NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Congressional Enablers of Genocidal Anti-Semitism The Unholy Alliance in action. Kenneth Levin

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/congressional-enablers-genocidal-anti-semitism-kenneth-levin/

Hamas is explicit in wanting to kill not only all Israelis but all Jews. The organization states as much in its charter and declares that goal a religious duty. Hamas has sought to translate the genocidal intent into action, including through innumerable missile attacks targeting Israel’s civilian population since the terror group gained control of Gaza in 2007. 

Yet Hamas has a coterie of apologists, supporters, cheerleaders and other enablers in Congress, including those who criticize Israel and are silent about Hamas’s actions and objective.

Hamas missile barrages doubly fit the internationally recognized definitions of war crimes, by virtue of their objective of killing civilians and by virtue of their use of Gazan civilian areas as launching sites for their attacks, thus endangering Palestinians in Gaza. Yet this too has not dissuaded Hamas’s Congressional enablers.

In initiating its latest missile war against Israel, Hamas justified doing so by claiming Israel was seeking to expel Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem and also that Israel was attacking the Al Aqsa Mosque and other Muslim sites on the Temple Mount.

The Sheikh Jarrah issue relates to some of the Jewish property that was seized and held as “enemy property” by Trans-Jordan after it conquered the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1948 and killed or expelled all Jews living there. Following the 1967 war, Israeli courts confirmed Jewish ownership of the property but granted Arabs residing there the status of protected tenants, able to remain and even pass the right of residence on to their heirs as long as they paid rent. But the tenants have refused to pay and it is in response to this that the courts have for some years ordered the vacating of the property. This is one of Hamas’  justifications for firing over 4,000 missiles at Israeli civilians, a justification parroted by members of Congress.

The other justification, that Israel was threatening Al Aqsa, has been a rallying cry for virtually a century by Palestinian leaders seeking to instigate murderous attacks on Jews. In 1929, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, then the most prominent figure among Palestinian Arabs, used the claim to choreograph assaults on Jews that took some 130 lives. According to reports at the time, such as those by Dutch-Canadian journalist Pierre van Paassen, Husseini also produced and distributed bogus photographs of a supposedly demolished Jerusalem mosque in hopes of instigating the murder of Jews in the Mandate territory and beyond.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Brings in Islamic Activists to Investigate U.S. Military for ‘Extremism’ Muslim Brotherhood supporters to help Biden destroy American soldiers. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/biden-brings-islamic-activists-investigate-us-daniel-greenfield/

A decade ago, Hina Shamsi was fighting on behalf of the Holy Land Foundation whose leaders had been convicted of providing material support to Hamas.

As the head of the ACLU’s National Security Project, Shamsi, a Pakistani citizen, had fought fiercely for the Islamic terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. “We all must pledge — not one person more in Guantanamo, not in our names,” she recently declared.

But now the Pakistani advocate for Islamic terrorists has a new job: going after our soldiers.

Shamsi (pictured above left) is one of the terror lawyers who appears on a list of partners for the Biden administration’s crackdown on “extremism” in the military. The only kind of extremism that Shamsi appears to be an expert on is the Islamic kind and her expertise has been in denying it.

Furthermore, at least as of 2017, Shamsi had described herself as a Pakistan citizen with permanent legal residency in America.

She’s not the only apparent Pakistani citizen tasked by Biden to go after our troops.

Take Faiza Patel, another Pakistani immigrant, who co-wrote an article arguing against designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization. The article claimed that “the Muslim Brotherhood is a religious organization, a political party, and a social service provider” and that it had “disavowed violence decades ago.”

That would come as news to Hamas and its other active Jihadist network members.

In another co-written article, Faiza Patel claimed that laws against Sharia were Islamophobic.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Population Dud: Paul Ehrlich, Call Your Office

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/05/24/the-population-dud-paul-ehrlich-call-your-office/

There’s an old saying among economists, demographers, actuaries and sociologists: “Demographics is destiny.” If that’s true, and it certainly appears to be, America could be in very big trouble.

Back in 1970, leftist Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich warned in his sensationalist book, “The Population Bomb,” that overpopulation would lead to mass starvation and the depletion of our natural resources. As we all know, it didn’t happen.

