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June 2018

De Blasio’s Plan to Destroy New York’s Best Schools By Kyle Smith

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/bill-de-blasio-education-new-york-best-schools-destroyed/These are some of the last bastions of absolute meritocracy left in America.

Let’s take some of the best public high schools in the United States and tweak their admissions policies, argues New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. Instead of admitting students solely by merit, de Blasio says, they should accept the top 7 percent of students from every middle school in New York City.

Most of these middle schools are the educational equivalent of Superfund sites. De Blasio’s proposal makes about as much sense as Google announcing that henceforth 5 percent of its engineers will be graduates of Stanford, 5 percent of Harvard, 5 percent of Muleshoe State Technical College, 5 percent of Vidal Sassoon’s Hairdressing Academy, and 5 percent of Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. It’s as if the Golden State Warriors announced that in the interest of sportsological diversity, they will no longer ruthlessly screen for gifted basketball players but instead will set aside spots for one golfer and one bowler on next year’s starting five.

Stuyvesant High School, the Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Tech, and five other specialized schools have a rich history of service as oases from the miserable norms that define most precincts of the New York City Department of Education. Stuyvesant’s graduates include four Nobel laureates, Eric Holder, David Axelrod, and Tim Robbins. Bronx Science, as it is known, boasts eight Nobel winners, more than any high school in the country, and six Pulitzer Prize winners.

A Glimpse inside George Soros’s Open Society Foundations By Marion DS Dreyfus

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/06/a_glimpse_inside_george_soross_open_society_foundations.html

If you wake up with a spearmint-fresh brain that hasn’t read a magazine, seen a newscast or exchanged what’s been happening, you could be excused for being charmed and seduced by the programs offered by the Open Society Foundations, a “rights” organization that bills itself as a grant-making association formed by billionaire George Soros in 1993.

Materials available at the entrance to his Open Society building lobby assert that Soros is one of the world’s biggest philanthropists, having given away, his materials say, over $32 billion. Recipients of his international meddling would have other nomenclatures for this.

Offered at the Open Society every few weeks are slide-ameliorated talks on issues of concern to mostly Third World countries. And, of course, progressive Democrats.

The recent one, was held, as are most, at Soros’ luxe building on West 57th off Broadway. The topic, which was preceded by a color documentary of some 20 minutes’ duration in Spanish (English subtitles, mostly), was titled: “The Industrialization of Coca.” The lecture title could have been interpreted as a criticism of coca leaves’ commercialization. But it wasn’t. Instead, four panelists, a translator, and a moderator spoke of the many medicinal and commercial uses of coca leaves, trying to dispel the taint that instantly accompanies the noun coca.

Trump’s Statesmanship Surprise By David Prentice

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/trumps_statesmanship_surprise.html

Nobody knew. None of us saw it. Amongst his biggest supporters, maybe a handful suspected it. Many of us expected the economic renewal of the US to happen. Many of us foresaw a significant roll back of Saint Barrack’s horrid, destructive agenda. A lot of us hoped for a major push back on the left.

All of which we have gotten.

None of us, no one I have read, no one I know, expected Donald Trump to be a giant in foreign policy. No one expected him to reshape the world. Yet Donald Trump, in a short time, is doing so.

That was supposed to be one of the reasons to vote against him. He had no foreign policy experience. He did not understand the world. He was going to lead us into wars. He would be taken advantage of by our enemies. He would ruin our alliances. He would be a rube. A bumpkin. An embarrassment. That was what we were told.

Well. Guess what #nevertrumpers? You were so wrong, desperately wrong. Your shame should be bottomless. Bill Kristol, Max Boot, all of you stand up and please voluntarily go into the stocks and throw rotten veggies at yourselves. You should be ashamed to speak. Yep, the entire left-leaning foreign policy establishment as well. All of you.

I did not expect this, never saw this as one of Trump’s strengths. Nonetheless, we have not seen a better, more fruitful, and more capable foreign policy than this administration since the great Ronald Reagan.

Here are some of his accomplishments:

Democrats Need Anti-Semites to Win By Karin McQuillan

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/06/democrats_need_antisemites_to_win.html

The Democrat Party’s power depends on Jew-haters. Democrat politicians and their media elite pander and promote anti-Semitism for two reasons. It is a key part of the identity politics of the left, and since Obama’s transformative impact on his own party, the left is calling the tune on Democrat leadership, policy, and getting out the vote. The other reason is naked power. The Democrat Party can’t win with only the votes of decent people. They need the haters, so they’re fine with the hate.

We are talking about Democrats from top to bottom, regular Democrats — leadership, elected officials, donors, voters. We are talking about the Democrats’ indispensable voting blocs: blacks, Hispanic immigrants, feminists, gay activists, campus millennials, our growing Muslim population. Every Democratic demographic except white suburban women is stuffed with anti-Semites.

As the left wing takes over the Democratic levers of power, they are bringing anti-Jewish bigotry into the mainstream. Leftists embrace anti-Semitism on principle. The principle is intersectionality. While all whites and heterosexuals are attacked as oppressors, Jews are called out for special targeting, even progressive Jews.

