NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Bill Kristol Shows Signs of Advanced Kamalamentia

Posted By on November 9th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/11/09/bill-kristol-shows-signs-of-advanced-kamalamentia/

Out of a sense of morbid curiosity, we decided to venture over to the Bulwark, the opinion site founded by alleged conservative Bill Kristol with the single mission of providing readers a daily dose of anti-Trump vitriol.

We wondered if perhaps the folks at Bulwark were celebrating because Donald Trump’s victory means that their reason for existing just got extended another four years. Had Trump lost, their pretense of being a conservative “bulwark” would have shattered.

They aren’t celebrating.

Instead, Trump’s overwhelming victory against overwhelming odds has them struggling to think straight.

Jonathan Last, after lamenting that Biden didn’t pack the Supreme Court and add four Democratic senators by declaring Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., states, then effectively accuses 51% of American voters of not being “committed to … the Constitution and the rule of law.”

Mona Charen reveals how hopelessly out of touch she is with everyday Americans by admitting that she “wrongly attributed (Biden’s unpopularity) mostly to his age,” instead of the economic disaster his policies unleashed on the working class. And then she shows that she has learned absolutely nothing by calling Kamala Harris’ loss “an elite failure of the first order.”

But the worst of the bunch is Kristol.

His response to this unprecedented turn of events is simply to say that Trump’s agenda must be stopped. “There should be no honeymoon for the Trumpists, no honeymoons for authoritarians,” he writes.

“This requires organized opposition,” he continues, “to thwart or delay or impede Trump’s plans.”

And what plans does Kristol want to stop?

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Harvard and Princeton Professors Cancel Classes to Let Students ‘Recover’ from Election By Abigail Anthony

Posted By on November 8th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/harvard-and-princeton-professors-cancel-classes-to-let-students-recover-from-election/

Professors at Harvard and Princeton have canceled classes following Trump’s victory, and other units within the universities are offering “spaces” to process the election results.

At Harvard University, the courses “Sociology 1156: Statistics for Social Sciences,” “Applied Math 22a: Solving and Optimizing,” and the general education courses “The Ancient Greek Hero” and “Popular Culture and Modern China” canceled Wednesday class sessions, made attendance optional, or extended assignment deadlines, according to the student-run paper the Crimson.

An undergraduate student at Harvard told National Review that the first 30 minutes of a section meeting for the class “Gov 1790: American Foreign Policy” were dedicated to origami folding.

Harvard economics lecturer Maxim Boycko said in an email that the in-class quiz for “Economics 1010a: Intermediate Microeconomics” would be optional this week and further permitted students to “take time off,” per the Crimson.

“As we recover from the eventful election night and process the implications of Trump’s victory, please know that class will proceed as usual today, except that classroom quizzes will not be for credit,” Boycko wrote. “Feel free to take time off if needed.”

According to the Crimson, Physics professor Jennifer E. Hoffman said in an email to physics students and faculty that her office would be “a space to process the election.”

“Many in our community are sleep-deprived, again grieving for glass ceilings that weren’t shattered, fearful for the future, or embarrassed to face our international colleagues,” she wrote. “I stress-baked several pans of lemon bars to share.

The Harvard College Democrats released a statement on Thursday expressing support for Kamala Harris and concerns about a second Trump presidency.

“The Harvard College Democrats are incredibly grateful for the leadership of Vice President Kamala Harris and the vision she presented for the future of the country in her campaign for President of the United States,” reads the statement. “We are proud to endorse a campaign that centered joy, community, and a belief in the immense potential of this great nation.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Ohio U Professor Cancels Classes Due to ‘Trauma’ From the Trump Victory “Unsure how to go on.”

Posted By on November 8th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/ohio-u-professor-cancels-classes-due-to-trauma-from-a-trump-victory/

Meet Amy Chadwick, a professor at @ohiou. She canceled classes today because students are traumatized, angry, scared, sad, hurting, and devastated after Trump’s win. Some students are also “unsure how to go on.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Indoctri-Nation Public schools continue to be ground zero for culture wars. By Larry Sand

Posted By on November 8th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/08/indoctri-nation/

An essential mission for many educators throughout the country is the indoctrination of their students. The newest arrival on the propaganda front is Israel. In August, one of the topics of a United Teachers of Los Angeles meeting was “How to be a teacher & an organizer. . . and NOT get fired.”

