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Ruth King

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Beto Vs. Bibi A Democratic presidential candidate demonstrates his rank hypocrisy and ignorance. Ari Lieberman

By on April 15th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273455/beto-vs-bibi-ari-lieberman

The crowded field of Democratic Party hopefuls contains more than its fair share of odd characters. Corey Booker actually referred to himself as Spartacus while John Hickenlooper bragged about watching a porn flick with his mom. Kamala Harris claimed she smoked her fair share of weed during her college years while listening to Tupac and Snoop Dog, years before these rappers put out their first labels. But the candidate who takes top prize for the most truly bizarre is Robert Francis O’Rourke, aka “Beto.”

O’Rourke admitted to eating dirt after his failed bid to take Ted Cruz’s Texas senate seat. He also allegedly tried tricking his wife into eating baby excrement, telling her that it was an avocado. Rounding out O’Rourke’s insanity was his obligatory apology for his “white privilege” and a host of other irredeemable transgressions including his alleged misogyny, insensitivity to his wife and a past desire to run over kids with a car (yeah, you read that last bit correctly).

But while O’Rourke’s talents qualify him to play an extra on “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” they’re not necessarily portable to the presidential realm. O’Rourke learned that the hard way when just days before Israel’s general election, he called Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “racist” and noted that Netanyahu does not represent “the true will of the Israeli people.” O’Rourke also leveled criticism at the Palestinian Authority’s unelected chieftain Mahmoud Abbas, but it was more subdued and couched in terms of policy rather than base ad hominem attacks.

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Jamie Glazov Takes on Rep. Omar Over 9/11 VIDEO

By on April 15th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/273487/jamie-glazov-takes-rep-omar-over-911-daniel-greenfield

Some people did something on 9/11. And some people are fighting back.

On this week’s Glazov Moment on the eponymous Glazov Gang, Jamie Glazov, the author of Jihadist Psychopath: How He Is Charming, Seducing, and Devouring Us, takes on Rep. Ilhan Omar over her denial and dismissal of the worst Islamist terror atrocity inflicted on the United States.

Jamie delves into the intersection of CAIR, 9/11, Omar and the Islamist agenda. Be sure to watch.

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The Problems with America’s Best Teacher Training Programme written by Daniel Buck

By on April 15th, 2019

https://quillette.com/2019/04/14/the-problems-with-americas-best-teacher

A question central to Plato’s Republic is “What should we teach our children?” Judging from the parents I’ve talked to, this question is not getting the consideration it deserves. Parroting a common conservative refrain regarding what some believe schools teach, a colleague referred to them as “liberal-producing factories.” Thankfully, that’s not quite the case. While the teaching profession as a whole leans left, most educators are aware of their bias and, with varying degrees of success, try to push against it. Unfortunately, this is not true of the programs that train the nation’s school staff.

I received a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the premier schools of education in the country, occasionally nudging out Columbia and Harvard for the top spot in U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of education programs. In reality, it was a series of graduate courses that featured various arts and crafts projects.

To their credit, the faculty seek to ameliorate legitimate and pressing concerns that our schools face: racial disparities, stagnant scores that are falling behind other countries, defective spending structures, high teacher turnover, and a host of other problems. However, they promote a philosophy of education that is effective at exposing these problems but impotent to solve them. The root issue is that the three elements of a progressive worldview I discuss here—restorative justice, contemporary literary theory, and an antipathy to intellectual diversity—result in an education that questions all systems but fails to offer students a coherent alternative.

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U Need a Shine? By Peter W. Wood

By on April 15th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/13/u-need-a-shine/

In the 1940s, a wave of automation threatened an industry that employed large numbers of low-skilled workers. The rise of the electric shoe-shine machines turned the once ubiquitous street corner shoeshine boy and the higher-end hotel lobby shoe-shine stand into rarities.

At the bristly heart of the corporate takeover, the shinification of American footwear, was the Uneeda Shine Machine Company, of 552 West 53rd Street, in Manhattan.

The mechanics, of course, were simple: a few spinning brushes running off a motor. The genius was in the packaging. The standard Uneeda Shine Machine was the Shine-O-Mat, a sturdy gun-metal box that stood a little taller than a desk and offered amenities such a choice of black or brown brushes, a foot stand for applying polish, and handles in the event that the vroom of the brushes might send the patron careening across the room.

