranked in the top five, and that’s our… primary competitor. So, if we’re ranked No. 40, that means something’s really wrong.”

Yes. And it has been wrong for a very long time. Jimmy Carter established the Department of Education, and one of Ronald Reagan’s campaign promises was that he would close it, as it was an unnecessary centralization and bureaucratization of an educational system that had been getting along fine without a Cabinet-level federal agency. When Reagan took office, he appointed Terrel Bell to be his secretary of education, with the explicit task of dismantling the department. In this case, however, the swamp beat the Gipper, and the Education department stayed open.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Is There a Democrat Blueprint to Regain Power? Democrats seem stuck in a cycle of rage and resistance, recycling failed anti-Trump tactics while losing ground with voters and donors alike. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/17/is-there-a-democrat-blueprint-to-regain-power/

“The voters’ problem with the new Democratic Party is not just that they are old and unhinged, but that they are so wearily and predictably boring.”

What is the long-term Democratic Party’s strategy to return to power?

Americans may ask that only because so far, the Democrat agenda seems to entail polarizing and alienating as many voters as possible.

They gleefully double down on their 2024 defeat. And they seem almost to grow ecstatic at ensuring that Donald Trump and his record poll at unprecedented highs.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) rants on national TV that Trump is a d—k and promises to go to “war” against him.

Democratic representatives chant “f—k Trump” on national television.

Senator “Spartacus” Booker (D-NJ) almost daily shouts to high heaven and barks out promises of massive resistance, proving he is far crazier than his allegedly crazy Trump.

During the recent cabinet confirmations, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Tim Kaine lost their minds in impotent rage at the nominees and played the fools—furious at a few timid Democrat suggestions to tone it down.

Democrats bark that Elon Musk is even more Satanic than Trump.

They swarm and try to break into the Department of Education. They shut down the LA freeways. And in the case of illegal aliens, they wave the flag of the nation they fled from, while burning the flag of the nation in which they demand to remain.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Trump Gets Broad Backing On Illegal Immigration Crackdown: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/02/17/trump-gets-broad-backing-on-illegal-immigration-crackdown-ii-tipp-poll/

President Donald Trump’s actions since reclaiming the Oval Office to secure America’s borders, remove criminals and keep other illegal immigrants out are proving to be highly popular among American voters, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows. Even a significant share of Democrats support Trump’s policies.

If you’re looking for a reason why Trump won so handily against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, illegal immigration looms large. The online national I&I/TIPP Poll, taken from Jan. 29-31, asked 1,478 adults around the country four questions about Trump’s immigration policies and the actions he has taken so far. The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points.

The first question: “Do you support or oppose Trump’s promise of large-scale deportations of illegal migrants?” By a roughly 3-to-2 majority, voters back this idea. The actual numbers: 57% say they support it either “strongly” (35%) or “somewhat” (22%), while just 35% oppose it “strongly” (22%) or “somewhat” (13%). Another 8% aren’t sure.

How does that split with regard to political affiliation? Republicans (85% support, 11% oppose) and independents (54% support, 37% oppose) both gave strong backing.

What about the Democrats? A solid majority oppose it, at 59%, but 31% (nearly one in three) support it. And that support likely comes from two pillars of the Democratic Party: black voters (43% support, 45% oppose) and Hispanic voters (46% support, 44% oppose).

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Pakistan: Christian Girls Abducted, Raped, Forcibly Converted to Islam

Posted By on February 16th, 2025

https://jihadwatch.org/2025/02/pakistan-christian-girls-abducted-raped-forcibly-converted-to-islam?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pakistan-christian-girls-abducted-raped-forcibly-converted-to-islam

The number of Pakistani Christian girls abducted, abused, and forcefully converted to Islam with the law’s consent is growing.

In January, the Christian Daily International-Morning Star News reported the following cases:

On January 5, a married, 35-year-old Muslim neighbor of a 12-year-old Christian girl, Saba Shafique, abducted her in Punjab Province. He took her to another province, where he forcibly converted her to Islam and married her, her father said.
On January 9, five Muslims abducted a 14-year-old Christian girl, Saneha Sharif, from outside her home in Punjab. Sharif Masih said he fears the kidnappers may try to forcibly convert his daughter to Islam and force her to marry one of the Muslim suspects.
On January 20, three Muslims abducted a 12-year-old Christian girl, Ariha Gulzar, at gunpoint from her home in Punjab. They have threatened to sell her into sexual slavery, her parents said.

These are not isolated cases. Many Christian girls as young as 7 — primarily from poor families and those with physical disabilities — are kidnapped, forcibly married, sexually assaulted and forced to convert to Islam on the pain of death. Some are trafficked into slave labor and the sex trade. Christian and Hindu parents are getting increasingly fearful of allowing their daughters to walk alone outside. Perpetrators are increasingly supported by Islamic religious leaders and enjoy de facto impunity for their actions.

Many Christian families never see their girls again, the state authorities rarely take meaningful action to bring perpetrators to justice, and police are often biased, refusing to file reports from Christian families.

According to the 2024 Pakistan country report by Open Doors, a human rights organization, Christian persecution in the country comes from government officials, Islamic religious leaders, violent Islamic groups and revolutionaries or paramilitary groups, political parties, ideological pressure groups and normal citizens – in other words, almost the entire country.

Discrimination and challenges for Christians are prevalent at every government tier and even in secular environments, notes Open Doors. This is true for the army, the judicial and the administrative services as well (especially at the local level) although Christians continue to serve in these areas.

The Movement for Solidarity and Peace calculates that in Pakistan up to 1,000 young Christian and Hindu girls and young women aged between 12 and 25 are abducted by Muslim men every year. The research, which suggests that Christians make up 70 percent of these cases, found that the scale of the problem “is likely to be much greater as a number of the cases are never reported and do not progress through law enforcement and the legal systems”. Many of the girls suffer rape, forced prostitution, human trafficking and domestic abuse.