History teacher Ron Gochez elaborated on stealth methods for indoctrinating his students. He talked about transporting busloads of kids to an anti-Israel rally—during the school day—without arousing suspicion.

“A lot of us that have been to those [protest] actions have brought our students. Now, I don’t take the students in my personal car,” Gochez told the crowd. Then, referring to the Los Angeles Unified School District, he explained: “I have members of our organization who are not LAUSD employees. They take those students and I just happen to be at the same place and the same time with them.”

Gochez further explained, “It’s like tomorrow I go to church, and some of my students are at the church. ‘Oh, wow! Hey, how you doing?’ We just happen to be at the same place at the same time, and look! We just happen to be at a pro-Palestine action, same place, same time.”

The unionistas then burst into approving laughter.

John Adams Middle School teacher and UTLA panelist William Shattuc agreed. Wearing a keffiyeh around his neck, he said, “We know that good history education is political education. And when we are coming up against political movements, like the movement for Zionism, that we disagree with, that we’re in conflict with—they [Zionists] have their own form of political education and they employ their own tools of censorship.”

Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona, ethnic studies teacher at Edward R. Roybal Learning Center in Los Angeles, who received a National Education Association Foundation Award for excellence in teaching, insists that the course she teaches, and whose curriculum she helped develop—ethnic studies—is fundamentally incompatible with supporting Israel. “Are you pro-Israel—are you for genocide?”

NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

Making America Safe Again Will be Donald Trump’s Highest Priority as President America’s enemies are not looking forward to January 20, 2025. By Fred Fleitz

Posted By on November 8th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/08/making-america-safe-again-will-be-donald-trumps-highest-priority-as-president/

In my opinion, the most important of all of Donald Trump’s promises during the 2024 presidential campaign was to “make America safe again” by restoring American leadership and peace through strength.

This is because Joe Biden will leave Trump with grave national security challenges around the world. U.S. weakness under Biden, Biden’s frivolous foreign policy that designated climate change as the top U.S. national security threat, and major foreign policy failures have caused U.S. and global security to seriously deteriorate since 2021.

The war in Ukraine, caused by Biden’s weak foreign policy and his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, has become a stalemate and long-term war of attrition that could escalate, possibly with Russia using nuclear weapons, if Ukraine expands its attacks into Russian territory. President Biden and European leaders have no plan for a Ukrainian victory or ending the war and have instead promoted an endless war approach of arming Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

U.S. relations with Russia and China plummeted during the Biden administration. Biden has not spoken to Russian President Putin since before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. There has been little meaningful U.S. diplomacy with China. Biden’s inept foreign policy has pushed Russia into the hands of China as part of a new anti-West axis that includes Iran and North Korea. Chinese military provocations against Taiwan and in the South China Sea soared during the Biden years with no serious response by the United States.

And then there is the Middle East, where Israel is facing a seven-front war in the aftermath of the horrendous October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack. Increased instability in the Middle East since Biden became president was caused by his appeasement of Iran, which is $100 billion richer today due to Biden’s refusal to enforce oil sanctions against Iran. Weak U.S. leadership under Biden also caused tensions to explode in this region. This includes recent missile attacks by Iran and Israel against each other for the first time and huge advances in Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Without a return of American deterrence and a strong U.S. president, the Middle East is facing the prospect of a full-scale Israel-Iran war that could go nuclear.

RELIGION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Islamism, the West and Human Rights by Nils A. Haug

Posted By on November 8th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21088/islamism-west-human-rights

Sharia tenets – which have views of human rights, justice, mercy and compassion that differ from those of the West — can appear alien to Judeo-Christian precepts. Sharia, in usage, often appears to contravene the basic humanistic values of the West.

The outcome is that, in application, the moral laws of each tradition — that of the Torah as opposed to that of Sharia — which prescribes harsh punishments, such as amputation for theft; death for leaving Islam (apostasy) or blasphemy, or being stoned to death for adultery, which can include having been raped — are consequences inimical to Western ideas of justice, mercy and human rights.

