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Ruth King

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Education and Business: An Incestuous Relationship By Eileen F. Toplansky

By on December 30th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/12/education_and_business_an_incestuous_relationship.html

Why in Sam Hill would a sentient parent send his child to any school of higher learning in America today when “colleges across the country are altering admissions requirements and curricul[a]” in order to “improve diversity ratios on campus”?

Mind you, it is not to increase standards.  No, the changes involve “lowering of standards and a very clear implication that students from certain backgrounds cannot score as high on tests as their peers of a different melanin makeup.”

When will this madness stop?

Instead of rooting out the reasons why students of color are doing so poorly, the Left continues to use them as cannon fodder to control the education of young American minds.

Why is it that the public education system has failed so many of its black and Hispanic students?  How is the following possible?

[I]n America’s public high schools, 45% of black students and 43% of Hispanics (as compared to 22% of whites) drop out before their classes graduate.  Dropout rates are especially high in urban areas with large minority populations, including such academic basket cases as the District of Columbia (57%), Trenton (59%), Camden (61.4%), Baltimore (65.4%), Cleveland (65.9%), and Detroit (75.1%).

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Despicable: Black attacks on Jews are rooted in Democrats’ coddling of anti-Semites By Monica Showalter

By on December 30th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/despicable_black_attacks_on_jews_are_rooted_in_democrats_coddling_of_antisemites.html

Once-tolerant New York City is becoming a haven for anti-Semitic, Jew-hating attacks, getting to be like Paris, eventually driving Jewish flight based on the surge of unpunished violence in the leftist-run city.

It’s shocking, not only because the number of unprovoked attacks on Jewish people just minding their own business and going about their daily lives are very numerous — nine at last count within about a week — but because within the violence itself is a tissue of lies, explicit and implicit, from silky enablers to conceal and euphemize what’s really happening.  In every case, the victim was Jewish and the attacker was black. That’s a politically incorrect to the press and its leftist allies, but it’s true. It’s similar to how Islamist terror was covered up as ‘workplace violence’ in the past, again in the name of political correctness. But this time, the refusal to name the source of the violence is not related to Middle East politics so much as Democrats’ coddling of black anti-Semitism within its own ranks.

Here’s just one of such incidents:

Suspects arrested in last week’s spree of eight anti-Semitic attacks are being quickly released right back into the neighborhoods they terrorized thanks to “bail reform” legislation — which doesn’t even take effect until Jan. 1.

The most recent case of revolving-door justice came Saturday morning, with the release, with no bail, of a woman charged with punching and cursing at three Orthodox women, ages 22, 26 and 31, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn at dawn the day before.

The accused assailant, Tiffany Harris, was hauled in handcuffs before a Brooklyn judge on 21 menacing, harassment and attempted assault charges.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

U.S. Ambassador Grenell Urges EU to Ban Hezbollah By Rick Moran

By on December 30th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/u-s-envoy-urges-eu-to-ban-hezbollah/

A U.S. civilian contractor was killed in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base near the city of Kirkuk on Friday. The attack occurred in an area controlled by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia.

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell used the attack to urge the entire EU to ban Hezbollah.

Richard Grenell

Richard Grenell Retweeted Jason Brodsky

Now would be a good time for our European allies to follow the lead of the German parliament and move to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization. #diplomacy

The German parliament recently passed a non-binding resolution urging the government to ban Hezbollah’s “political organization.” The motion urged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration, as well as the EU, to adopt a total ban of Hezbollah.

There are more than a thousand Hezbollah representatives in Germany alone.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, EDUCATION Comments turned off

American colleges are veering into academic ‘police state’ territory Cheryl K. Chumley

By on December 30th, 2019

www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/28/colleges-sharp-veer-toward-police-state/

The assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice just issued a statement reminding that America is not a “police state,” and neither should be the college campuses that dot the landscape of this country.

The very fact the DOJ has to release this statement shows how very far America’s freedoms have fallen.

“College campuses should not be mini police states,” wrote Eric Dreiband, assistant attorney general, as well as several other attorneys, in a “Statement of Interest” filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of plaintiffs accusing Jones County Junior College in Mississippi of several egregious freedom of speech violations against students.

And in a statement on the DOJ website, Dreiband elaborated with this: “The United States of America is not a police state. Repressive speech codes are the indecent hallmark of despotic, totalitarian regimes. They have absolutely no place in our country, and the First Amendment outlaws all tyrannical policies, practices and acts that abridge the freedom of speech.”

