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May 2021

BOOKS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Military Purges Critical Race Theory Critic From U.S. Space Force Removed from command for writing book on “Marxist goal of conquest and the unmaking of the U.S. Military.” Lloyd Billingsley

By on May 19th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/biden-military-purges-critical-race-theory-critic-lloyd-billingsley/

“You keep watch around the world to detect missile launches, space launches, and nuclear detonations while providing critical intelligence. All of you are pioneers in the newest branch of our armed forces.”

That was President Donald Trump in a November 26, 2020 video conference with officers from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Space Force, which was “very special to me, that new branch, because that was something that I felt was necessary.”

Representing the Space Force was Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado. That squadron operates the Defense Support Program and Space Based Infrared System satellites that detect launches and provide early warning.

A 2006 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and a qualified F-15C  pilot, Lohmeier earned a master’s degree in military operational art and science and a master’s of philosophy in military strategy. In September of 2020, Lohmeier authored The Better Mind of Space, from Air University Press, views solely of the author but “cleared for public release and unlimited distribution.”

“Like the waning moon, the traditional mind of space is diminishing in vigor, power, and influence,” wrote Lohmeier, a USAF major at the time.  “There is a better mind of space emerging that is much larger than the Air Force. The emergent mind of space is like the waxing moon—its illuminated area is increasing, and the clarity and power of its influence is growing.”

Lt. Col. Lohmeier is also the author of Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military, which attempts to answers questions such as: “Is systemic racism a reality, or is much of our talk about race merely a rhetorical tool used to divide Americans? Why has the Defense Department suddenly shifted to a focus on extremism within the ranks? Is there really a white supremacy or white nationalist problem within our armed forces? Are the many Diversity and Inclusion trainings that are being conducted in our federal agencies helping solve these problems, or are they creating conflict where none previously existed? What is Marxism, and what does it have to do with all of this?”

As Lohmeier told Military.com, he was apprised of the option to have the book reviewed by the Pentagon prior to release but told it was not required. Lohmeier recently discussed Irresistible Revolution on the “Information Operation” podcast with L. Todd Wood. The critical race theory pushed by Biden Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Lohmeier said, “will divide us. It will not unify us.”

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The “We-Must-Hate-Israel” Season Re-Opens in Turkey by Burak Bekdil

By on May 19th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17368/turkey-hate-israel

There is, however, a significant difference between Turkey in May 2018 and May 2021. In May 2018, Turkey was heading for presidential and parliamentary elections — which Erdoğan won with 51.5% of the national vote. Erdoğan was confident of “making Turkey great again” and systematically fueled hostility against Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In May 2021, Turkey is not heading for elections but for economic collapse and political isolation,

Erdoğan has grossly profited, in domestic politics, from every form and period of violence in the Arab-Israeli dispute in the past two decades. But he will not get anything from this year’s clashes between terrorists and a legitimate state. There are no elections in sight.

And the Turks, despite their usual manifest anti-Israeli behavior, are in fact too busy with their everyday struggles to bring bread to their homes and milk to their babies. Some grocery stores in big cities like Istanbul have recently started to sell “stale bread” for the first time. A stale loaf sells at five US cents cheaper than standard bread and has thousands of customers.

Each time the Arab-Israel dispute turns violent on Israeli soil, Turks immediately return to their post-truth mode. One newspaper headline proudly says that Palestinian fighters shot 137 rockets into Israel within five minutes. The next headline says Israel is a state of terror because it reciprocated to attacks against its citizens.

“This is how al-Qassam Brigade hit a lifeline oil plant in Ashkelon-Eilat,” one headline said. “Hamas hits, Zionists are burning,” was another. “Rockets shock Zionists.” “Tel Aviv turns into hell: Get worse, bastards!” “Zionists are fleeing Hamas rockets.” And, according to Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza militants “have defended Jerusalem.” There are more.

“To the Islamic world, we say: It’s time to stop Israel’s heinous and cruel attacks!” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s spokesman, Fahrettin Altun, wrote on Twitter. On May 9, thousands of angry Turks demonstrated in support of Palestinians outside both Israel’s Embassy in Ankara and consulate in Istanbul. The Turkish police did not intervene despite a ban in place on large public gatherings because of the coronavirus pandemic. The crowds chanted: “Turkish soldiers to Gaza!”

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

You May Not Speak if You Use an ‘Aggressive Tone’ By George Leef

By on May 19th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/you-may-not-speak-if-you-use-an-aggressive-tone/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=third

America’s descent into an Orwellian nightmare continues apace. Now government officials see fit to keep you from speaking out on policy matters if they don’t like your tone.

That’s the upshot of a recent encounter between Center for Equal Opportunity president Devon Westhill and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As we read here, Westhill had been invited to speak before the commission, but was then disinvited when Commissioner Janet Dhillon turned thumbs down because she didn’t like his remarks.

Federal officials don’t care much for freedom of speech. They prefer controlled speech that supports their efforts. And they’re getting more aggressive themselves in deciding what may or may not be said.

