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May 2022

How Dare He Pick on Communism? Once again, Florida’s Ron DeSantis proves he has all the right enemies. By Bruce Bawer

https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/17/how-dare-he-pick-on-communism/

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, you just might be named Ron DeSantis.

Let’s recap. On April 22, the Florida governor signed the “Stop WOKE Act,” which, in the words of USA Today, “prohibits any teaching that could make students feel they bear personal responsibility for historic wrongs because of their race, color, sex or national origin.”

The law was necessary because, as you can see in any number of YouTube videos of school-board meetings around the country, young children have indeed been taught, in accordance with critical race theory and other poisonous postmodern pap, that if they’re white or male they’re oppressors, bearing guilt for the actions of long-dead people who looked like them, and if they’re black or female, by the same logic, they’re victims. 

Six days later, DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education Act,” which forbids kindergarten teachers in Florida from talking to their pupils about such topics as masturbation, ejaculation, and oral sex—an act his enemies dishonestly dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

This law was necessary too, because, as you can see in other videos (many of which have been curated on the “Libs of TikTok” Twitter account) young schoolchildren are indeed being taught all kinds of things about sex that nobody, until the day before yesterday, would have considered remotely appropriate. 

Then, on May 9, DeSantis signed a third bill. It designates November 7 of each year as “Victims of Communism Day” and mandates that schoolchildren in Florida be taught about Communism for at least 45 minutes a year.

Like the two laws before it, this one, too, was necessary. All American schools teach about Nazism, and make it clear to students that Hitler was evil.

But Communism? Stalin? Not so much.

How Al Jazeera Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh Died The Palestinians insist that the case is closed. But is it? Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/how-shireen-abu-akleh-died-hugh-fitzgerald/
This much is certain about the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian-American journalist who was killed in Jenin on May 11: one side, that of Israel, has been insistently calling for a joint investigation with the Palestinians, and possibly with American representatives, too, into her killing. Israel wants especially to study the bullet retrieved from her body and the helmet she was wearing at the time. The Palestinians, on the other hand, insist that the IDF soldiers killed Abu Akleh, but refuse to produce the bullet lodged in her skull for Israeli inspection, and refuse to join with Israel in any further investigation, claiming that the case is closed.

A report on the IDF’s latest release, which provides two possible scenarios for the killing of Shireen Al-Akleh, is here: “Initial IDF probe of reporter’s death proposes 2 scenarios for who fired fatal shot,” Times of Israel, May 13, 2022:

The military on Friday released interim findings from its probe into the death of prominent Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, killed Wednesday amid clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen in Jenin.

The Israel Defense Forces said it had not yet been able to determine who fired the fatal shot. But it said it had narrowed down the possibilities to two scenarios.

In the first, Abu Akleh was hit when armed Palestinians fired “dozens of bullets indiscriminately” toward military vehicles in the northern West Bank city. The IDF said the bullets were fired in the direction where Abu Akleh was standing, adding that it was “possible this is the source of the gunfire that hit here.”

Other reports suggest that not “dozens,” but “hundreds” of shots were fired indiscriminately by toward the IDF vehicles by the Palestinians.

US Trade Deficit With Communist China Is Climbing This isn’t free trade; it’s subsidizing a tyrant.Terence P. Jeffrey

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/us-trade-deficit-communist-china-climbing-terence-p-jeffrey/

At the White House press briefing last Dec. 6, press secretary Jen Psaki made it clear that President Joe Biden wanted the People’s Republic of China to pay a price for its human rights abuses.

He would do so by declining to send any U.S. government officials to the Beijing Winter Olympics, which would be held in February.

“The Biden administration,” Psaki said, “will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games given the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.”

“U.S. diplomatic or official representation would treat these games as business as usual in the face of the PRC’s egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang,” she said. “And we simply can’t do that.”

But business as usual with the PRC did continue in the business arena, if not the Olympic one.

In fact, in the days leading up to and through the Beijing Olympics, U.S. imports from China increased.

In January 2021, according to the Census Bureau, the United States imported $39,111,200,000 in goods from the PRC, while exporting only $12,860,900,000. The result was a bilateral monthly trade deficit of $26,250,200,000.

