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“Sol Sanders”

Unlike Their Membership, Teacher Union Leaders Are Far Left Ignoring the rank and file. by Larry Sand

https://www.frontpagemag.com/unlike-its-membership-teacher-union-leaders-are-far-left/

The teacher union leadership is in a collective snit after it became clear that Donald Trump would be reelected as U.S. president. American Federation of Teachers boss Randi Weingarten stated in a press release on Nov. 9, “At this moment, the country is more divided than ever, and our democracy is in jeopardy. Last night, we saw fear and anger win.”

National Education Association boss Becky Pringle was somber, posting on Facebook, “We woke up today to a world that feels darker than it did yesterday. I hear the fear about the safety of our families and communities. I feel the profound anxiety for the future of our country. I see the worry, anger, and heartbreak. But despair is not the answer.”

Pringle’s post was widely contested in the comments section, however. Typifying the pushback, educator Laurie Speed posted, “I wish that you would not assume that all of your members are liberals. Many voted for Trump, and they are feeling optimistic. I wish NEA were bipartisan. The education of our children is important to both parties. As educators, we can set the example for our students to follow regarding how to collaborate with others whose opinions differ from ours.”

Speed nails it! Ignoring its rank and file, teacher union leadership is far left, and has been for years. When NEA president Reg Weaver spoke at the Democratic Convention in 2008, his opening words were, “I am here today on behalf of 3.2 million NEA members to tell you why we support Barack Obama for president of the United States.”

It sounded as if every member of the NEA was backing Obama. Then, in his last sentence, he left no doubt. “That, my friends, is why the 3.2 million members of the National Education Association are organized, energized, and mobilized to help elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States of America.”

Yet, the same Reg Weaver stated a few years before that one-third of NEA membership is Republican, one-third Democrat, and one-third “other.”

Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence

https://jihadwatch.org/2024/11/tulsi-gabbard-director-of-national-intelligence?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tulsi-gabbard-director-of-national-intelligence

Tulsi Gabbard has just been appointed as the Director of National Intelligence. She has criticized the Biden administration for not being sufficiently supportive of Israel since October 7, 2023. She has spoken out about Islamic terrorism. She is a Hindu — she was sworn in as a congresswoman on a copy of the Bhagavad Gita — and that may mean she is aware of what the centuries of Muslim rule meant for the Hindus of India.

She was once a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, and even ran for president in 2020 in the Democratic primary. But since then she has had a road-to-Damascus conversion, and become a Republican. More on Tulsi Gabbard can be found here: “Trump selects Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence,” by Marc Rod, Jewish Insider, November 13, 2024:

…Gabbard, a military veteran, has been critical of the Biden administration for being insufficiently supportive of Israel since Oct. 7. She has been vocal against Islamic terrorism and has expressed strong support for the Jewish state, including at a speech at a Christians United for Israel conference during her time in Washington.

To see how far she has come, consider that in the past she voted against a House resolution condemning the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution opposing Israeli settlements. In 2019 she refused to condemn Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for antisemitic comments about U.S. support for Israel and voted for a resolution sponsored by Omar that aimed to defend the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. But Gabbard has since then clearly expressed her opposition to the BDS movement and voted for anti-BDS legislation. And in 2020, she even supported Bernie Sanders, a severe critic of Israel, to be President. But that was a world away from Tulsi Gabbard today; the former Democrat has been appearing at rallies for Donald Trump.

By 2022, she had moved rightward. In October 2024 she stood by Donald Trump at a rally and announced that she was joining the Republican Party. She explained that she found she agreed with the Republicans on the most important issues, including immigration. She described the Democratic Party as “unrecognizable” from what it had been twenty years before , and she attacked the “elitist cabal of warmongers” and “woke” ideologue” in the party.

She has said that anti-Israel college protesters are “antisemitic” and have become “puppets” of a “radical Islamist organization.” On October 7, 2024 she posted on Instagram that “Hamas’s horrific attack against Israel one year ago today that took the lives of approximately 1,200 Israelis at a music concert and in their homes, is a stark reminder of the ongoing short and long term threat of Islamist terrorism that continues to spread around the world today. Their goal is to establish a global Islamist caliphate, where all must live under their sharia law. Many leaders in the west have promised to defeat this threat and failed, because they refuse to acknowledge that it must be defeated ideologically and militarily.”

Calling All Jewish Democrats: It’s An Emergency Dire times require dire measures Andrew Pessin

https://andrewpessin.substack.com/p/calling-all-jewish-democrats-its?utm_medium=email

The following piece appeared by an anonymous author at the Elder of Ziyon blog. It’s the most detailed and documented case against Kamala Harris I have seen, arguing that her presidency poses an existential threat not only to Israel but to American Jewry. I think it should at least be read by every Jewish Democrat, so if you know any, please forward it.