The Collegefix.com reports:

Politically progressive Jews are also being ostracized by like-minded peers “because of their support, or even just presumed support, for Israel,” the report says: “Jewish students report being rejected from progressive social justice activities such as pro-choice rallies, anti-rape demonstrations, Black Lives Matter events and racial justice conferences.”

This is not about compassion for Arabs. Swastika graffiti on campuses calls for death to Israel. It calls for all Jews to be killed. Progressive attacks on Israel morphs into old-fashioned anti-Semitism: Jews murder children, secretly run things, are subhuman creatures, are pariahs.

Walking on a Wire Shoshana Bryen

www.jewishpolicycenter.com
Kim Jong Un’s relationship with his military appears shaky.

As President Trump prepares for his summit with Kim Jong-un, there is no telling how it will go, but go it will.

The president has chosen to break the cycle of lower-level meetings that result in North Korean promises regarding their nuclear program followed by American largesse followed by North Korea breaking its promises.

President Obama changed the cycle a bit by refusing to engage at all — “strategic patience” he called it — just waiting for the regime to collapse or for his term to be over, whichever came first. What we are left with is a North Korea that has mastered nuclear technology and is working on miniaturizing a bomb to fit on the ballistic missiles he is pursuing.

It’s hard to see the downside for the U.S. in President Trump’s decision to meet Kim in Singapore. We already have three American hostages back in exchange for an Oval Office photo-op for Kim Yong-chol, North Korean intelligence agent posing as a diplomat. An unpleasant moment, but not devastating.

And remaining in our pocket is America’s “trump card” so to speak. More on that in a minute.

Conventional wisdom says Kim wants his nuclear capability to ensure that he is not invaded and deposed by the U.S. Having seen the U.S. overthrow non-nuclear Saddam Hussein and non-nuclear Moammar Qaddafi, it certainly could make sense that nuclear weapons would make Kim feel invincible. But only if that’s his greatest fear.

Trump Could Be One of America’s Great Foreign Policy Presidents By David P. Goldman

Below I repost Uwe Parpart’s Asia Times analysis of the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore. Liberal media is aghast at the president’s rough handling of Canadian boy-band frontman Justin Trudeau, and his confrontational approach overall at the Group of Seven summit. When the dust settles, though, Trump may accomplish what eluded Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama: a stabler and safer world without the need for millions of American boots on the ground. He well may go down in history as one of our great foreign policy presidents. It’s not in the bag, but it is within sight.

North Korea and Iran are decisive issues: Will America and its allies be subject to blackmail by rogue nuclear states? There is a grand compromise that might work in the case of North Korea, and the president reportedly has already put it on the table: Formal diplomatic recognition of the Pyongyang regime in return for full de-nuclearization. In the case of Iran, the president’s tough stance and close coordination with our ally Israel has already pushed Iran back in Syria and put the Islamist regime under extreme stress.

Of course, Trump can’t please everybody. German Chancellor Angela Merkel complains that Trump is being too nice to Russia by suggesting that it rejoin the Group of Seven. Considering that Germany spends just 1.2% of GDP on defense and can’t get more than four fighters in the air at any given moment, that’s chutzpah. Merkel’s policy is to talk tough about sanctions against Russia while rolling over for Putin when it comes to Germany’s gas supplies, which will be supplied by the just-started Nord Stream II pipeline from Russia. Germany likes to wag a finger at Russia over its depredations in Ukraine, but only 18% of Germans say they will fight to defend their country. Trump’s policy is to rebuild American strength and stand up to Russia, while looking for ways to strike agreements with Russia–on American terms. That’s the difference between speak softly and carry a big stick, and declaim loudly while waving a bratwurst. If the Germans don’t want to spend money on defense, let alone fight, that’s their business, but they shouldn’t lecture us about how to handle the competition.

‘The World as It Is’ Review: A Witness to Hope and Change As Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes was a White House myth shaper. His memoirs codify the myths for posterity. Martin Peretz reviews “The World as It Is” by Ben Rhodes.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-world-as-it-is-review-a-witness-to-hope-and-change-1528755811

EXCERPTS:…..

“……… On the Palestinian question, Mr. Rhodes complains that the Israelis, who are “stronger” than the Palestinians, demanded unreasonable assurances of support when Mr. Obama pressed for a two-state solution. He ignores the special qualities of a conflict in which a democratic state must confront hostile militants who don’t hesitate to hide behind civilians to feed their David-and-Goliath narrative. When the subject is the Iran deal, Mr. Rhodes reduces Israel to Netanyahu, and Jews who opposed Mr. Obama’s policies toward Iran to pathological actors: They had “internalized the vision of Israel constantly under attack.” At no point does Mr. Rhodes engage with the real objections of people concerned with these conflicts—chiefly that Mr. Obama was trying to impose broad, sweeping change on a region whose historical particularities make change incremental at best. But to engage with this reality, Mr. Rhodes would have to defend the premises of the universalism he’s promoting.