Organic BS The science just doesn’t add up. John Stossel

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/organic-bs-john-stossel/

Activists have convinced Americans that “organic” food is better — healthier, better-tasting, life-extending.

As a result, poor parents feel guilty if they can’t afford to pay $7 for organic eggs.

This misinformation is spread by people like Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of the Organic Consumers Association. She says organic food is clearly better: “The nutrition is a huge difference.”

But it isn’t. Studies find little difference.

If you still want to pay more for what’s called “organic,” that’s your right. But what’s outrageous is that this group of scientifically illiterate people convinced the government to force all of us to pay more.

Congress has ruled that GMOs (genetically modified food) must be labeled. Busybodies from both parties supported the idea.

Critical Race Theory has infected 80% of the top US medical schools By Peter Barry Chowka

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/critical_race_theory_has_infected_80_of_the_top_us_medical_schools.html

The U.S. medical establishment is in the process of absurdly identifying “racism” as the major determinant in health care outcomes.

Last January, I wrote about how the Biden administration was “institutionalizing medical racism nationwide.”  In a previous article in April 2021, I reported how “Medical Racism — Preferential Treatments for Blacks over Whites — Is Here.”  Yesterday, Fox News’s Brian Flood advanced this underreported story by noting how 39 of the nation’s 50 top medical schools have mandated Critical Race Theory training for their medical students.

At least 39 of America’s 50 most prestigious medical colleges and universities have some form of mandatory student training or coursework on ideas related to critical race theory (CRT), according to CriticalRace.org, which monitors CRT curricula and training in higher education. 

Earlier this year, CriticalRace.org found that CRT was prevelant in medical schools across the country. The project from Legal Insurrection Foundation, a non-profit devoted to campus free speech and academic freedom, has since expanded its database and found even more elite medical schools are focusing on “racialization” of medicine. 

“The national alarm should be sounding over the racialization of medical school education. The swiftness and depth to which race-focused social justice education has penetrated medical schools reflects the broader disturbing trends in higher education,” Legal Insurrection founder William A. Jacobson told Fox News Digital.

“Follow the science” in medical academia has now taken a backseat to “follow the CRT woke,” as medical schools around the country have fallen sway to the Marxist theory of radical Critical Race propagandists.

The Mass Shooting Blame Game The despicable rush to blame a deranged killer on Republicans

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-massacre-blame-game-buffalo-shooting-payton-gendron-democrats-media-race-11652825519?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

American politics these days never fails to meet the public’s low expectations. The latest example is the transparently political attempt by Democrats and their media allies to blame political opponents for the murderous rampage of Payton Gendron in Buffalo.

As so often these days with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez looking over his shoulder, the exploiter in chief is New York Sen. Chuck Schumer. He used the moment to blame the Democratic Party’s recently unveiled, and focus-group tested, election campaign theme: “MAGA Republicans.”

“Every time MAGA Republicans or pundits vilify wrongly immigrants and call them invaders, every time they falsely claim that millions of undocumented people cast ballots in our elections, and every time loud bigoted voices bemoan the disintegration of an imagined ‘classic’ America, the subtext is clear: these hard-right MAGA Republicans argue that people of color and minority communities are somehow posing a threat—a threat—to the American way of life.”

He added: “This is replacement theory in a nutshell. It is a dangerous and a deeply anti-American worldview. It’s poisoning people’s minds who spend hours wandering the darkest wastelands of the internet.”

We’ve supported immigration longer than Mr. Schumer has been in Congress, and politicians should be careful in their rhetoric. But note his logic of massacre causation: Political opposition to unchecked immigration, or support for ballot integrity and American values, drove Payton Gendron to kill 10 African-Americans at a Buffalo supermarket. Oh, and Mr. Schumer also threw in Fox News (where we have a TV show) as fellow travelers in domestic terrorism.

ELECTIONS 2022 PRIMARIES

Pennsylvania GOP Senate Primary Race Too Close to Call

By Caroline Downey

Trump-endorsed celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz currently has a razor-thin margin of less than a thousand votes over hedge-fund executive Dave McCormick.

Madison Cawthorn Loses North Carolina GOP House Primary Challenge after Scandal Pile-Up

By Caroline Downey

Cawthorn lost to state senator Chuck Edwards after a series of scandals shook his budding political career.