Why I have requested anonymity for this piece:

In my place of work there is intense hostility to Israel. If I openly argued what I am about to argue, that anyone who cares about Israel and American Jewry cannot support the Democratic candidate for President, my professional status would be seriously compromised. To borrow the point made by another recent essay, that is why this essay both needs to be published, and to be anonymous. The situation is that dire.

I am a lifelong Democrat.

But I also support Israel and American Jewry.

After October 7 the two are no longer compatible.

There are many issues I care about, for which the Democratic Party has traditionally been the better vehicle; but the current existential emergency for Israel and American-Jewry means that that issue must now take priority. Though it hurts to say it, this lifelong Democrat cannot vote for the current Democratic candidate for President. I am not the first to reach this conclusion. There’s even now a whole organization called “Jexit,” for Jews exiting the Democratic Party. With great regret I realize I must now join them, for the following now strikes me as indisputable:

Harris-Walz will be a disaster for Israel and for American Jewry.

There have been some positive moments. Biden-Harris said the right things immediately after October 7, and allowed the U.S. Navy to be present in the region at a couple of important times, for which an Israel-advocate rightly feels gratitude. But aside from these and their occasional banal remark about believing in Israel’s right to defend itself—doesn’t every country have the right to defend itself?—heaps and mounds of evidence point unambiguously toward that dire conclusion. The mound begins from the fact that every single time Biden-Harris say Israel may defend itself, the next word is invariably a “but”— “how it does so matters,” “too many civilians have died,” etc. Since, as Michael Oren explains so clearly, no one can explain “how an enemy that hides behind and beneath millions of civilians can be fought without causing collateral damage,” then Biden-Harris’s allowing Israel to defend itself only if it doesn’t cause civilian casualties amounts to their not actually giving Israel the right to defend itself. As I write, in September of 2024, it’s hardly surprising that Hamas leader Khaled Meshal is praising Biden-Harris for helping Hamas to remain in power, for always waiting patiently for and listening to Hamas’s demands in negotiations and for pressuring Israel to submit, and for elevating Hamas to the status of a legitimate diplomatic partner. What Meshal is gushing over is not the behavior of an ally of Israel, but of an administration that has largely taken the side of Israel’s enemies.

Kamala’s Fear of the Media How, exactly, does she intend to engage with Putin, Xi and Kim Jong Un? by Gary Franks

https://www.frontpagemag.com/kamalas-fear-of-the-media/

Fear. If you are afraid to engage the media, how can you be expected to engage with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Jinping Xi, Iran’s leaders, or North Korea’s Kim Jong Un?

Vice President Kamala Harris has been reluctant and has refused to hold a news conference in more than 66 days or give any one-on-one interviews with members of the national press, even before becoming the Democratic nominee for president.

President Joe Biden is Harris’s role model. He is another person who did not fully engage the media. Biden held the fewest news conferences than any modern-day president; facetiously, he ran his campaign in 2020 from his basement allegedly due to COVID.

So, why change? It has worked thus far. The liberal media is “OK” with that, apparently.

You can count on one hand in four years (and have fingers left over) the times Biden has had one-on-one meetings with Putin, Xi, Kim or any other American adversary. And how has that worked out? The world is in chaos.

In contrast, former President John F. Kennedy went eyeball to eyeball with Russia’s President Nikita Khrushchev over 60 years ago. Kennedy had news conferences and interviews with the press regularly. He forced Russia to remove its missiles from Cuba. Former Presidents Ronald Reagan and H.W. Bush met with Russian leaders and won the Cold War. Peace through strength.

Biden-Harris? Well, no. Either they do not like being challenged by adversaries (even the press), or they cannot respond to questions with their true feelings. Former President Donald Trump has never had that problem.

Liz Peek: Why is Kamala Harris keeping voters in the dark on her energy agenda?

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/4888721-kamala-harris-energy-policy

Almost nothing could be more important to the future of American workers than access to affordable energy. This is why Vice President Kamala Harris needs to come clean about her energy policy. 

Kowtowing to the climate zealots currently running unchecked in the Biden-Harris White House will lead to soaring electricity costs and clobber our country’s ability to compete in the industries of the future such as artificial intelligence.  

Harris has reversed herself on a number of issues, but none as critical as her stance on energy and on fracking.  

While in 2019 she promised to ban fracking, today her campaign says she’s changed her mind. She hasn’t explained why she flip-flopped. She doesn’t need to; we know she needs to win the Pennsylvania’s electoral votes to win the election, and fracking is a large source of employment and revenues in the Keystone State. Therefore, Harris is playing nice and not threatening to put some 400,000 workers out of the job.  