I’m afraid that this will only get worse.

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ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

ESPN Apes Anti-Israel Bias By David Harsanyi

By on May 19th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/espn-apes-anti-israel-bias/

You can’t escape it. In a story about the Brooklyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving’s inability to concentrate on basketball because of world events — “our people are still in bondage across the world, and there’s a lot of dehumanization going on” — ESPN claims that the “latest outbreak of violence began in east Jerusalem last month, when Palestinian protests and clashes with police broke out in response to Israeli police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers.”

Of course, police showed up after rioting was already a threat. The violence was in reaction to Al-Aqsa restrictions precipitated by COVID fears (Palestinian authorities haven’t allowed Israel to provide vaccination centers) and Jewish celebrations of Jerusalem unification. Plus, Jewish “settlers” — only Jews can be “settlers” — aren’t empowered to evict anyone without legal cause. The Sheikh Jarrah case is a property-rights dispute being adjudicated in the courts. It was delayed by the supreme court.

It’s complicated stuff. So I suppose can’t really get mad at ESPN for lifting a sentence, verbatim, from the Associated Press, since PBS and the Chicago Tribune did the same thing.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

They Heard It through the Grapevine: Illegals Are Coming from All Over By Mark Krikorian

By on May 19th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/they-heard-it-through-the-grapevine-illegals-are-coming-from-all-over/

People around the world are responding to La Invitacion delivered by President Biden through his campaign rhetoric and executive actions.

The border crisis continues, with the total number of illegal immigrants encountered at the border in April at a 21-year high for that month, though up just 3 percent from March. But families (adults traveling with minors) from countries other than the usual Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador made up 30 percent of all illegal-alien families apprehended in April, up a whopping 34 percent from the previous month.

The New York Times reports that they’re coming not only from farther afield in Latin America — Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil — but also from India and the Middle East. The reporter quotes the director of a shelter in Tucson that helps illegal immigrants after they’ve been released into the U.S. by the Border Patrol as saying, “We never worked with such large numbers with this diversity,” including speakers of Arabic, Haitian Creole, Hindi, and Portuguese.

This being the New York Times, the story is framed as being about “pandemic refugees,” which is not a thing, because fleeing “unimaginable levels of illness and death and decimated economies and livelihoods” doesn’t make you eligible for the line-cutting exemption from immigration limits that is asylum.

But there’s no hiding the fact that the border crisis is entirely a creation of President Biden:

While most of the migrants do not necessarily understand the intricacies of U.S. border policy, many said in interviews that they perceived a limited-time offer to enter the United States. Friends and family members already in the country, along with smugglers eager to cash in, have assured them that they will not be turned away — and this is proving to be true.

“What we’re hearing back home is that the new president is facilitating entry, and there is demand for labor,” said Rodrigo Neto, who came from Brazil, where the pandemic killed his business and left him overwhelmed by debt. “I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What Will The Petty Tyrants Resort To Once They Lose Their Virus Leverage?

By on May 19th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/05/19/what-will-the-petty-tyrants-resort-to-once-they-lose-their-virus-leverage/

Though the Centers for Disease Control recommends that vaccinated adults remove their masks in most settings, a number of Blue State governors, clearly ignoring the “science” they’ve said they’re so devoted to, have refused to free their citizens. The pandemic has allowed them to sate their authoritarian urges, setting us up for a grim future – unless we fight back.

Refusing to follow the science and keeping mask mandates in place are California Gov. Gavin Newsom, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Democrats all. No surprise. The Democratic Party is a refuge for closeted, and even open, authoritarians.

Last fall, we said that up until that point it seemed absurd to think the government pandemic orders that were restricting our freedom to move were a dry run for future attempts to use global warming as a pretext to devour liberty. But we reconsidered. We saw “observant and cunning politicians” watching Americans’ sheepish reactions to their lockdowns and mask rules, and came away convinced they were filing away what they learned for a later day.

Of course they’re not going to let a crisis go to waste.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

PIERS MORGAN: I didn’t think Harry could go lower than trashing his grandmother as she mourns Prince Philip, but the spineless self-pitying twerp’s attack on free speech makes HIM look bonkers not the US Constitution Piers Morgan

By on May 19th, 2021

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9587523/PIERS-MORGAN-Harrys-attack-free-speech-makes-look-bonkers-not-Constitution.html

If the freedom of speech is taken away,’ said America’s first president George Washington, ‘then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.’

His view was shared by Thomas Jefferson, a fellow Founding Father and America’s third president, who declared: ‘Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.’

These two men helped create the initial United States Constitution and subsequent Bill of Rights that included the First Amendment which was specifically designed to protect the very freedoms they were referring to.

That Amendment states: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’

They are arguably the most important words in the entire Constitution and have afforded Americans, and American journalists, the most powerful protection for their rights to freedom of speech and expression of any country in the world.

The First Amendment is one of the things I most admire about the United States, especially coming from a country like Britain where free speech for journalists like me is now heavily regulated.

