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Ruth King

Is Egypt Planning to Take Control of Gaza? What replacing Hamas might just prevent. Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/egypt-planning-take-control-gaza-hugh-fitzgerald/

The Egyptians have been heavily involved in ending the Gaza War and its aftermath. It was Egypt that was responsible for arranging the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. It is Egypt that has been the first state to pledge a massive aid package — $500 million – for Gaza. And it is Egyptians, with heavy-duty equipment – bulldozers, trucks, cranes –who have been arriving in the Gaza Strip to begin the enormous task of both clearing the rubble, and rebuilding the Strip. Whether Egypt is considering remaining in the Strip is discussed here: “Is Egypt planning to retake control of the Gaza Strip?,” by Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, June 10, 2021:

Scenes of dozens of Egyptian bulldozers, cranes and trucks entering the Gaza Strip last Friday have left some Palestinians wondering whether Egypt is planning to return to the coastal enclave it ruled between 1948 and 1967.

The Egyptian decision to send building equipment and engineers to the Gaza Strip came within the context of Cairo’s pledge to contribute to reconstruction efforts there after the recent

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi has pledged $500 million to help rebuild the houses and buildings that were destroyed during the fighting.

This is an enormous sum for Egypt to commit, and signifies Cairo’s deep interest in winning the gratitude, and allegiance, of Palestinians in Gaza. The Egyptians view Hamas as the local branch in Gaza of the Muslim Brotherhood, and therefore an object of suspicion and loathing. The Egyptians want their presence in Gaza to offer a sharp contrast to Hamas, which dragged the Strip into a war that devastated the area, while Egyptians and their equipment are very visibly in Gaza to repair the damage that Hamas brought upon not only itself, but on the civilians whom the terror group used as civilian shields, by placing its weapons and rocket launching pads in the midst of civilian areas, and even inside schools, hospitals, houses, and apartment buildings in Gaza. Egypt no doubt hopes to win the gratitude of Palestinians as it cleans up the rubble and begins the enormous undertaking of rebuilding.

The presence of the Egyptian construction teams in the Gaza Strip means that Hamas and other Palestinian factions will not be able to resume the rocket attacks on Israel, Palestinian sources told The Jerusalem Post.

“It will be hard for Hamas to initiate another round of fighting with Israel when there are many Egyptians inside the Gaza Strip,” one of the sources said. “If Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad start firing rockets at Israel while the Egyptian construction teams are working in the Gaza Strip, the two groups will get into trouble with Egypt.”

Justice Alito Destroys SCOTUS Obamacare Sellout Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/06/justice-alito-destroys-scotus-obamacare-sellout-daniel-greenfield/

Supreme Court decisions aren’t usually an entertaining read. Dissents sometimes are and Alito’s dissents are notable, but this one is worth reading and rereading, not only for the biting rhetoric, but its reasoning.

“Today’s decision is the third installment in our epic Affordable Care Act trilogy, and it follows the same pattern as installments one and two. In all three episodes, with the Affordable Care Act facing a serious threat, the Court has pulled off an improbable rescue,” Alito begins.

He delves into the three increasingly absurd decisions which first found that, “the ‘penalty’ for failing to comply with the mandate was found to be a ‘tax'”, and then “the Court came to the rescue by finding that the Federal Government is a “State”, and now “in the trilogy’s third episode, the Court is presented
with the daunting problem of a ‘tax’ that does not tax.”

“Can the taxing power, which saved the day in the first episode, sustain such a curious creature? In 2017, Congress reduced the ‘tax’ imposed on Americans who failed to abide by the individual mandate to $0,” Justice Alito sarcastically asks.

Justice Alito notes that, “instead of defending the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the Court simply ducks the issue and holds that none of the Act’s challengers, including the 18 States that think the Act saddles them with huge financial costs, is entitled to sue” while Democrat states were able to get standing to illegally force the citizenship question off the census, not to mention that, “some years ago, Massachusetts was allowed to sue (and force the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gases) on the theory that failure to do so would cause the ocean to rise and reduce the size of the Commonwealth.”