Conservatives don’t believe Harris. Apparently, neither do progressives. Green New Deal enthusiast Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), recently said, “On climate, on abortion, on racial, LGBTQ issues, we are absolutely in agreement on her agenda.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that in walking back many of her progressive positions, Harris was just “doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.” 

In her debate with Donald Trump, Harris touted the record oil production that has occurred during the Biden-Harris administration. And it is true: output recently reached a new high of 13.2 million barrels per day, finally topping the 13 million per day peak recorded when Trump was president. That achievement, however, comes in spite of her and her boss’s efforts, not because of them. 

China Casting the Decisive Vote in U.S. Election by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20930/china-casting-the-decisive-vote-in-us-election

[W]hat about similar efforts of the far larger People’s Republic of China?

Attorney General Merrick Garland mentioned China in passing in remarks on the 4th—he promised to be “relentlessly aggressive” against foreign powers interfering in American elections and undermining democracy—but there were no indictments or other actions by his department, Treasury, or State against the Chinese regime for election-interference offenses.

It is clear that China, at this moment, is doing the same things as Russia, only on a larger scale.

“China’s trolls are conducting one of the world’s largest covert online influence operations. Its attack element is the group called ‘Spamouflage,’ and it is impersonating U.S. voters to denigrate U.S. politicians and push divisive messages ahead of the November 5 election.” — Kerry Gershaneck, former U.S. counterintelligence official, to Gatestone, September, 2024

The operation, reported Jack Stubbs, Graphika’s chief intelligence officer, was attempting “to portray the U.S. as this declining global power with weak political leadership and a failing system of governance.” The effort was comprehensive. As Stubbs said, this operation was run by “Chinese state-linked actors.”

This election cycle, Spamouflague achieved its greatest success on TikTok. That is probably not a coincidence as the Wall Street Journal “found TikTok pushing thousands of videos with political lies and hyperbole to its users.”

So, what are federal authorities doing about China now? Said Canfield: “Nothing, zero, zilch, nada.”

The Justice Department on September 4 announced it was seizing 32 internet domains “used in Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaigns colloquially referred to as ‘Doppelganger.'” DOJ also announced criminal charges against two Russian media executives.

Alan Dershowitz leaves Democratic Party, cites DNC: ‘I was disgusted’ Dershowitz: Louis Casiano

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/alan-dershowitz-leaves-democratic-party-cites-dnc-i-disgusted

Prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz announced his departure from the Democratic Party, citing several “anti-Jewish” lawmakers that make up the ranks of the party and the recent Democratic National Convention in which Vice President Kamala Harris became the party’s presidential nominee. 

Speaking with radio host Zev Brenner on “Talkline with Zev Brenner,” Dershowitz cited the DNC, which he said gave legitimacy to anti-Israel speakers, and anti-Israel protesters outside the gathering. 

“It was the most anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist convention I’ve experienced,” he said. “I was disgusted at the Democratic National Convention. Absolutely disgusted.”

“I am no longer a Democrat. I am an Independent,” he added, noting that he wouldn’t reveal whom he was voting for president until possibly after Nov. 1. “I want to see how they deal with Iran. I want to encourage the current administration to support Israel.”

The Harvard Law professor emeritus said his departure from the party was a long time coming and that he gradually resigned over time. 

“Alot of things pushed me in that direction,” he said. Dershowitz noted Harris’ failure to preside over a joint session of Congress during an address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played a big role in his decision. 

The Dangers of a President Kamala The coming election: Our Republic’s last chance? by Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-dangers-of-a-president-kamala/

As of now, Vice President Kamala Harris looks to be Donald Trump’s opponent in November. She’s secured the pledged support of enough delegates to the DNC for the nomination, and Biden’s $100 million war chest for now will go to her campaign, on top of the donations starting to pour in, and the Democrat Committee’s $91 million. Murkier are her chances against Donald Trump, who leads her in head-to-head polls, and whose campaign has been turbocharged by a spectacular Republican convention and a unified party.

But as Hillary Clinton learned in 2016, and Joe Biden just a few weeks ago, events and contingencies we often cannot predict can change everything in a day. That’s why in politics, as in war, one should heed Sun Tzu’s advice to “know your enemy as you know yourself.”

Harris’s weaknesses are well known from her stints as the District Attorney for San Francisco, Attorney General and Senator for California, and Vice President. All three offices are revealing of her leftist bent, “woke” prejudices, and big-government proclivities, but the latter is the most important job for revealing what kind of president she’ll be.