Prince Harry has just declared the First Amendment to be ‘bonkers.’ His extraordinary outburst came during an interview he conducted with actor Dax Shephard for the ‘Armchair Expert’ podcast, during which he also launched a shameful new attack on his family.

I’ve got so much I want to say about the First Amendment as I sort of understand it,’ he said, ‘but it is bonkers. I don’t want to start going down the First Amendment route because that’s a huge subject and one which I don’t understand because I’ve only been here a short time, but you can find a loophole in anything. You can capitalize or exploit what’s not said rather than uphold what is said.’

Like so much of the absurd Meghan-inspired psychobabble that spews out of his mouth, none of this makes any sense, and he clearly doesn’t understand what he’s saying either.

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BOOKS, MEDIA Comments turned off

New Book From Former NYT Reporter Eviscerates The Bogus Steele Dossier And The Journalists Who Peddled It by Jason Foster

By on May 19th, 2021

https://thefederalist.com/2021/05/18/new-book-from-former-nyt-reporter-eviscerates-the-bogus-steele-dossier-and-the-journalists-who-peddled-it/

Out today, Barry Meier’s book contains a comprehensive, page-turning narrative of the massive media and political dumpster fire that was the Steele dossier.

This article was originally published at Jason Foster’s Substack “Stubborn Things” under the headline “New Book: Private Spies Infected Journalism with Steele Dossier, ‘A Media Clusterf**k of epic proportions.’”

When I first heard that a former New York Times investigative reporter was writing a book about “corporate intelligence firms” like Fusion GPS and Orbis Business Intelligence, I was skeptical. Would this mean serious, in-depth scrutiny of the way Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele peddled too-good-to-check Trump dossier fantasies to their allies in the media? Unlikely.

After all, Barry Meier began working for The Old Gray Lady when I was still in high school. He has serious skins on the wall as a good old-fashioned investigative journalist, but his paper also allowed itself to become Fusion’s mouthpiece for procedural squabbles with congressional investigators seeking to uncover the truth about the dossier and its claims.

Plus, the scope of the book might mean only a chapter or two on Fusion and Orbis, with a litany of stories about the excesses and abuses of other firms.

I was wrong.

Meier has hammered the third nail in the coffin of the Steele dossier. Nail one was Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s April 2019 Report. Nail two was Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s December 2019 Report.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

The decline and fall of the Associated Press The AP’s building in Gaza collapses after an Israeli air strike. Is the organization’s credibility crumbling too? Charles Lipson

By on May 19th, 2021

https://spectator.us/topic/decline-fall-associated-press-gaza/

Once, long ago, in a land far away, the best journalists tried to stand aloof from the stories they reported. The idea was simple and powerful. If journalists tried to be neutral and kept their reporting separate from their opinions, analysis, and speculation, then the public would believe them.

Those days are long gone — and the media’s credibility is gone with them. Journalists and media organizations are now smack in the middle of many stories they cover, in part because they want to be. They want to spin them, to set ‘the Narrative’.

Imbued with this new mission, many journalists have become partisan protagonists. They have deliberately blurred the lines between facts, analysis and opinion — and downplayed the traditional role of presenting the facts neutrally and letting readers decide. That’s a dramatic change in journalistic norms and a disturbing one for both the media and the public.

In a few cases, the media cannot avoid becoming directly involved. That happens when reporters are arrested, as they are at some demonstrations. Or when they are prevented from covering stories, as they have been at overcrowded migrant facilities on the US border.

When media organizations are drawn into stories like these, they need to do two hard things simultaneously. First, they need to publicize the harmful restrictions and identify those responsible for them. Second, they need to set aside their justifiable anger and try to cover the news story itself as fairly as possible. In the case of migrant children and families, for instance, we still need to know what is happening on the southern border, as well as who is trying to prevent the story from being covered fully.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

California Leftists Try to Cancel Math Class The proposed curriculum framework aims low, abandons the gifted, and preaches ‘social justice.’ By Williamson M. Evers

By on May 19th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-leftists-try-to-cancel-math-class-11621355858?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

If California education officials have their way, generations of students may not know how to calculate an apartment’s square footage or the area of a farm field, but the “mathematics” of political agitation and organizing will be second nature to them. Encouraging those gifted in math to shine will be a distant memory.

This will be the result if a proposed mathematics curriculum framework, which would guide K-12 instruction in the Golden State’s public schools, is approved by California’s Instructional Quality Commission in meetings this week and in August and ratified by the state board of education later this year.

The framework recommends eight times that teachers use a troubling document, “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.” This manual claims that teachers addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy. It sets forth indicators of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,” including a focus on “getting the right answer,” teaching math in a “linear fashion,” requiring students to “show their work” and grading them on demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter. “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,” the manual explains. “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates ‘objectivity.’ ” Apparently, that’s also racist.

The framework itself rejects preparing students to take Algebra I in eighth grade, a goal reformers have sought since the 1990s. Students in Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan master introductory algebra in eighth grade or even earlier.

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