Biden’s Terror Strategy Defines Republicans as the New Terrorists If you disagree with the Democrats, you’re a “domestic terrorist.” Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/bidens-terror-strategy-defines-republicans-new-daniel-greenfield/

As the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaches, Joe Biden has made it clear that he doesn’t intend to fight Al Qaeda. Instead he’s going to fight other Americans.

The Biden administration’s newly released National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism mentions Al Qaeda only once in its 30 pages. Even though the FBI continues to break up Islamic terrorist plots against America, the document only defines Muslims as victims.

Just last month a Seattle Muslim convert was arrested. The convert had discussed driving a “semi-truck” through “the gay pride parade in downtown Seattle”. Even though the arrest came shortly before the anniversary of the ISIS massacre at the Pulse nightclub, both Biden and the media ignored the potential plot and the fact that the Pulse shooting was Islamic terrorism.

“I wish to see the kuffar (non-Muslims) as I kill them, I want to strike terror in them and make Allah pleased for doing so,” the Seattle convert had boasted.

That same month another Muslim convert pled guilty to plotting to attack an Ohio synagogue and murder a rabbi. A third Muslim convert in Brooklyn was also sentenced that month for promoting terrorist plots against Americans. American converts to Islam are a major source of recruits for domestic terrorist plots. Despite that, Biden’s strategy ignores their existence.

In a flashback to the Clinton era, the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism claims that the only serious terrorist threats come from the militia movement and racists.

And the only racists whose existence the Biden administration will admit to are white racists.

Micah X. Johnson, a black supremacist who murdered 5 police officers in Dallas, is described as an “anti–authority violent extremist”. Racist and supremacist terrorism can only be practiced by members of the majority against “minority populations”. It can’t work the other way around.

Antifa is also rolled together into “anti-government”, a category that encompasses the militia movement, black supremacists, white anarchists, and everyone who isn’t a white racist.

Stacey Abrams Endorses Manchin’s Election Law Compromise By Brittany Bernstein

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/stacey-abrams-endorses-manchins-election-law-compromise/

Democrat Stacey Abrams on Thursday endorsed Senator Joe Manchin’s voting legislation compromise, including a provision that requires a form of voter identification, ahead of a key vote next week.

On Wednesday, Manchin unveiled a list of voting and campaign finance changes that he would support, raising the possibility of a compromise on his party’s “For the People Act.”

Manchin has argued that the For the People Act as it stands is too partisan.

During an appearance on CNN on Thursday, Abrams said she could “absolutely” support Manchin’s proposal.

“’What Senator Manchin is putting forward are some basic building blocks that we need to ensure that democracy is accessible no matter your geography,” said Abrams, who ran an unsuccessful bid for Georgia governor in 2018. “And those provisions that he is setting forth are strong ones that will create a level playing field, will create standards that do not vary from state to state and I think will ensure that every American has improved access to the right to vote despite the onslaught of state legislation seeking to restrict the access to vote.”

Manchin’s proposal includes changes to both the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act: he has suggested making Election Day a public holiday, offering 15 consecutive days of early voting for federal elections, and allowing automatic voter registration through state departments of motor vehicles.

The moderate Democrat also supports requiring voter identification but allowing alternatives such as utility bills to serve as proof of identity.

Majority of Americans Hold ‘Unfavorable’ View of Critical Race Theory: Poll

https://www.theepochtimes.com/majority-of-americans-hold-unfavorable-view-of-critical-race-theory-poll_3863268.html

A new poll reveals 58 percent of Americans have an “unfavorable” view of Critical Race Theory (CRT), while 38 percent say they are in favor of the ideology.

