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Ruth King

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Prager U Video: Why Don’t You Support Israel? Fundamental truths about the only democracy in the Middle East. VIDEO

By on June 5th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273893/prager-u-video-why-dont-you-support-israel-prager-university

Israel is one of the most free and most prosperous countries in the world. Not only is Israel a booming economy and a wellspring of innovation, it is the only democracy in the Middle East. So why is it so controversial to support the Jewish state? Stephen Harper, the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada, lays out several fundamental truths about America’s most critical ally. Check out this must-see short video from PragerU.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

An American President in London The media disses the Donald — and liberty, and the American and British people. Bruce Bawer

By on June 5th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273925/american-president-london-bruce-bawer

Because my router was on the fritz during the first couple of days of the President’s state visit to the UK – a prelude to his Normandy visit on Friday marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day – I was forced to watch more TV coverage of the proceedings than would otherwise have been my wont. This meant relying heavily on CNN, the BBC, and Sky News. All of them were pretty much as snotty about Trump as expected, although the BBC did an especially obnoxious job, giving a ridiculous amount of airtime to some historian named Mark Shanahan, who in the guise of providing historical context and insight oozed anti-Trump – and anti-American – venom.

Since I’d never heard of Shanahan, I looked him up. He turned out to be an associate professor at the University of Reading, where one of his areas of specialization is “the celebritisation of American political culture from Eisenhower to Trump.” Shanahan brags on his university’s website about being “a regular media contributor to the BBC, ITN; CNN, Sky, ABC (Australia), France 24, and CTV (Canada).” During the Trump visit, no matter what the subject, he was ready with snark, both on the tube and on his Twitter feed. While Trump was visiting Westminster Abbey, Shanahan sneered that this would “play very well with American evangelicals at home.” Right, those American evangelicals who are into smoky thuribles, priests in red cassocks, and old Anglican anthems sung by boy choirs. Shanahan assured BBC viewers that Americans have an outdated “Mary Poppins” image of Britain, complete with bowler hats and chimney sweeps. Yeah, you’ve got it, Thucidydes, we’re all a bunch of dolts, who somehow slept through the Beatles, James Bond, Monty Python, the Thatcher era, Elton John, Ab Fab, Tony Blair, and all those horrible Hugh Grant romcoms. Shanahan also opined, with what seemed like at least a touch of antisemitism, that the “special relationship” is now a joke, because Trump cares less about US ties to the UK than to Israel.

Needless to say, Shanahan wasn’t alone. Pretty much every time the cable-news talking heads mentioned Trump, they found it necessary to repeat the word “controversial.”

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MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Jihad’s Infiltration of the Movies By Eileen F. Toplansky

By on June 5th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/jihads_infiltration_of

Imagine my shock as I sat down in a local movie theater to spend a restful Sunday afternoon when during the 15-minutes of upcoming attractions, the audience was subjected to one of the latest “Secret Life of Muslims” shorts titled, “What is a Hijab?”

The marketing piece is sheer genius; the subtle propaganda was superb — and I sat there realizing that the culture war is being won by the other side, and far too many American people have no idea how they are being readied for dhimmitude.

At the Secret Life of Muslims site, we are told that “one helpful rule for being a Muslim on the internet — [is] don’t read the comments.”  Thus, the viewer is already set up to censor any comments that might be factual about Islam.

The short that I saw features Reza Aslan and Linda Sarsour. This was the first clue as to the insidious nature of this infiltration of American entertainment. 

Reza Aslan was born in Iran on May 3, 1972. His family fled to the United States in 1979, to escape Ayatollah Khomeini‘s Iranian Revolution, and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Raised as a Muslim, Aslan converted to evangelical Christianity at the age of 15. After earning B.A. in Religious Studies from Santa Clara University in 1995, he decided to convert back to Islam.

In addition to his academic duties, Aslan serves on the advisory board of the National Iranian American Council, a lobbying group for the theocratic, anti-Semitic government in Tehran.  Aslan has exhorted the United States to negotiate with the jihad terror group Hamas; he has praised the Hezbollah as “the most dynamic political and social organization in Lebanon[.”]

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Bitter Debate over School Discipline written by Max Eden

By on June 4th, 2019

https://quillette.com/2019/05/31/the-bitter

Last month, Congresswoman Kathleen Clark (D-MA) called on Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to resign because the Federal School Safety Commission’s report contained a citation to a study, the findings of which Clark did not like. The Congresswoman did not allege that the study was methodologically flawed. Rather, she simply called the study “racist” because it found that differences in behavior explained the racial disparity in school discipline.