Indeed, natural resources have never been more abundant, based on prices we pay, as the late economist Julian Simon predicted in making a very public1980 wager with Ehrlich about the future. Virtually every measurable form of pollution has fallen sharply in the intervening years. And billions of people were pulled out of poverty, all during a time of strong population growth.

In short, Ehrlich and his legions of doomsday followers couldn’t have been more wrong.

In fact, the real problem we face today is exactly the opposite: People in the U.S. are no longer having enough babies. That fertility decline shows in a dramatic slowdown in population growth. And no, don’t blame COVID-19 for that.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden ‘Leads from Behind’ on Opening the U.S.–Canada Border By John Fund

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/biden-leads-from-behind-on-opening-the-u-s-canada-border/

Ottawa continues to ban nonessential travel across its border with its southern neighbor. The closure no longer makes medical sense.

C anada is usually our leading trading partner, and ties between the two countries run deep. But they’ve been severed for the last 14 months by a closure of the U.S.–Canada border. The closure no longer makes medical sense.

The closure of the world’s longest international border has just been extended again. That is unlikely to change soon. Friends, relatives, and business associates have been separated. Americans who own vacation homes in Canada can’t maintain them.

The closure isn’t equal. Canadians are allowed to travel to the United States by air, but Americans aren’t allowed to cross the border for nonessential travel into Canada. A Canadian coming to the U.S. only needs to have had a negative coronavirus test no more than three days before travel, while Canada requires a hotel quarantine for those arriving by air. This is despite the U.S.’s comparable record on vaccinations and its better record on COVID-19 cases.

On the Canadian side, the closure has devastated border towns and destroyed tourism from the U.S., which sent more than 15 million arrivals in 2019.

An anti-American strain infects the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “Canadians are boastful of their tolerance, but the reliable way so many will rush toward the worst possible interpretation of any American event reminds that when it comes to the United States, the dominant Canadian disposition is often closer to a form of unthinking bigotry,” writes Canadian journalist J. J. McCullough in the Washington Post. Indeed, the Canadian historian Frank Underhill once mused that Americans are benevolently ignorant of Canada, while Canadians are malevolently knowledgeable about the United States.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Cutting costs and cultivating free speech will put higher education on the right path Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.-District 3)

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/553668-cutting-costs-and-cultivating-free-speech-will-put-higher

As a 25-year affiliate professor of surgery, as well as a former member of a liberal arts college’s Board of Trustees, higher education has been a long-term concern of mine. The critical task of preparing the next generation of Americans to become leaders is one of the utmost importance. Now, as the ranking member of the House Education Committee Higher Education and Workforce Investment Subcommittee, I am honored to lead on initiatives that improve American colleges and universities.

It is the overwhelming consensus that the cost of college tuition is far too high. At the end of the 4th quarter in 2020, federal student loan borrowers owed $1.57 trillion. This tremendous burden is second only to outstanding mortgage debt. More troubling, the rising cost of tuition in America has far outpaced the rise in the price of other consumer goods in the past 30 years. There are several reasons for this.

Salaries for compliance officers, diversity coaches, and all kind of other administrative staff — which I more appropriately term “administrative bloat” — have soared in recent decades. Between 1993 and 2007, these costs jumped by 61.2 percent compared to an increase of only 39.3 percent in academic instructional costs. Although most students may not use many of the unnecessary amenities offered at colleges and universities, they still foot the bill for it. Cutting these costs would save students money. There are also many new majors that offer little, if any, chance of future employment. While classes in those disciplines may be beneficial for a broad education, they do not need to be majors. Higher education has lost their way on how to spend students’ monies responsibly. This reckless spending spree needs to cease.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Back to Iran’s Nuclear Future The U.S. barrels toward a repeat of the Obama deal despite no inspector access to crucial sites.

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/back-to-irans-nuclear-future-11621806279?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The news in the Middle East these days suddenly seems like a return to circa 2014. Israel and the U.S. are at odds over the Palestinians, America is courting Iran, and the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Arabs get the back of America’s hand.