The finding was published Wednesday as part of The Economist/YouGov poll (pdf), conducted between June 13 and 15 via internet among 1,500 adult citizens of the United States, with a plus or minus 3 percent margin of error. The sample was randomly drawn from the 2018 American Community Study, and was weighted based on gender, age, race, education, and voter registration status in 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

Participants were asked if they had “a good idea of what CRT is.” The results show that 54 percent responded “yes,” 23 percent said “no,” and 23 percent said they are “not sure.”

The CRT, which is now the center of a national debate, is rooted in the Marxist theory of class struggle, but with a particular focus on race. Critical race theorists see racism in every aspect of the American public and private life, and seek to dismantle American institutions, such as the Constitution and legal system, which they deem to be inherently and irredeemably racist.

Those who said they knew about CRT were then asked whether they have a “favorable or unfavorable” opinion of it. Of these participants, 25 percent said they are “very favorable,” 13 percent “somewhat favorable,” 5 percent “somewhat unfavorable,” 53 percent “very unfavorable,” and 4 percent said they “don’t know.”

The results also highlight a division along party and ideological lines. An overwhelming 82 percent of those who voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election said they are at least somewhat favorable of CRT, compared to five percent in Donald Trump voters. Similarly, 82 percent of participants identifying as liberals said they have a favorable opinion of CRT, joined by 42 percent of the moderates, and a marginal 7 percent of the conservatives.

Jan. 6 Suspects Held Without Bail More Un-American Than Capitol Incursion

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/06/18/jan-6-suspects-held-without-bail-more-un-american-than-capitol-incursion/

A month ago, the media reported that at least 53 Americans suspected of breaching the U.S. Capitol in January were still incarcerated. One web site more recently said “hundreds” are still behind bars. We know many have been denied bail, some apparently condemned to solitary confinement. Meanwhile, Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters are breezily waved through the system if they’re arrested at all. 

Is this still America?

Or a tyranny where political dissenters are disappeared?

“Detaining Americans captured within the United States indefinitely without trial or even charge is a clear violation of our Constitution and our values, and it must not be permitted,” says Sen. Feinstein. “We’ve seen over and over again that our criminal justice system is well-equipped to interrogate and convict terrorists, and I support that process.”

The California Democrat is at odds with her party. From the president down, most Democrats are treating the Jan. 6 protests as a genuine threat to the country. Yet the toll from what the Democrats and their scribes in media are calling an insurrection: $1.5 million in damage, roughly 750 federal and local officers injured, and a single non-accidental death, that of military veteran and unarmed protester Ashli Babbitt, shot and killed by an unnamed person inside the Capitol, (whose untimely passing gave Russian President Vladimir Putin the opportunity to imply that the U.S. is an outlaw nation just by asking if the federal government assassinated her.)

Compare this to the wreckage left behind in the last year by Antifa and BLM rioters (including riots in the capital): $2 billion in damage, 27 killed, and 2,000 police officers injured.

A handful of Republican senators have noticed the differences in how the two groups, one clearly hard left and radicalized, the other made up of Republicans, conservatives, and probably some independents, have been treated by federal authorities. They’ve asked the hopelessly political Attorney General Garland Merrick to explain the inconsistencies. Why has the former benefited “from infrequent prosecutions and minimal, if any, penalties,” they want to know, while the latter group is being subjected to a “potential” administration of “unequal justice.” 

The latter group includes suspects “from an 18-year-old high school senior from Georgia to a 70-year-old Virginia farmer with no criminal record,” Julie Kelly reported in American Greatness, accused Americans who “have languished for months” in cells “before their trials even have begun.”

The Inevitable Fruits of Critical Race Theory When every kid is taught that whites are evil people, unfairly hoarding power and wealth, you can expect more anti-white mass shooters. By Paul Bradford

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/17/the-inevitable-fruits-of-critical-race-theory/

A black man went on a multistate shooting spree over the weekend. The suspected gunman, Justin Tyran Williams, said he specifically targeted white men in his rampage that left five wounded. “Basically, [Williams] explained throughout his life, specifically white males had taken from him, and also what he described as military-looking white males had taken from him,” Columbus (Georgia) Police detective Brandon Lockhart testified Monday. 

