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Ruth King

How to Take Back American History By Stanley Kurtz

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/how-to-take-back-american-history/

Our schools have buried the glory and beauty of America’s story under a mountain of misplaced guilt and tendentious ideology. Yes, there are faults in our story — the stain of slavery above all. Yet the weight and significance of our tale lay in the striving to overcome our failings. American history is, in part, the chronicle of our attempts to more perfectly realize the principles of liberty and equality that inspired our founding. There is a way for America’s schools to grasp this truth and again impart an honest and confident pride in our story. That path emerged last week when President Trump spoke at the National Archives. Yet the full significance of the education strategy laid out by the president has been missed.

President Trump’s remarks were delivered at the White House Conference on American History. So far, news out of that event has highlighted the president’s intention to appoint a 1776 Commission to forward patriotic education in our nation’s schools. That is only a part of the picture, however. The fuller story emerges when you attend to the conference that preceded the president’s address, and to an important yet overlooked moment in his remarks.

The White House Conference on American History helped to introduce a new solution to the decline of history education in this country. American Achievement Testing (AAT), a new non-profit company, has formed an alliance with the historian Wilfred McClay, whose extraordinary new American history textbook, Land of Hope, is unlike any text currently available. In partnership with the National Association of Scholars (NAS), AAT recently received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), to design instructional materials for K–12 U.S. history courses, with Land of Hope as their core text. Theodor Rebarber, CEO of AAT, Wilfred McClay, author of Land of Hope, and Peter Wood, president of NAS, all spoke at the White House Conference on American history, as did Jordan Adams, who supervises history instruction at the system of charter schools associated with Hillsdale College, where Land of Hope is used as a text. (Other presentations less directly related to AAT’s project are well worth watching.) President Trump touted the NEH grant during his speech and asked Rebarber, McClay, and Wood to stand and be recognized. (You can see a video of the conference, with talks by Wood, McClay, Rebarber, Adams, and others here, and video of the president’s remarks here.) AAT’s U.S. history course materials — and the way they will be adopted — hold the key to the president’s new education reform plans.

How CIA’s Brennan Overruled Dissenting Analysts Who Concluded Russia Favored Hillary By Paul Sperry,

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/09/24/secret_report_how_cias_brennan_overruled_dissenting_analysts_who_thought_russia_favored_hillary_125315.html

Former CIA Director John Brennan personally edited a crucial section of the intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and assigned a political ally to take a lead role in writing it after career analysts disputed Brennan’s take that Russian leader Vladimir Putin intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump clinch the White House, according to two senior U.S. intelligence officials who have seen classified materials detailing Brennan’s role in drafting the document.

The explosive conclusion Brennan inserted into the report was used to help justify continuing the Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation, which had been launched by the FBI in 2016. It was picked up after the election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in the end found no proof that Trump or his campaign conspired with Moscow.

The Obama administration publicly released a declassified version of the report — known as the “Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent Elections (ICA)” — just two weeks before Trump took office, casting a cloud of suspicion over his presidency. Democrats and national media have cited the report to suggest Russia influenced the 2016 outcome and warn that Putin is likely meddling again to reelect Trump.

The ICA is a key focus of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s ongoing investigation into the origins of the “collusion” probe. He wants to know if the intelligence findings were juiced for political purposes.

Why New York City Is In Trouble – 114,041 Public Employees With $100,000+ Paychecks Cost Taxpayers $14.6 Billion Adam Andrzejewski

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/09/24/why-new-york-city-is-i

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wants a $12 billion coronavirus bailout from the American taxpayer. So, our auditors dug into how the city spent their budget in 2019. 

We found 114,000 highly compensated city employees who made more than $100,000 last year. 

For comparison, all Texas local and state governments employ 78,000 six-figure earners. All Florida governments employ 50,000 six-figure earners.

Today, our investigation is an Editors’ Pick at Forbes. Here are just a few of our findings:

Skyrocketing payroll — in 2016, there were 76,000 six-figure earners. Today, there are 114,000. 
The fire department fired a whistleblower and then settled for $800,000 last year. 
The mayor’s wife, who serves as a “volunteer,” has a staff of 14 employees costing taxpayers $2 million per year. 
50,000 six-figure educators — whose students underperform in national math and reading tests.
The NYC Human Rights Commission — dedicated to stopping discrimination — doesn’t pay their student interns! 

New York City is a mess. Literally. 

Despite a $32 million war-on-rats campaign. The rats are winning. Our auditors found that complaints of rats spotted on city street spiked 38-percent last year! 

Amid coronavirus, this year’s Yom Kippur is another kind of war Ruthie Blum

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/amid-coronavirus-this-years-yom-kippur-is-another-kind-of-war-643482

Most of the country is focused on the current battle against the COVID-19 pandemic – or, rather, on the fever-pitch fighting within the government about how to curb the alarming rise in morbidity.
For the first time in decades, the Israeli press is not devoting the lead-up to the Day of Atonement with stories about and lessons learned from the 1973 Yom Kippur War. 