I speak from experience. About 15 years ago I salvaged a Shine-O-Mat from scrap metal oblivion. It is in perfect working order and has traveled with the various chapters of my curriculum vitae ever since. It travels with the same joy of movement that Mount Rushmore might have if it were forced to relocate to Hackensack. The thing was built to stay put—probably to deter thieves and former shoeshine-boys-turned-anarchist-luddites. Or perhaps to ensure that the momentum of the brushes didn’t drive it across the floor.

Silber Shines
I salvaged my Shine-O-Mat not out of an obsessive desire to see my reflection in a pair of Oxfords, nor out of nostalgia for a bygone era of auto-matting. Rather, I was seeking to preserve a relic of a great epoch in academic history. Herein hangs a tale.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Are There Any Limits to Illegal Immigration? By Victor Davis Hanson

By on April 15th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/14/are-there-any-limits-to-illegal-immigration/

The U.S.-Mexican border is essentially wide open.

Why? Because there is a general expectation in Mexico and Latin America that American immigration law is unenforced. Or it is so bizarre that simple illegal entry almost always ensures temporary legal residence, pending an asylum hearing.

A scheduled asylum hearing, in turn, is seen by border crossers as a mere formality to be ignored. The popular perception on the border, then, is to stick one foot illegally onto U.S. soil, and, presto, win permanent residence for you and any family members who wish to follow.

In an age of 500 sanctuary city and county jurisdictions, few illegal aliens believe they will ever be deported permanently, even if they have been apprehended committing serious crimes. There is also a general perception among would-be illegal entrants that prominent Democrats and progressives welcome their massive influxes as useful and will do their best to ensure illegal immigration continues unabated.

There is also the assumption that the greater the chaos at the border, the less likely Congress will take bipartisan action to end it. After all, 2020 is an election year and progressives are in no mood to hand Trump the semblance of a legislative victory. This fact is also known to would-be border crossers.

Illegal alien families sense that they are vital to progressive agendas of fundamentally transforming the country by importing first-generation, loyal constituents—a sentiment that is slowly replacing the prior idea of mostly young men coming to work off the books. In an increasingly tribal America, they expect on arrival to be recalibrated instantly from Mexican nationals without any experience of America into “Latinos” and “Hispanics” with historical grievances against the majority population of United States, to be remedied by reparatory hiring and admission, and facilitated by ethnic operatives.

Some polls in the past have suggested that a third of Mexico’s population would immigrate to the United States if possible. The percentages of would-be immigrants from Central America are likely to be even higher. In theory, 50 million could cross the border in the next two decades, which poses the question: what are the theoretical limits on illegal immigration?

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The Downward Spiral of Post-Secondary Education By Andrew I. Fillat and Henry I. Miller

By on April 15th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/14/the-downward-spiral-of-post-secondary-education/

Something is seriously rotten in our education establishment, especially in colleges and universities. The culprits are the evolution of the educational agenda, the cult of progressivism on campus, and the debt that students accumulate for an increasingly disappointing outcome.

Total student debt as of 2018 stood at approximately $1.56 trillion, and the average student who graduated in 2018 faced a debt of about $30,000. Lending Tree offers a breakdown of the depressing statistics. The average graduate of a private institution owes nearly $40,000, and some 88 percent of graduates are indebted at some level. Students who attend elite colleges without winning scholarships and those who go on to graduate school will almost surely enter the workforce owing $100,000 or more. And these are debts that bankruptcy cannot erase.

Those who enter “professions” such as law, medicine, and business administration can hope to earn enough income to repay the debt. For the rest, the picture is much more bleak. Almost half of those who attended private colleges default within 12 years. Public schools, at least, saddle their graduates with a more manageable burden, so the default rate is more like 1 in 7. But that still represents many people who are experiencing severe emotional strain.

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The Protocols of the Elders of the Washington Post April 15, 2019 Daniel Greenfield

By on April 15th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/273486/protocols-elders-washington-post-daniel-greenfield

The entire Khashoggi case is another reminder of just how thoroughly the media has mainstreamed not only Islamic terrorism, but anti-Semitism. The two beasts tend to go together. Where you’ll find Islamist activism, you’ll usually find anti-Semitism. Legitimizing one requires also legitimizing the other.

At the Jerusalem Post, Seth Franzman dug into Jamal Khashoggi’s Twitter history to find explicit anti-Semitic sentiments.