A racially motivated mass shooting would be the number one news story on CNN . . . were the races reversed. But a black man intentionally shooting white men is just not that interesting to those outside of conservative media. 

One could dwell on the lack of coverage or how it’s closer to the average mass shooting than the stereotype pushed by the media. (The majority of mass shooters are actually black.) But the most heinous aspect about this crime is the shooter’s motivation. It would be easy to dismiss it as the fixation of one deranged individual. Antiwhite resentment, however, is actively encouraged by the prevailing ideology in our schools and institutions. Critical race theory wants all of its adherents to think the same way as Justin Tyran Williams. 

Most likely, Williams didn’t learn his violent hatred from critical race theory or in school. But it can’t be denied that CRT teaches that white men take everything from nonwhites and the reason why minorities fail is due to white supremacy. It encourages its adherents to hate whites and possibly even wish violence upon them.

Just take a gander at the latest examples of antiwhite racism promoted by our institutions. The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, a respected outlet in the field of psychology, published an article that claimed “whiteness” is “a malignant, parasitic-like condition” that effectively turns its white hosts into “perverse” monsters who attack non-whites. The article grimly concludes that there is no “permanent cure” for this condition. 

Last week, a Fairfax County, Virginia school board member told graduating high school seniors that they must wage “jihad” against the world of “white supremacy” that surrounds them. 

The prestigious Spence School in New York City shows middle schoolers videos that humiliate and mock white women as racist “Karens,” further encouraging racial animus among minorities and racial guilt among whites.

Counterfeit Civics “Educating for American Democracy” is the return of Common Core under a new label, this time applied to history and civics. America can only restore its civics education by rejecting EAD. By Peter W. Wood *****

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/17/counterfeit-civics/

The National Association of Scholars opposes the proposal, “Educating for American Democracy.” The proposal has attracted some well-meaning supporters, but they are mistaken about what Educating for American Democracy—EAD—would bring into being.

Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy is a “framework” that prescribes how American K-12 schools should teach civics. That word “framework” is part of EAD’s official self-description, and it deserves a closer look. In this case, the so-called “framework” is really a well-developed plan to impose a politically progressive program of instruction on almost all American students. The framework determines the ideas to be taught and the means by which these ideas would be conveyed and enforced. The content of EAD is antithetical to how the vast majority of Americans understand our country.

Precedents

We have been here before, several times. In the early 1990s, the academic Left hijacked the National History Standards. Under the Left, those “standards” projected a dismal view of the nation’s past, but a public outcry, led by former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Lynne Cheney, prompted a retreat. In January 1995, the U.S. Senate voted 99 to 1 to repudiate those standards.

Though they were officially shelved, the National History Standards retained a strong following among college history professors and a hefty number of high school history teachers. Those educators helped the National History Standards to become a kind of stealth curriculum in many of the nation’s schools, which goes some distance toward explaining the formation of political attitudes among people who attended school in that era. It also contributed to the popularity of works of pseudo-history such as Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.

Among the successors to the National History Standards was the 2014 revision of the College Board’s Advanced Placement U.S. History Standards (APUSH). Twenty years after the 1994 standards were officially set aside, the College Board imposed essentially the same partisan view on the nation’s most important (and most popular) secondary school history curriculum and examination. The National Association of Scholars blew the whistle on this capture-the-flag maneuver, and the College Board officially backed down—though once again, more in appearance than in substance.

Lately, the New York Times’ “1619 Project,” reconfigured by the Pulitzer Center as the centerpiece of a new history curriculum, has been introduced into tens of thousands of classrooms around the country. Controversy has rightly erupted over teaching this body of false premises and fake facts. The National Association of Scholars has been in the thick of this with our “1620” rebuttal.