Another area where Messrs. Rhodes and Obama refuse to engage their critics’ concerns involves Trump voters, whom Mr. Obama, in Mr. Rhodes’s telling, sees as irrational: “Five percent unemployment. Twenty million covered [by healthcare]. Gas at two bucks a gallon. We had it all teed up! . . . Maybe we pushed too far. Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.”

But choosing Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton was not a falling-back; it was a genuine choice between opposing sets of values. When Americans chose Mr. Trump, they were accepting less economic certainty for more cultural cohesion, fewer benefits of internationalism for more national determination. This isn’t a new phenomenon, and it isn’t an exclusively rightist one.

The Democratic Party is currently tribalizing itself into identity groups, a tribalism that explains itself as a response to oppression but that also reflects a normal human need: to collect into categories that confer belonging and agency. But it’s hard to imagine Mr. Obama or Mr. Rhodes being interested in this: It’s a different conception of human beings and politics, one that calls into question premises of their own.”

Jack Dorsey Chickens Out The Twitter CEO regrets eating a politically incorrect sandwich.

https://www.wsj.com/news/opinion

We live in intolerant times, and if you don’t believe it, consider that the CEO of Twitter this weekend was assailed, and than apologized, for eating at one of America’s most popular fast-food restaurant chains.

Jack Dorsey probably didn’t think twice when he tweeted Saturday that he had used his new Cash app to pay for a meal at Chick-fil-A. Perhaps he thought a chicken sandwich is merely a meal, but now he knows it’s also a political statement.

Chick-fil-A is run by CEO Dan Cathy, who has offended America’s progressive political guardians by publicly supporting the traditional religious definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.

Mr. Cathy, a Christian, was expressing his personal beliefs. His restaurants serve everyone, except on Sunday when they’re closed. But it is nonetheless now a sin against political orthodoxy to eat at Chick-fil-A, and Mr. Dorsey was immediately roasted on a Twitter spit for saying he had done so. Soledad O’Brien, the cable TV personality, tweeted that “This is an interesting company to boost during [LGBT] Pride month, @jack.” Others were nastier.

A Victory for Voting Law A 5-4 Supreme Court majority saves the day for accurate voter rolls.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-victory-for-voting-law-1528759554

A 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court on Monday upheld Ohio’s policy of clearing from registration rolls voters who don’t show up for several years. This is a victory for federalism and the plain reading of the law, notwithstanding howls that this is somehow about purging minority voters.

In Husted v. Randolph Institute, left-leaning groups challenged Ohio’s procedure for removing people from its voter rolls under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which was intended to increase voter registration and protect the integrity of the ballot. More than 10% of Americans move every year, and 2.75 million are estimated to be registered in more than one state.

The federal law requires states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names” of voters who are ineligible “by reason of” death or change in residence. But it also prohibits states from removing registrants unless they fail to return a prepaid postage card ascertaining that they still live in the district. States also cannot remove people “solely” for failing to vote.

Within these limits states have wide latitude to cull their rolls to prevent fraud. Ohio sends postage cards to registered voters who haven’t voted for two years to verify that they still live at the same address. Those who don’t return cards or vote for four more years are removed from the rolls.

Liberals argued that the National Voter Registration Act says states can’t remove people “by reason of the person’s failure to vote.” But the law says that “nothing in [this prohibition] may be construed to prohibit a State from using” other procedures identified in the law including the failure to return a card.

Congress added in 2002 that “registrants who have not responded to a notice” and “have not voted in two consecutive general elections for Federal office shall be removed.” It’s hard to be clearer than that. As Justice Samuel Alito explained in his majority opinion, “no sensible person would read the Failure-to-Vote Clause as prohibiting what [other sections of the law] expressly allow.”

The four liberal Justices disagreed, though their real gripe is with Congress. Justice Stephen Breyer opined that Ohio’s process violates the law’s requirement that states make a “reasonable effort” to remove ineligible voters because failing to return a postage card doesn’t provide enough information to make such a judgment. But the federal law expressly endorses the postcard test.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor claimed the majority upholds a scheme that promotes the “disenfranchisement of minority and low-income voters,” but there’s no evidence that the law has been applied in a biased fashion.

Voter registration has become an emotive political issue on the left, and the four liberals are riding that political wave in wanting judges to define what is reasonable under the federal statute. Too bad they don’t have the law on their side.

The FBI’s fractured fairytale By Sharyl Attkisson,

http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/391566-the-fbis-fractured-fairytale

Once upon a time, the FBI said some thugs planned to rob a bank in town. Thugs are always looking to rob banks. They try all the time. But at this particular time, the FBI was hyper-focused on potential bank robberies in this particular town.

The best way to prevent the robbery — which is the goal, after all — would be for the FBI to alert all the banks in town. “Be on high alert for suspicious activity,” the FBI could tell the banks. “Report anything suspicious to us. We don’t want you to get robbed.”
Instead, in this fractured fairytale, the FBI followed an oddly less effective, more time-consuming, costlier approach. It focused on just one bank. And, strangely, it picked the bank that was least likely to be robbed because nobody thought it would ever get elected president — excuse me, I mean, because it had almost no cash on hand. (Why would robbers want to rob the bank with no cash?)