By practicing a different faith, those who do not subscribe to Sharia are “disbelievers” (infidels), deemed to be in breach of “The Path” and consequently subject to a penalty of conversion, subjugation or death.

This is particularly true for Jews and Christians, who were offered opportunities to accept the gift of Islam but ungratefully declined.

“Slay the infidels wherever you find them…” — Qur’an, Sura 9:5.

The concept of universal human rights might seem quite strange to Islamists.

The intent of jihadi state actors …. in their own words, appears to be the imposition of Sharia law and Islamic dominance over the world.

That is why textual originalism in the interpretation of US Constitutional law is of particular concern to jurists. Emphasis on the original intent of the writers of the US Constitution rather than the fluctuating views of a succession of lawyers is of prime importance.

Reinterpreting the US Constitution can easily become like the children’s game of “telephone”: after a few migrations, the original intent of the founders could well become unrecognizable.

Western leaders find it difficult to regard religiously powered radicalism with the weight it deserves. “[I]t’s precisely because it’s religiously grounded that such radicalism is exceptionally dangerous.” — George Weigel, First Things, January 31, 2024.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, during World War II, said in the House of Commons on June 18, 1940: “If we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age.”

Although Churchill’s statement also applies to Western nations at this time, Israel has been largely alone in the fight to preserve the West’s Judeo-Christian ideals. It would be to the West’s advantage for other nations to join Israel in this noble task.

The Torah’s ethical and moral laws, which became known to the world as Moses’ Ten Commandments, founded the West’s moral-ethical precepts on which its laws and judicial concepts such as justice and mercy are based. This development is reflected in the United States’ founding documents, as well as England’s Magna Carta of 1215, among others.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Election’s Big Loser is the Democrats’ Narrative What the election was really about. by Bruce Thornton

Posted By on November 8th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-elections-big-loser-is-the-democrats-narrative/

On Tuesday Donald Trump’s “shellacking,” to borrow a word from Barack Obama––winning not just the electoral college, but also the popular vote and the Senate majority–– is a definitive repudiation not just of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, but of a political narrative over a century in the making. As always, bad policies are the fruit of bad ideas, but arrogance about the superiority of those ideas carries within them nemesis, the punisher of hubris that may be delayed, but never escaped.

Today’s Democrats have embraced a narrative––call it “left,” “progressive,” “socialist,” “woke,” or what you will–– which rejects holding people accountable for their actions. Instead, a crude determinism shapes and governs their behavior. Hence, we’re told that poverty, capitalism, injustice, racism, sexism, and all the other -isms and -phobias explain people’s crimes and failures. So we get Democrat policies that ignore or legitimize illegal border crossings, shoplifters, bums and addicts befouling our cities, repeat felons, no bail release for arrestees, and numerous other dangerous absurdities.

Since the ordinary law-abiding “moral majority” have to suffer the physical and economic consequences of these policies, which increased significantly under the Democrats, it’s no wonder they voted for a president who promises to restore law and order.

Another bad idea that harms our economy and pocketbooks is green “climate change” policies that ignore the laws of physics and wage war on fossil fuels, which have created the West’s unprecedented wealth and quality of life for billions of people worldwide. This bad policy reflects the scientism of self-styled “bright” Democrats, who “follow the science” and yet resort to pseudo-science for gratifying their fundamentalist cult of environmentalism, and their need to signal their superior virtue.

Again, the citizens are hit with expensive energy prices and intrusive regulations. Meanwhile, the forced switch to intermittent “renewable energy” like windmills and solar panels makes producers dependent on fossil fuels for their construction, and for providing electricity for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.

Then there is the “transgender” cult that believes the biological sexes are cultural constructs, and that chemical and unnecessary permanent surgical interventions can restore children to their actual “gender.” Moreover, aggressive promotion of this unscientific idea is encouraged in schools, polices our free speech, and subjects girls and women to “trans” males occupying women’s restrooms and sports. Democrats have endorsed these farcical programs, as Kamala Harris did during her campaign.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Hiding Mengele: How a Nazi Network Harbored the Angel of Death Hardcover – by Betina Anton

Posted By on November 8th, 2024

Read the international sensation already translated into 10 languages!

Unearthing the network that hid the “Angel of Death,” the infamous Nazi doctor who escaped justice for more than three decades. 