Significant Election Irregularities Exposed in Fulton County, Georgia By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/06/17/huge-significant-election-irregularities-exposed-in-fulton-county-georgia-n1455273

Documents from Fulton County, Georgia, that were submitted to state officials for the election audit “highlight significant irregularities in the Atlanta area during last November’s voting, ranging from identical vote tallies repeated multiple times to large batches of absentee ballots that appear to be missing from the official ballot-scanning records,” reports Just The News.

Thousands of ballots are potentially impacted by these irregularities, suggesting they could be results-changing, as Joe Biden’s state-certified victory in the state was by fewer than 12,000 votes.

Just The News reviewed memos that included “handwritten tally sheets for all absentee ballots counted by the county as well as a private report from a contractor hired by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to monitor the Atlanta-area election process.”

The report, which chronicled seven days of problems, recorded troubling behavior like the mysterious removal of a suitcase of sensitive election data known as polls pads, used to authenticate voters.

“Learn that Rick reprogramming poll pads earlier was setting up a new precinct for SC11 because someone took the wrong suitcase but only took one,” the contractor Seven Hills Strategy wrote late on Nov. 2, the night before Election Day. “Seems to be a mystery who this person was –> Should have chain of custody paperwork!! That means that a stranger just walked out with sensitive election materials?”

The contractor also observed that sensitive election materials were left on a dock at a warehouse without supervision. “Several cases (including SC11) were just left out on the loading dock outside the warehouse,” he wrote. “Thankfully the seals were intact.”

Biden Uses Juneteenth to Push His Federal Takeover of Elections and the Suburbs By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/06/17/biden-uses-juneteenth-to-push-his-federal-takeover-of-elections-and-the-suburbs-n1455386

On Thursday, President Joe Biden signed a law proclaiming Juneteenth, June 19, a federal holiday, commemorating the freeing of the very last slaves in the United States in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865. Yet the president used Juneteenth as an excuse to push his radical agenda, including his federal takeover of elections and housing. He demonized Republican voter integrity laws and hailed a federal program that will pull zoning decisions away from city councils.

“The truth is, it’s simply not enough to just commemorate Juneteenth. After all, emancipation of enslaved black Americans didn’t mark the end of America’s work to deliver on the promise of equality,” Biden said. “To honor the true meaning of Juneteenth, we have to continue toward that promise. We’ve not gotten there yet.”

The president said his administration is “committed to doing just that. That’s why we’ve launched an aggressive effort to combat racial discrimination in housing.”

Combatting racial discrimination in housing is a noble goal, but Biden was referring to a revamped version of the Obama administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule (AFFH), a rule that started removing zoning from the purview of state and local governments. The Trump administration eliminated the rule, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under Biden has already proposed two new rules. Part of Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan explicitly pushes for apartment buildings in neighborhoods that are currently restricted to single-family homes.

During the 2020 campaign, Biden promised to go much further than AFFH. He embraced Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) strategy for ending single-family zoning in the suburbs and creating “little downtowns” there. Biden justifies his assault on local zoning control by claiming that current zoning laws that favor single-family homes disproportionately hurt low-income people who can’t afford to move to the suburbs. Yet this policy would take away Americans’ abilities to shape their own neighborhoods.

Biden’s pledge to increase black homeownership may be noble, but Donald Trump was right to warn that Biden’s policies represent a threat to the suburbs.

In terms of pushing racial equity on Juneteenth, the president also touted his administration’s goal to give black entrepreneurs more access to capital (a noble goal but a policy that singles people out based on the color of their skin) and his desire to “give each and every child, three and four years of age, not daycare but school.” Yet without vital measures to improve schools like school choice, decreasing the age of first entry may not make much of a positive difference.

Biden also called for more funding for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), pushing racial equity in the health care system, and ensuring clean air and water for all communities.

Yet Biden saved his most controversial talking point for last.

He said America’s promise of racial equality is “not going to be fulfilled so long as the sacred right to vote remains under attack.”