The late Saudi Arabian journalist, editor and kingdom-insider Jamal Khashoggi, writing on Twitter from 2011 until 2018, said Jews had no roots in historical Palestine, that one must know how to speak to Jews when meeting them, and that Jews were conspiring to divide al-Aqsa Mosque. The tweets, still online as of April 14, show a pattern of anti-Jewish views that even hinted at references to the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and complained that the West had laws preventing Holocaust denial.

Khashoggi also showed some genuine interest in the makeup of Israel, tweeting in June 2011 about the role of Iranian Jews in the country. In a tweet that same month, he wrote about the “desperation of the Jews to deny the Protocols.”

On September 13, 2012, he tweeted, “If this was skeptical of the Holocaust, America would not allow it to be published, because the Jews succeeded in obtaining a law that would prevent it in America and Europe.” There is no such law in the US preventing Holocaust denial, but Khashoggi used the false claim to attack Jews.

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Trump Proposes to Bus Illegals to Sanctuary Cities A political masterstroke. Matthew Vadum

By on April 15th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273482/trump-proposes-bus-illegals-sanctuary-cities-matthew-vadum

President Donald Trump’s proposal to ship immigration detainees to so-called sanctuary cities –which are Democrat strongholds— is a political masterstroke, if the Left’s wounded animal-like howling is any indication.

With this politically brilliant tactic, the likes of which would never have come from a President Jeb Bush or a President Mitt Romney, Trump continues to demonstrate that he is one of the few Republican presidents in modern American history who actually knows how to fight the Left. He is giving leftists a well-deserved taste of their own medicine.

And what better place to send illegal aliens than to sanctuary jurisdictions? They claim to welcome illegals and provide services for them. Their sanctuary policies, by which they harbor and shield illegals from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE), are magnets for illegals, giving them incentives to sneak across the border or overstay visas.

The president’s plan only gives sanctuary cities more of what they claim to want.

“We’ll bring them to sanctuary city areas and let that particular area take care of it,” Trump said April 12 at the White House. “They say, ‘we have open arms,’ they’re always saying they have open arms, let’s see if they have open arms.”

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Here it comes: Rep. Tlaib blasts Dem leadershipBy Thomas Lifson

By on April 15th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/04/here_it_comes_rep_tlaib_blasts_dem_leadership.html

The first overt sign of the trouble that lies ahead for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat leadership with the emergence of a radical Muslim wing of the party arrived Saturday.

Following the discovery of a video clip of Rep. Omar referring to 911 as “some people did something,” the blowback has been fierce, including in deep blue New York City, where the wounds of death and destruction (and lingering health issues among first responders) still are very painful. Rep. Tlaib is not happy with what she perceives as inadequate support for her fellow Muslima in Congress, and extended the criticism on this specific issue by another Twitter user into a broader attack on the party leadership:

Rashida Rashida Tlaib
They put us in photos when they want to show our party is diverse. However, when we ask to be at the table, or speak up about issues that impact who we are, what we fight for & why we ran in the first place, we are ignored. To truly honor our diversity is to never silence us.
Tlaib‏Verified account @RashidaTlaib
To say that Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ihan Omar have chips on their shoulders would be an understatement. Both women embrace the notion of Muslim victimhood in a party that stokes the grievances of a variety of minorities who are encouraged to see themselves as victims and seek balm in the form of concessions from the majority.

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Mayor Buttigieg’s Promise

By on April 15th, 2019

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/mayor-buttigiegs-promise/90647/

Mayor Peter “Pete” Buttigieg’s speech throwing his hat into the ring for president strikes us as the best debut from a Democrat since 2004. That’s when the party’s nominee was introduced at Boston by a young senator named Barack Obama, who stressed the idea of a UNITED States of America. Mr. Buttigieg captured at his launch this evening a youthful optimism that, other than Mr. Obama, our country hasn’t heard from a Democrat since JFK.

Not that we’re unmindful of what happened in respect of the nominee in 2004. Senator Kerry boasted of heroism in a Vietnam war he’d betrayed. He was called out by veterans of the shallow water inland fast tactical vessels known as Swiftboats, which had carried the war to the communists infesting the Mekong Delta. His fellow Swiftvets deemed him “unfit for command” and sank his campaign.

Mr. Obama, though, ended up winning the presidency four years later. He had a thinner resume than that of Mr. Buttigieg, who appeared in arms in Afghanistan and has been six years a mayor. Mr. Obama, though, ran a refreshing campaign, handily dispatching an angry candidate in Senator McCain, only to fail at finding policies as unifying as his early speeches. He set the stage for President Trump.

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