Instead, the bulk of the news and accompanying analysis is focused on the current battle against the COVID-19 pandemic – or, rather, on the fever-pitch fighting within the government about how to curb the alarming rise in morbidity and fatality rates.
Unlike other issues at the root of major rifts between politicians and the sectors that they supposedly represent, however, this one seems to have no clear camps. And, as Israelis are used to having actual enemies to confront – either with swords or pens – the debate over coronavirus closures has been causing great confusion. 

Indeed, though by this point there is wide consensus that the situation is dire, there has been little agreement, even among medical professionals, on how to reverse the worrisome trend. To make matters even more complicated, the same experts and lawmakers have shifted their positions. 

Much of the public responded to the flip-flops and arbitrary directives by ignoring them completely or by looking for loopholes. This triggered others to feel like patsies and follow suit.

Finally, after days of deliberations – following a semi-lockdown during the past week that was barely enforced – the coronavirus cabinet decided on a complete nationwide lockdown, to begin Friday and last at least until the end of the Jewish holidays in October.

When the Media Becomes the Hangman By Marilyn Penn

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2020/09/24/when-the-media-becomes-the-hangman/

The Grand Jury in Louisville Kentucky issued its judgement regarding the Breanna Taylor killing yesterday. It found evidence that the police had properly identified themselves before entering her apartment and that her boyfriend had shot a policeman first, after which they returned fire, killing Ms. Taylor instead of the shooter. Only one of the policemen was indicted and that was for shooting recklessly into a neighbor’s apartment. That policeman’s name was announced to the public and within minutes that information, along with his smiling photograph were on every TV screen in America.

An indictment is not a guilty verdict; it is merely the prelude to a trial and theoretically, Americans are innocent until proven guilty. While this news was released, there were two policemen shot during the Black Lives Matter riot in Louisville – their condition was unreported as of this morning. The rioters were setting fires, screaming, fighting, destroying property in a total state of chaos similar to too many other riots that we have allowed to proceed and then seen televised over the past several months.

During the course of the pandemic, many rules have necessarily changed to accommodate the need for public safety. The riots – stimulated, financed and organized by Black Lives Matter, have been going on across our country for several months. People have been shot, beaten, killed, seen all their worldly goods destroyed along with their small businesses. In some states, the prosecutor has license to seal the name of the indicted person along with the proceedings of the Grand Jury. In light of the stated intention of BLM, we should not allow any state to release any information regarding proceedings involving police misconduct. We already protect the identities of the jurors – we should do no less for our men in blue.

We have seen the mobs descend on people’s homes and neighborhoods for lesser reason than a cop shooting a gun into the wrong apartment. How long will it be before those brave BLM cop-killers go after the man whose identity was splashed across our tv screens as the only indicted person associated with Ms Taylor’s death. This man should have been protected from the wrath of those who are outspokenly dedicated to killing cops. His name and photo should never have been released to the media which may be characterized most accurately as bloodsuckers.

A Just Decision Not to File Homicide Charges in the Tragic Breonna Taylor Case By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/breonna-taylor-case-just-decision-not-to-file-homicide-charges/

One former cop charged with endangerment, as the mob touts brutality narrative in lieu of looking at the evidence.

The criminal law is not designed to address every human tragedy. That is the lesson of the tragic death of Breonna Taylor. It was also the theme repeatedly struck by Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron on Wednesday, in announcing the indictment of one of the three officers involved in the raid that lead to her death.

The charge will not satisfy the mob. Neither the peaceful protesters nor the radical rioters, who have taken to the streets since shortly after Ms. Taylor was killed on March 13, are interested in the facts of the case. They could not care less how the law applies to the evidence a Lexington grand jury pored over this week. Their interest is only to set in stone a distorted narrative: Police officers on the hunt for a young black man, callously gunned down an innocent young black woman after supposedly crashing into an apartment without warning.

In light of that, the indictment will just fuel the mob’s outrage. The two officers who actually shot Ms. Taylor a total of six times were not charged. The indictment, instead, lodges three counts of wanton endangerment — not homicide — against Brett Hankison, then a detective (since fired), whose wild firing put neighbors in harm’s way but did not kill the young woman.

Police will be relieved that no charges were brought against Sergeant Jon Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove, whose shots in the dark chaos struck Ms. Taylor only after the officers were fired upon by her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker — who himself may have been justified, in the confusion, in shooting at what he says he believed was an intruder. The cops were doing their job in executing a lawful search warrant at a location that was quite justifiably tied to a notorious criminal — Ms. Taylor’s former boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover.

What Trump’s Nominee Can Expect from a Media ‘Cancerous With Dishonor’ Jack Cashill

www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/09/what_trumps_nominee_can_expect_from_a_media_cancerous_with_dishonor.html

Two years ago, Mark Judge was nearly crushed when the tumbril carrying high school pal Brett Kavanaugh to his intended execution ran him over.  I caught up with Mark this week, and I am happy to report he has recovered from his unhappy stint as Democratic roadkill.

Over the years, I have gotten to meet any number of other truth-tellers crushed by a media that Judge calls “cancerous with dishonor.”  I tell many of their stories in my new book, Unmasking Obama.  An excellent writer, Mark Judge tells his own story and does so eloquently.