In other words, President Biden is rejecting the Trump strategy that focused on containing Iran and forging closer ties among America’s traditional allies. Team Biden is returning to the Obama calculation that engaging Iran is the key to reducing America’s footprint in the Middle East, even if it means creating anxiety for Israel and the Gulf Arabs.

***

Nowhere is this clearer than in the hell-bent U.S. attempt to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. A revival of the agreement will reshape the Middle East for years—and not to the benefit of U.S. interests.

Donald Trump left the 2015 deal three years ago and pursued a “maximum-pressure” sanctions campaign. The new economic restrictions targeted Iran’s nuclear malfeasance, as well as its support for terrorism abroad and violation of human rights at home. An isolated Iranian economy contracted 6% in 2018 and 6.8% in 2019, and Tehran responded by stepping up nuclear activity proscribed by the deal.

Rather than seeking a better deal as the Islamic Republic struggles with domestic unrest, Iranian and American diplomats have spent more than six weeks in Vienna negotiating through intermediaries a way back to the nuclear deal. The Biden Administration is sending stronger signals by the week that it will give up most of its leverage over Tehran to get a deal.

By one count, Mr. Trump imposed sanctions on more than 700 Iranian officials and entities—including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s national oil company and central bank. Iran says it wants all sanctions lifted before it will halt its illicit nuclear activities. That would amount to a multibillion dollar payout for reducing its stockpile of increasingly pure uranium. The knowledge Iranian scientists have gained from activating advanced centrifuges can’t be reversed.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Forgetting Justice Marshall An Illinois law school drops his name as the left turns on the Court.

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/forgetting-justice-marshall-11621806240?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The University of Illinois board of trustees last week entered a no-confidence vote against America’s greatest Supreme Court Chief Justice. Starting in July, the John Marshall Law School in Chicago will be known simply as the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. The press release cites Marshall’s “role as a slave trader, slave owner of hundreds of slaves, pro-slavery jurisprudence, and racist views.”

This is the go-to progressive indictment of American historical figures. Never mind that Marshall’s muscular jurisprudence as Chief Justice from 1801 to 1835 forged a national government and economy powerful enough to finally smash slavery a generation after his death.

The U.S. is awash in iconoclasm, from Washington, D.C.’s bid to erase Benjamin Franklin from a city building, to the San Francisco school board’s vote to rename Abraham Lincoln High School. But the astonishing progressive turn on Marshall—law blogger Josh Blackman notes another law school may also cut ties—carries its own significance, intended or not.

Marshall’s legacy is at the heart of current Supreme Court debates. In a speech last month cautioning against Court-packing, Justice Stephen Breyer appealed to Marshall’s legal authority. He explained how Marshall deftly “strengthened the norm of judicial review” despite resistance from Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Columbia Prep students and parents reel after class on ‘porn literacy’ By Dana Kennedy

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

https://nypost.com/2021/05/22/columbia-prep-students-parents-reel-from-porn-liter

Parents at the posh Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School are outraged they were never told of a fourth “R” being added to the curriculum: raunch.

In addition to the usual reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic, the school this month launched lessons on porn — without informing families or allowing them to opt out, parents fumed.

When juniors at the $47,000-a-year Manhattan school showed up for a health and sexuality workshop, most thought it was “just going to be about condoms or birth control,” a student told The Post.

Instead, it was something called “Pornography Literacy: An intersectional focus on mainstream porn,” taught by Justine Ang Fonte, who’s the director of Health & Wellness at another elite prep school, Dalton.

The often-explicit slide presentation and lecture by Fonte to the 120 boys and girls included lessons on how porn takes care of “three big male vulnerabilities”; statistics on the “orgasm gap” showing straight women have far fewer orgasms with their partners than gay men or women; and photos of partially-nude women, some in bondage, to analyze “what is porn and what is art.”

Justine Ang Fonte claims her teachings stem from the social theory “intersectionality”, a component from critical race theory.
Twitter

Fonte’s presentation, some of which was seen by The Post, included a list of the most searched pornographic terms of 2019, including “creampie,” “anal,” “gangbang,” “stepmom” and more.

One slide cited various porn genres such as “incest-themed,” consensual or “vanilla,” “barely legal,” and “kink and BDSM” (which included “waterboard electro” torture porn as an example).