Trump-Backed Doug Mastriano Wins Pennsylvania GOP Primary for Governor

By Caroline Downey

Mastriano defeated a crowded field of eight challengers, including second-place contender former U.S. Representative Lou Barletta.

John Fetterman Wins Pennsylvania Democratic Senate Primary after Suffering Stroke

By Caroline Downey

Fetterman is currently projected to win by more than 30 percent over second-place finisher U.S. representative Conor Lamb.

Judge Jackson Won’t Say Dobbs Leak Is Wrong and Won’t Object to Protests at Her Soon-to-Be Colleagues’ Homes Andrew McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/judge-jackson-wont-say-dobbs-leak-is-wrong-and-wont-object-to-protests-at-her-soon-to-be-colleagues-homes/?

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who will replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court after the current term ends in a few weeks, sat for an interview by the Washington Post. She was asked about the leak of Justice Alito’s draft opinion in the Dobbs abortion case, and the consequent demonstrations at the homes of several justices — Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as conservative justices identified in media reporting as having voted with Alito to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Here’s the relevant excerpt from the interview:

Q: What was your response when you when you saw the draft leak [of a Supreme Court opinion that would strike down Roe v. Wade]?

A: Everybody who is familiar with the court and the way in which it works was shocked by that. Such a departure from normal order.

Q: Do you think it was a good thing or a bad thing?

A: I can’t answer that.

Q: What do you think about peaceful protests outside of Supreme Court justices’ homes?

A: I don’t have any comment.

This ranges from somewhere between cowardly and sinister, much like the failure of the justices to issue a joint statement that echoes the chief justice’s condemnation of the leak and statement of determination to identify the leaker, and that condemns the protests, which violate federal law.

Princeton Preparing to Fire Tenured Professor for Opposing Far-Left Activists

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/princeton-preparing-to-fire-tenured-professor-for-opposing-far-left-activists/?utm_

Classics professor Joshua Katz, one of the few academics who spoke out against the extremist mobs that formed in the wake of the George Floyd slaying, has been targeted for loss of tenure and firing by Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber, according to a report by Washington Free Beacon reporter Aaron Sibarium.

Katz ran afoul of the hard left after he wrote:

The Black Justice League, which was active on campus from 2014 until 2016, was a small local terrorist organization that made life miserable for the many (including the many black students) who did not agree with its members’ demands. . . . Recently I watched an “Instagram Live” of one of its alumni leaders, who—emboldened by recent events and egged on by over 200 supporters who were baying for blood—presided over what was effectively a Struggle Session against one of his former classmates. It was one of the most evil things I have ever witnessed, and I do not say this lightly.

Katz added, “the BJL went after one fellow black student with particular vigor, verbally vilifying her in public at every possible opportunity, calling her all sorts of unsavory epithets and accusing her of  ‘performing white supremacy.’ Other students, as well as faculty and administrators, were accused, without evidence, of being ‘racists’ and ‘white supremacists.’”

Because Katz has tenure, he (at least in theory) can’t be fired for ideological nonconformism, but Sibarium suggests Eisgruber has found a pretext: bringing up a long-settled question of a consensual sexual relationship with a student more than a decade ago. Professors are barred from dating undergraduates, but Katz was already disciplined for this after an investigation in 2018, and agreed to take a year of unpaid leave as punishment.

Will 2022 Vote Be Fair? Nearly A Third Of Americans Say No: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/05/18/will-2022-vote-be-fair-nearly-a-third-of-americans-say-no-ii-tipp-poll/

Will America’s elections in November be fair and free of fraud? Unfortunately, nearly a third of all Americans believe the answer is “no,” the latest monthly I&I/TIPP Poll found, suggesting that the November mid-term congressional elections could be among the most closely scrutinized in recent history.

The May poll asked 1,320 Americans, “Generally speaking, how confident are you that votes will be cast and counted accurately in the November elections?”

Among those responding, 61% said they were either “very confident” (36%) or “somewhat confident” (25%).

On the other hand, 31% said they were “not confident, with 20% saying they were “not very confident” and 11% saying they were “not at all confident.”

Put another way, nearly one out of three voters believe our coming mid-term elections will not be fair, a perhaps disappointing result in a country that has long prided itself on having clean, transparent and honest elections.