This could have been a teachable moment in the bitter national debate over school discipline. Unfortunately, rather than take this conflagration as an opportunity to review the research literature, journalists seemed more interested in reinforcing Clark’s accusation by innuendo, noting that the study’s author describes himself on Twitter as a “stoic, masculine, conservative.” But for America’s students, the truth matters a great deal more than partisan posturing. Policies predicated on falsehood rarely yield positive results.

If Congresswoman Clark’s contention that the racial discipline gap is not a product of student behavior but rather of “institutional racism” then the Obama administration’s policy of pressuring school districts to decrease discipline disparities by implementing “restorative justice” would have made a great deal of sense. But if, as the study that Clark condemned suggests, the disciplinary disparity is largely a product of behavior, then pressuring school districts toward statistical parity would likely do more harm than good, and Secretary DeVos’s decision to discontinue federal pressure would have been well-founded.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Nolte: Far-Left CNN Suffers Double Digit Primetime Ratings Crash in May

By on June 4th, 2019

https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2019/06/04/nolte-far-left-cnn-suffers-double-digit-primetime-ratings-crash-in-may/
The news just keeps getting worse and worse for the far-left CNN, which suffered a 16 percent primetime ratings collapse last month.

The embattled CNN, which always lands is far-last place and axed more than 100 jobs already this year, had about as bad of a ratings month as is possible in May.

It’s primetime hours were only able to average a measly 761,000 viewers, while the fake news outlet’s total day viewers dove nine percent (compared to this same month last year) to just 559,000 viewers.

For comparison purposes, Fox News earned three times as many primetime viewers (2.34 million) and more than twice as many total day viewers (1.34 million). What’s more, when compared to this same month last year, Fox lost none of its primetime viewers and only four percent of its total day viewers.

The most astounding thing, though, is that CNN’s ratings are already so low, it seems impossible they could dive any lower — and yet, they always do.

Do you have any idea just how low 761,000 primetime viewers is…?

How does a nationally known brand like CNN, a brand that is decades old, only manage to attract 761,000 viewers throughout a gonzo news month in a country of over 300 million?

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POLITICS Comments turned off

All the Votes Fit to Win The Census status quo favors Democrats—and that’s why they oppose the citizenship question. Howard Husock

By on June 4th, 2019

https://www.city-journal.org/census-citizenship-question

Just as the Supreme Court considers whether the Trump administration can add a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census, a New York Times report has intensified the redistricting battle. The Times profiles the late Thomas B. Hofeller, a Republican strategist, who, before he died last summer, was called the “Michelangelo of gerrymandering.” According to the report, Hofeller’s estranged daughter discovered hard drives that revealed his influential role in adding the citizenship question to next year’s census.

The files prove, the Times concludes, that “the Trump Administration added the question to the 2020 census to advance Republican Party interests”—specifically, to gerrymander congressional districts favoring the GOP. The Times editorial board added that “the trove of documents . . . makes it hard to see the Trump administration’s efforts to include a citizenship questions . . . as anything but a partisan power grab.” And a Times opinion writer even questioned the Supreme Court’s “legitimacy” if it rules in favor of the administration.

The citizenship question would inevitably discourage noncitizens from responding to the Census, resulting in their absence from the national head count. Their exclusion would affect the drawing of congressional districts, a process constitutionally based on total population, not the number of citizens. Hofeller undoubtedly studied the political implications of counting citizens only: documents submitted to the Court show that his idea dates to 2015. He promoted his proposal to Trump’s transition team, arguing that the added question would ensure enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

New York’s Toxic Schools Chancellor Obsessed with race, Richard Carranza has foisted an empirically baseless and socially destructive program on city schools. Bob McManus

By on June 4th, 2019

https://www.city-journal.org/richard-carranza-implicit-bias

Three former high-ranking administrators have sued New York City Department of Education and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, claiming that they were demoted because they’re white. It’s an explosive charge, and one that must be proved—but the allegations reflect, at minimum, the intensifying racial tensions since Carranza took charge of the nation’s largest, most complex public school system 13 months ago.

The chancellor threw down the race gauntlet virtually on Day One. He picked fights with white parents on the Upper West Side and in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, promised to achieve racial balance in the city’s famous selective-admissions high schools by essentially “reforming” them out of existence, and commissioned a $23 million “implicit-bias” social-conditioning regimen that lies at the heart of the former administrators’ $80 million lawsuit.