Yet college campuses, with increasing frequency, have in fact, in some instances, become breeding grounds for police state-like hits on the First Amendment.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Four Pillars: Educating for America Larry P. Arnn President, Hillsdale College

By on December 30th, 2019

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/four-pillars-educating-america/?utm_campaign=imprimis&utm_source=housefile&utm_medium=

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on December 6, 2019, during a Christmas Open House at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C.

This Fall at Hillsdale College, we did something strange, stranger than if we had found a unicorn and built a zoo to show it off. We celebrated, with a whole heart, the founding of our College 175 years ago. Yes, most of our founders were white. Yes, most of them were male. All of them are now dead. What can we be thinking, to celebrate people like that in this day and age?

There are two reasons, one particular and one general.

The particular one has to do with these founders themselves. They were human, sure enough, but they were very good humans. The earliest of them were classically educated New England preachers. They thought liberal education was the road to good living, good citizenship, and good statesmanship. They thought to get this liberal education it is better to read the classic books in the classic languages, Greek and Latin, and those were prerequisites for admission to the College.

These founders were patriots. The first line of the College’s Articles of Association of 1844 commits the College to perpetuating the “inestimable blessings” of “civil and religious liberty and intelligent piety.” We obscure the fact these days that the Americans who founded our country were mostly Christians, and they were devoted to both civil and religious liberty with the same intensity that they held their faith. They thought that the Christian religion, the first universal religion not to provide government to the faithful, would therefore have to be practiced in many countries—and that those countries should provide for the right to do so, or else be wrong. Claiming that right for themselves, they also respected it for others. “Do as you would be done by.”

These founders thought that liberal education should cultivate the practice of the moral alongside the intellectual virtues. College is about thinking, and the refinement and informing of the intellect is its first purpose.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

DESPERATELY SEEKING REGRETFUL TRUMP VOTERS John Hinderaker

By on December 30th, 2019

www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/12/desperately-seeking-regretful-trump-voters.php

On October 7, the New York Times published an article about a 2016 Trump voter who changed his mind and now intends to vote Democrat:

Mark Graham, a real estate appraiser in this faded manufacturing hub [Erie, Pennsylvania], sat with friends at a gym named FitnessU on the morning after the Democratic debate in mid-September. He had voted for Barack Obama, but in 2016 he took a gamble on Donald Trump.
***
“Things have changed in the last couple weeks: More stupidity has come out,” Mr. Graham, 69, said in a telephone interview last week. He hopes Democrats nominate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., but he is not particular. “I’d vote for the Democratic nominee no matter who it is at this point,” he said.Fast forward a month, to November 12. Now the Times reports, excitedly, on a new anti-Trump ad campaign being undertaken by David Brock’s disreputable organization, American Bridge:

A Democratic group unveiled a $3 million advertising campaign Tuesday featuring people who supported President Trump but now regret it, the first wave of a yearlong effort to reclaim some of the voters in the industrial Midwest who helped tip the 2016 election.

The group, American Bridge, will air commercials in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that are first-person testimonials from residents of each state explaining why they backed Mr. Trump in 2016 and why they will not do so again next year.

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Rabbi Spero:Time for African-American, Latino, and Muslim Communities to Root Out the Jew-Hatred That is Spurring Attacks on Jews in the New York Metropolitan Area

By on December 30th, 2019

Conference of Jewish Affairs 90 Washington Valley Road, Suite 1261 Bedminster, NJ 0792

– Conference of Jewish Affairs spokesman Rabbi Aryeh Spero released the following statement today:

“Virtually every recent stabbing and attack on Jews in New York City and the metropolitan area has been perpetrated by a black, Hispanic or sympathizers with jihad. It is time for leaders of those communities to admit to anti-Semitism within their midst and STOP it. Time for truth telling. Perpetrators must be punished.“New York’s extremely liberal politicians speak about anti-Semitism, but are not using anywhere near the force of law to bring these perpetrators to justice. In fact, we’re hearing that last week’s attackers against Jews, who were black or Hispanic, have already been released and are back on the streets.

“Much of the hatred against Jewish people is being fueled by jihadist talk, and yet, because of political correctness, authorities are not doing the pre-reconnaissance that common sense dictates.