“We were all like, ‘What?’” a female student said. “Everyone was texting each other, ‘What the hell is this? It’s so stupid.’ Everyone knows about porn. The worst part of it was that it took place not long before the AP tests and I had to miss both my AP classes for this.”

One part of the porn presentation involved something called the “marketability of Only Fans,” the hot new app used mostly for sex work. One slide included a photo of a pretty young woman who appeared to be promoting OnlyFans-type work.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

“Settler Colonialism”: More Of The Usual Progressive Racism And Hatred Of Freedom Francis Menton

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-5-22-settler-colonialism-more-of-t

Several years ago, in connection with a family trip to Israel, I looked into the issue of Israeli “settlements” in the areas of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. I then had a post in June 2017 titled “Do You Know The Difference Between ‘Settlers’ And ‘Immigrants’?” .

The Israeli settlements, and the “settlers” who inhabit them, have come in for constant attacks from the international left, culminating in condemnation from a UN Security Council resolution in 2016. The resolution was approved by a 14-0 vote in 2016 (on which vote the U.S., during President Obama’s tenure, abstained, rather than exercising its right to veto). Yet viewed in a broader context, the Israeli settlements are a tiny part of annual migrations of millions of people around the world, going from one political jurisdiction to another. All, or nearly all, of these other migrations are applauded by the international left. Indeed, these other migrations are applauded even when they are clearly violative of the law of the destination — illegal immigration into the United States being the most prominent example.

So what makes the Israeli settlers so subject to widespread condemnation while other migrants are applauded? I thought the answer was not difficult to discern, but the intervening years made things even more obvious. In those years we have seen the ascent of another one of these trendy academic concepts, this one going by the name of “settler colonialism.” The basic idea is that you can tell the difference between (bad) “settler colonialists” and other (good) immigrants by a combination of racial identity and hatred of places that practice freedom-based economic systems.

But how do we know where to draw the line between the “settlers” and the “immigrants”? You can count on the left to take this immediately to the extreme. On May 19 the Black Lives Matter group tweeted its support for “Palestinians” in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, and in the process associated Israel itself with the term “settler colonialism”:

BOOKS, ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom by Dr. Patrick Moore

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

Here is Dr. Patrick Moore’s description of his unique thesis as presented in “Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom”.

“It dawned on me one day that most of the scare stories in the media today are based on things that are either invisible, like CO2 and radiation, or very remote, like polar bears and coral reefs. Thus, the average person cannot observe and verify the truth of these claims for themselves. They must rely on activists, the media, politicians, and scientists – all of whom have a huge financial and/or political interest in the subject – to tell them the truth. This is my effort, after 50 years as a scientist and environmental activist, to expose the misinformation and outright lies used to scare us and our children about the future of the Earth. Direct observation is the very basis of science. Without verified observation it is not possible to know the truth. That is the sharp focus of this book.”

The book contains 98 color photographs, illustrations, and charts. A key target audience is parents who do not approve of the “progressive” school curriculum and its alarmism about the future of civilization and the natural world. Dr. Moore hopes these parents will read his book and pass it on to their high-school and older children to give them an alternative to the bleak future predicted by the prophets of doom. Many other audiences will also find the book informative and convincing.

In 11 chapters the reader is clearly shown that citizens are being misinformed by many environmental doomsday prophesies, ones they cannot verify for themselves. We are told that nuclear energy is very dangerous when the numbers prove it is one of the safest technologies. We are told polar bears will go extinct soon when their population has been growing steadily for nearly 50 years. We are told that there is something harmful in genetically modified food crops when it is invisible, has no name and no chemical formula. We are told severe forest fires are caused by climate change when they are actually caused by poor management of fuel load (dead wood) in the forest. We are told that all the coral reefs will die by 2100 when in fact the most diverse coral reefs are found in the warmest oceans in the world. And of course, we are told that invisible CO2 from using fossil fuels, accounting for more than 80 percent of our energy supply, will make the Earth too hot for life. All of these scare stories, and many more, are simply not true. And this book will convince you, your family, and your colleagues of that. There is no substitute for the truth.