Judge is the first to admit he was a troubled young man.  In 1997, as a form of atonement, he wrote an only slightly fictionalized book titled Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk.  He could never have guessed that more than twenty years later, Democrats would use the book in a clumsy — but nearly successful — plot to derail Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination.

The mechanics of the plot were obvious to anyone paying attention.  On July 6, 2018, the formal launch date, Christine Blasey Ford contacted the Washington Post tip line with this message: “Potential Supreme Court nominee with assistance from his friend assaulted me in mid 1980s in Maryland.  Have therapy records talking about it.”  On July 9, Trump nominated Kavanaugh.

On September 16, the Post’s Emma Brown broke the attempted rape story: “Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both stumbling drunk, Ford alleges — corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County.”  The “friend” was Mark Judge.  The story shook the nation.

Biden Report Shows Impeachment Was Election Interference by Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/23/biden-report-shows-impeachment-was-election-interference/

What if all the damning information in Ron Johnson’s report was revealed in September 2019 and not in September 2020?

With the release Wednesday of Senator Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) long-awaited investigation into the Biden family’s corrupt, possibly criminal, ties to Ukraine and other countries, one thing is clear: Had the information in the report been made public a year ago, it’s nearly impossible to believe Joe Biden would still be the Democratic nominee for president.

The fall of 2019 seems like a lifetime ago, but it’s worth revisiting to give context to this bombshell report. 

As the Democratic race for president took shape last year, the media started asking uncomfortable questions. “Will Hunter Biden Jeopardize His Father’s Campaign?” read the headline of a nearly 11,000-word exposé in the July 2019 issue of The New Yorker. 

Other news organizations followed suit. Senate Republicans finally were zoning in on the shady business dealings of their former colleague’s son. 

As damaging, potential campaign-ending coverage continued for months, Team Biden threatened social media platforms and journalists for spreading “disinformation” about Hunter Biden.

In October 2019, Biden, in a clip recirculated this week, lashed out at reporters for asking about Hunter Biden’s multimillion dollar overseas contracts. Even his Democratic opponents were piling on. Things were going downhill for the one candidate most establishment Democrats thought had the best chance to beat Donald Trump in 2020.

Questioning Supreme Court Nominees about Religion: A Delicate Task by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16540/supreme-court-religion

When Judge Amy Coney Barrett came before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her nomination to the court of appeals, Senator Diane Feinstein generated considerable controversy when she said to Barrett: “The dogma lives loudly in you.” … Under our Constitution, Senator Feinstein’s statement crossed the line. Ours was the first Constitution in history to provide that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Although Feinstein did not explicitly impose a religious test, she suggested that personal religious views — which she called dogma — might disqualify a nominee from being confirmed. That would clearly be unconstitutional.

Religious tests have no place in America. But what does have a place in the confirmation process are questions about whether a nominee will put faith before the Constitution and refuse to apply the Constitution if it conflicts with his or her faith. That issue would be true of any nominee regardless of their faith or faithlessness. President John F. Kennedy assured us that his Catholicism would not determine the nation’s policy. Justice Antonin Scalia said the same about his Catholicism and his jurisprudence.

One’s religion is a private matter, but one’s judicial philosophy is highly relevant in the confirmation process… Let us hope the Senate handles this nomination better than they have handled other recent nominations.

When Judge Amy Coney Barrett came before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for her nomination to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Senator Diane Feinstein generated considerable controversy when she said to Barrett: “The dogma lives loudly in you.” This was a reference to Barrett’s deep Catholic faith. Under our Constitution, Senator Feinstein’s statement crossed the line. Ours was the first Constitution in history to provide that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Although Feinstein did not explicitly impose a religious test, she suggested that personal religious views — which she called dogma — might disqualify a nominee from being confirmed. That would clearly be unconstitutional.

In Florida’s Election: It May be ‘Legal,’ but is It Right? by Chris Farrell

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16541/florida-election-felons

Those are 32,000 votes deemed pro-Biden in a state where 537 votes decided the presidential election in 2000. Florida, a critical swing state, has 29 electoral college votes that could determine the presidency.

One is left to wonder about what appears to be a slick, well-financed, lawyered-up, manipulation of the electoral process. It appears to have less to do with a legitimate, grassroots campaign to rehabilitate persons who have paid their legal dues for past misconduct than it does as a cynical, orchestrated, vote buying and manipulation process.

Last week, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Florida’s law requiring convicted felons in Florida to pay court-ordered fines, fees and restitution before having their voting rights reinstated. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who raised more than $16 million for this purpose, has, together with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, “paid off monetary obligations for 32,000 felons in Florida” so that they can vote.

Those are 32,000 votes deemed pro-Biden in a state where 537 votes decided the presidential election in 2000. Florida, a critical swing state, has 29 electoral college votes that could determine the presidency.

The organization Bloomberg is working with in this reinstatement effort is the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC). The FRRC has received an unspecified amount of funding from the Open Society Foundations (OSF). There isn’t a specific grant listed in the OSF’s 2018 Internal Revenue Service filing, but it identified FRRC as a grantee in an April 2019 Facebook post.