She is certain to follow Biden’s tax-spend-redistribute economic policies. As the Wall Street Journal writes, “So mark her down as endorsing the spending blowouts that caused inflation, the Green New Deal, entitlement expansions and student loan forgiveness. Until she says otherwise, we should also assume she’s in favor of Mr. Biden’s $5 trillion tax increase in 2025.”And don’t expect a President Harris to increase much-needed defense spending to restore our military’s dangerous deficits in both personnel and materiel.

The Biden Titanic Victor Davis Hanson

https://victorhanson.com/the-biden-titanic/

Joe Biden’s escalating dementia and the long media-political conspiracy to hide his senility from the public are the least of the Democrats’ current problems.

Biden’s track record as president may be more concerning than his cognitive decline. He has literally destroyed the U.S. border, deliberately allowing the entry of more than 10 million illegal aliens. His callous handlers’ agenda was to import abjectly poor constituencies in need of vast government services without regard for the current struggles of a battered American middle class and poor.

The widespread poverty of a vast new cohort of illegal immigrants could serve as indictments of a “racist,” “unequal,” and “unfair” America—as if the residents of East Palestine, Ohio or inner-city Chicago had anything to do with the centuries-long corruption and oppression of Mexico and Latin America that daily drives thousands of their own poorest citizens northwards to a society founded on very different ideas than those of their homelands.

Note that the left, neither in Mexico nor in America, never asks why millions of these impoverished people prefer to break into a supposedly racist America. Much less do they even distinguish those principles and values that once made America prosperous, free, and secure from their antitheses that have sadly made much of Latin America mostly poor, without freedom, and insecure.

Biden inherited near-zero real interest rates and inflation at 1.4 percent. Almost immediately, in nihilistic fashion, Biden did to a sound economy what he had done to a secure border. So, he recklessly printed money at a time of spiraling, quarantine-ending demand and supply chain disruption. Middle-class wages never caught up with Biden’s inflation, as prices for key staples are nearly 30 percent higher than when he took office.

The cost of servicing the ballooning national debt at high interest is now nearly $1 trillion per year. The world abroad is aflame, lit by Biden’s inexplicable withdrawal from Kabul, his mixed signals to Vladimir Putin on the eve of his invasion of Ukraine, his deliberate alienation of Israel, his appeasement of Iran and China, and his cuts in the defense budget, coupled with his woke war on mythical “racists” in the military.

Bidengate and the Doom Loop The more Biden avoids the media, the more the public considers him an inadequate president. Yet the more he might welcome more exposure, the more his ensuing dementia becomes apparent. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2024/07/08/bidengate-and-the-doom-loop/

The entire 2019-20 Biden candidacy and subsequent presidency were predicated on a rotten Faustian bargain. A hale Joe Biden would feign his aw-shucks, Joe from Scranton schtick. And an ossified working-class Joe’s camouflage would get the hard left elected—especially thanks to the changes in balloting laws that often saw only 30 percent of the electorate voting on Election Day in key states.

In exchange, the two narcissistic Bidens would bask in the power and attention of the presidency. From the start, Jill and the media would orchestrate deep cover for Joe’s escalating dementia as well as the true intentions of the now-in-power radical Democratic Party with its neo-socialist agenda. The former Obama acolytes would get their long-dreamed-of third presidential term. And this time they would enact a truly radical agenda while their string puppet mumbled to everyone that he was just old, familiar Joe working for the middle class.

The problem, inter alia, with the ruse was that it was based on a complete lie to the American people. Joe Biden was nowhere near cognitively competent. He could not campaign “normally” in 2020. And it would be impossible for his dementia to go undetected even in the ceremonial duties of the presidency for four, perhaps even eight, more years.

And there were plenty of other problems that transcended even Biden’s mental confusion.

First, the new Obama agenda—hyperinflation, open borders, woke crime theories, destroying deterrence abroad, green extremist mandates—was further to the left of the American people than in 2016.

And worse, it was nihilist and destructive. By the August 2021 Kabul withdrawal humiliation, Biden would never again win 50 percent approval from an increasingly exasperated public who felt they had been had by the mannequin Scranton Joe and his false 2020 calls for “unity” and “healing America.”

Second, Joe Biden, senator, vice president, quid-pro-quo sudden multimillionaire, was never a “nice guy.”

His (brief) 1984, 1988, and 2020 presidential runs were characterized by assorted gaffes, plagiarism, and racism (the first “clean” and “articulate” black presidential candidate, “junkie,” “you ain’t’ black,” and the corn-pop sagas).

He always displayed a short-fuse, mean streak (cf. his 1988 angry and falsified defense of his law school and stump speech plagiarism) and bullying (his 2020 slurs of “fat,” “lying dog-faced pony soldier,” etc.).