“We have heard the evasive platitudes about ‘extremism’, ‘intolerance’, ‘hate’, but what we are witnessing in these attacks is raw anti-Semitism, specifically against Jews. Call it what it is!  New York’s liberal politicians want us to believe that this is coming from a climate of ‘extremism’ and ‘white supremacists’, whereas in the metro area it is a Jew-hatred being fomented within the minority communities.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

In Iran, It Is a Crime to Be a Christian by Majid Rafizadeh

By on December 29th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15229/iran-christians-persecution

Three of the Islamist judges known to preside over the trials of Christians are Mashallah Ahmadzadeh, Mohammed Moghiseh, and Ahmad Zargar. The international community needs to consider imposing sanctions on them.
Converts to Christianity from Islam, according the Iran’s Islamic law, can face the death penalty. The Iranian Islamist judges generally resort to verses from the Quran and Hadith (Muhammad’s sayings and acts) to justify their verdicts.
Iran systematically violates the U.S. International Religious Freedom Act and this is why, since 1999, the U.S. has designated the Islamic Republic as a “Country of Concern.”
Under international law, the Iranian government has an obligation to respect freedom of religion. Yet, while Christians are being increasingly persecuted and their rights are violated in Iran at an unprecedented level, the international community still remains silent.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is unleashing a sweeping crackdown on Christians, particularly those who have dared to convert from Islam to Christianity.

Most recently, nine Christians in Iran, possibly converts, have been convicted by the Islamic court, and each sentenced to five years in prison. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) arrested them for attending church services at a private house. According to a report by Article 18, an Iranian NGO which promotes religious freedom:

“The arresting officers introduced themselves as agents from the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS).

“They stormed the Christians’ homes in a coordinated operation at around 9am, confiscating Bibles, Christian literature, wooden crosses and pictures carrying Christian symbols, along with laptops, phones, all forms of identity cards, bank cards and other personal belongings.

“Arresting agents also searched the work offices of at least two Christians and confiscated computer hard drives and security-camera recordings.”

Christian families are generally dehumanized and humiliated in the community during the agent’s raids. As the Article 18 report explained, “The officers are reported to have treated the Christians harshly, even though small children were present during the arrests.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

An Interesting Year Comes to an End by Amir Taheri

By on December 29th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15349/interesting-year

International organizations, starting with the United Nations itself, appear less relevant than ever.

Classical media have also lost much of their power and relevance….

In the United States, female presidential wannabes dominated the Democrat Party’s list of candidates. This feminization shifts the emphasis away from the traditional goals of the nation-state that highlighted prestige, glory, economic growth, and hard power to social goals such as welfare, education, health, and help for real or imagined “victims of society.”

Iran is also heading for a transition as a regime of geriatrics that has lost much of its legitimacy finds it more and more difficult to frustrate the ambitions of a mostly young, creative, and determined nation.

As 2019 ends, the phrase that comes to mind is “what an interesting year!” And, the word “interesting” in this context should be taken in its traditional Chinese meaning, which is full of risks and dangers.

The year now ending confirmed a trend that started earlier in the decade, marking a slow, but undeniable, retreat from globalization which, at the start of the new century, was believed to be the panacea for all our ills. The new trend, taking shape in many countries, is that of nationalism highlighted by a return to the nation-state as the most effective model of political organization.

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MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Clint Eastwood Portrays the American Greatness of Ordinary Americans Robert Curry

By on December 29th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/28/clint-eastwood-portrays-th

Something really interesting is happening at Malpaso Productions, Clint Eastwood’s movie production company. Eastwood’s films, especially in recent years, portray the best in the American character through real stories of ordinary Americans called by events to stand up and shine. In his latest, “Richard Jewell,” Eastwood continues exploring a theme I’ve called “American Greatness in the Shadow of 9/11.” The result is a body of work that is awe-inspiring and unlike anything we have seen before in American cinema.

His subject is the American hero in the still unfamiliar new world that emerged after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Eastwood’s theme is made quite clear in “Sully.” The film tells the story of “the Miracle on the Hudson.” On January 15, 2009, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and co-pilot Jeff Skiles managed to do the impossible. U.S. Airways Flight 1549 from New York’s La Guardia Airport slammed into a flock of geese right after takeoff, causing both engines to fail. The successful water landing on the river next to Manhattan saved the lives of all 155 people on board—and averted another disaster for the city similar to the one on 9/11.

The 9/11 attacks are evoked subtly throughout the film, and the very first moments brilliantly establish the connection between 1/15/09 and 9/11/01.

“Sully” tells the story of a miracle, and is itself a kind of cinematic miracle. This is filmmaking at its best. Like Sully Sullenberger managing to do the impossible, Clint Eastwood manages to do what most directors won’t even attempt because it is simply too difficult. He tells a story we all know, tells it as it actually happened, and succeeds in making a great film. He even makes a film in Hollywood that celebrates America!

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