In 1985, Betina Anton watched Brazilian authorities apprehend her kindergarten teacher for allegedly using false documents to bury in secrecy the remains of Josef Mengele, known worldwide for cruel human experiments and for sending thousands to the Auschwitz gas chambers. Decades later, as an experienced journalist disturbed by the mysteries surrounding the departure of Austrian expat Liselotte Bossert, Anton set out to find her and see if the rumors were true. She could not imagine how deeply into Mengele’s life-on-the-run her investigation would take her.

Josef Mengele was a fugitive in South America for thirty-four years after World War II, sought by Israeli secret service and Nazi hunters. Hidden for half that time in Brazil, thanks to a small circle of expatriate Europeans, Mengele created his own paradise where he could speak German with new friends, maintain his beliefs, stay one step ahead of the global manhunt, and avoid answering for his crimes. 

Translated from the Brazilian Tropical Bavaria edition and based on extensive research, including revelatory interviews and never-before-seen letters and photos, Hiding Mengele is a suspenseful narrative not only haunted by the doctor’s horrific actions but also by the motivations driving a community to protect an evil man. 

BOOKS Comments turned off

Liberal Bullies: What Psychology Teaches Us about the Left’s Authoritarian Problem―and How to Fix It by Luke Conway

Posted By on November 8th, 2024

The political left has an urgent and rising problem with authoritarianism. An alarmingly high percentage of self-identified progressives are punitive, bullying, and intolerant of disagreement— and the problem is getting worse. As social psychologist Luke Conway demonstrates, it’ s not just right-wing extremists who long for an authority figure to crush their enemies, silence opponents, and restore order; it’ s also those who preach “ be kind” and celebrate their “ inclusivity.” A persistent proportion of left-wingers demonstrate authoritarian tendencies, and they’ re becoming more emboldened as they gain cultural and political power. On a range of scientific and social issues, they are increasingly advocating censorship over free debate, disregarding the rule of law, and dehumanizing their opponents. These tendencies are part of an accelerating “ threat circle” of mutual hatred and fear between left and right that could tear apart our basic democratic norms. Concluding with an eloquent call for firm but rational resistance to this rising tide of liberal bullying, Conway presents a path forward that no one concerned about our hyper-partisan political arena can afford to ignore.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Heather Mac Donald Trumped The mainstream press is about to suffer its most definitive discrediting yet.

Posted By on November 8th, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/trumped

For months, the media have issued apocalyptic warnings about a second Donald Trump presidency. Arcane diagrams of nefarious political connections and multipage spreads of damning quotes have laid out how Trump will tear down democratic norms. He will unleash the National Guard on Democratic voters. He will wreak vengeance on his enemies. He will usher in fascism. He will have Liz Cheney shot. He will be a dictator on Day One. He will use the military to round up millions of migrants. He will seek a national abortion ban. He will outlaw in vitro fertilization. He will suppress free speech.

And now that Trump has been elected again, in a historic political comeback, the press continues to lay down a marker against which to measure its own ideological blinders. On Wednesday, November 6, the New York Times issued the same parade of horribles that it has been hawking since Trump declared his 2024 candidacy: Trump will “use military force against his political opponents . . . crush the independence of the Department of Justice, use government to push public health conspiracies and abandon America’s allies abroad.” He will “turn the government into a tool of his own grievances, a way to punish his critics and richly reward his supporters” and rule as a “dictator”—if only on Day One.

According to a Times headline, America has just hired a “strongman.” Its news reporting explains: “America stands on the precipice of an authoritarian style of governance never before seen in its 248-year history.”

Historian Ruth Ben-Chait tells the paper that Trump has prepared for authoritarian government by teaching the public to “see American democracy as a failed experiment.” His victory means the triumph of a style of government that uses “violence as a means of solving political problems.”

A national political correspondent for the Washington Post, Ashley Parker, said on MSNBC that Trump will “take revenge on his enemies” this time around.

None of these things will happen. Trump will not usher in authoritarian government or fascism. He will not shred the rule of law. His administration will not ask Internet platforms to censor information and opinion that opposes administration policies, as did the Biden administration. The press predictions are all on the record and can be consulted for accuracy from this moment onward.