The program, first reported by the New York Post, assumes that New York City’s majority-minority public school students struggle because the system’s white-majority teachers and staff, consciously or otherwise, bring racist attitudes to work with them—and that this, rather than substandard teaching, administrative inertia, and non-classroom-related social issues, is the primary cause of classroom underperformance. Carranza’s reeducation program is the purported remedy, complete with racialist rhetoric, threats, and—if the suit is to be believed—race-based transfers and demotions. Eventually, all of the DoE’s 130,000-plus teachers and administrators will be subjected to such social conditioning.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

From Occupy To AOC: The Rise Of The New Progressives, Part 2 David Marcus

By on June 4th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/04/from-occupy-to-aoc-the-rise-of-th

In the four years between Occupy Wall Street and Trump’s victory, the New Progressives made vast cultural gains and prepared to amass real power.

This is part two of a three-part series. Part one can be read here.

Incubation Under Obama

Barack Obama was a problem for the New Progressive movement. At Occupy Wall Street, many of his policies were attacked, but still with a kind of deference due to him being the first black president. And while Obama may have always been more leftist than he let on — for example, his abrupt “evolution” on gay marriage — he presented himself as a moderate.

Progressives, especially white progressives, had to be careful in attacking him. Some notable black progressives such as Tavis Smiley and Cornel West felt more comfortable taking aim, but in general the New Progressive movement had to bide its time.

During the four years from 2012-2016, the movement made spectacular cultural inroads with everything from movies to news to advertising to corporate culture. By the end of this period, terms like intersectionality and privilege theory had become household words.

In a recent and remarkable Twitter thread, Zack Goldberg shows graphs of searches on LexisNexis for far-left terms like privilege, intersectionality, and a host of others. They go from barely a blip to soaring heights in this period. The beginning of the upswing in almost every case is about 2010, but it wasn’t until 2012, just as the embers of Occupy were dying out, that the vast increases occur.

By the end of 2012-2016, a socialist very nearly became the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, and the New Progressives were poised to capture real political power.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

‘Same Bus, Different Driver’ By Jay Nordlinger

By on June 4th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/same-bus-different-driver/

One of the most remarkable men I have ever met is Evan Mawarire, a pastor and democracy leader from Zimbabwe. In July 2017, I wrote a piece about him called “Zimbabwe’s Freedom Pastor: Evan Mawarire, the anti-Mugabe.” Robert Mugabe ruled over Zimbabwe from April 1980 to November 2017.

In May 2017, I did a Q&A podcast with Pastor Evan at the Oslo Freedom Forum. At that time, he was out on bail. The authorities had let him have his passport because his parents had turned the title deed to their home over to them. That was the deal: title deed for passport.

Six months later, Mugabe fell from power. This year, in May 2019, Evan Mawarire was back at the Oslo Freedom Forum. I again did a podcast with him: here.

We sat at the same table as before. He was once more out on bail. Once more, his parents had turned over their title deed, in exchange for his passport. Etc., etc.

When we talked, I shared with Evan an old American saying (or perhaps it is British): “second verse, same as the first.” He shared a Zimbabwean saying with me: “same bus, different driver.”

The current regime in Zimbabwe is just as bad as Mugabe’s. In fact, it is a continuation of it. As Pastor Evan says, Mugabe is gone but the Mugabe system remains.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Is Germany Becoming Germany — Again? By Victor Davis Hanson

By on June 4th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/angela-merkel-germany-anti-american-views/

Merkel’s evident anti-Americanism is a familiar refrain. 

The more things change, well, the more they . . . So it is with the perpetual German resentments of the U.S.

Recently German chancellor Angela Merkel reminded us of that German fixation, when she made some astounding statements to the German media that revealed what many Americans had long ago surmised.

Merkel all but announced that Germany, or for that matter Europe itself, is no longer really an ally of the United States: “There is no doubt that Europe needs to reposition itself in a changed world. . . . The old certainties of the post-war order no longer apply.”

She insisted that Germany views the democratic United States as not much different from autocratic Russia and Communist China: Urging Europe to present a united front in the face of Russia, China, and the U.S., she said, “They are forcing us, time and again, to find common positions.” And Merkel concluded that therefore Germany must find “political power” commensurate with its economic clout to forge a new independent European path.

In other words, in the calculus of the supposedly sober and judicious Merkel, the democracy that saved Europe twice from a carnivorous Germany — and Germany once from itself and once from becoming a Soviet vassal — is now similar to the world’s two largest authoritarian dictatorships, nations that not so long ago murdered respectively 30 million and 70 million of their own citizens. And how odd a sentiment for someone who grew up in Communist East Germany, a nightmarish state whose collapse was largely attributable to the Reagan-era effort to bankrupt and roll back the Soviet empire.

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