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Ruth King

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

One In Four Americans Now Believe Biden’s Election In 2020 Wasn’t ‘Legitimate’: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

By on January 10th, 2024

ttps://issuesinsights.com/2024/01/10/one-in-four-americans-now-believe-bidens-election-in-2020-wasnt-legitimate-ii-tipp-poll/

It’s a question that infuriates some, but remains on the minds of many: Was Joe Biden legitimately elected to the presidency in the hotly contested 2020 election? While most say he was, just over one in four U.S. voters believe the answer is no, according to the latest I&I/TIPP Poll.

The national online poll, taken January 3-5 from among 1,247 registered voters, asked: “To what extent do you agree or disagree with the statement: Joe Biden was legitimately elected president.”

Of those polled, 65% said that they agreed either “strongly” (50%) or “somewhat” (15%) with that statement. But another 26% said they disagreed either “somewhat” (9%) or “strongly” (17%), while 9% said they were not sure. The poll has a +/-2.8 percentage point margin of error.

But, when it comes to political affiliation, the responses show some of the most skewed results yet in an I&I/TIPP Poll. It’s fair to say that Democrats, Republicans and independents are far apart in their responses.

Among Democrats, 92% believe Biden was elected legitimately, with 80% agreeing “strongly” and 12% “somewhat.” Just 4% disagreed.

For Republicans, the numbers told a different tale.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Hamas, PA, and UNRWA Educate Gaza Schoolchildren for Jihad Peter Berkowitz

By on January 9th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/01/09/hamas-pa-and-unrwa-educate-gaza-schoolchildren-for-jihad/

American policymakers must grasp the preaching of hatred, violence, and Islamist supremacy woven into Gaza education.

Gaza Strip schools fostered the depraved sensibility that fueled the Oct. 7 butchery perpetrated by Hamas jihadists in southern Israel. While Hamas exercised dictatorial authority over the whole of jihadist indoctrination in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority (PA) produced the textbooks and lesson plans, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in significant measure administered the schools. The defeat of jihadism in Gaza will not be complete without a fundamental reorientation of its educational system.

Given U.S. interests in Middle East stability in general and the post-Israel-Hamas war reconstruction of Gaza in particular, American policymakers must grasp the preaching of hatred, violence, and Islamist supremacy woven into Gaza education. One obstacle is that many U.S. diplomats – even more the younger career foreign service officers who staff them – will have been indoctrinated at American universities in opinions and ideas that bear an uncanny resemblance to certain ugly dogmas championed by the jihadists.

IMPACT-se (Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education) provides indispensable English language documentation of the training for terrorism inscribed in UNRWA Arabic language textbooks and other Hamas educational materials. The training falsifies history, encourages submission to government-sanctioned doctrines, and fosters loathing of Jews, Israel, America, and the freedom and democracy central to the West. Hamas’ savage rampage on Oct. 7 through Israel’s border communities was not a hideous departure from central tenets of Gazan education but rather gave faithful expression to them.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Presidency on Autopilot Noah Rothman

By on January 9th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/01/a-presidency-on-autopilot/

The Biden administration is plagued by lethargy and indifference. Does it expect voters not to notice?

The chances are that most voters do not know where Joe Biden’s secretary of defense is at any given moment. The public is likely to assume that the president, his subordinates, their staffs, and the watchdogs in media whose job it is to chronicle government officials’ activities are on top of it, if only because that was a reasonably safe assumption up until this week. What is likely to bite Biden — if Lloyd Austin’s reckless vanishing act bites the president at all — is the epiphany dawning on voters that no one in the administration was on top of it. And when those voters begin to think about it a little more, they might conclude that Biden hasn’t been on top of very much.

Biden’s presidency is buffeted by events, flitting directionless from one crisis to the next without having much of an impact on the trajectory of any one of them. Austin’s disappearance occurred amid an ongoing national humiliation abroad. No one, administration officials included, denies that Iran is behind the many dozens of attacks on U.S. service personnel in Iraq and Syria. Nor do they quibble about who is pulling the strings in Yemen, where a ragtag rebel group has partially closed crucial Red Sea shipping lanes to commercial traffic.

Presumably at someone’s direction, the Pentagon has retaliated against some of Iran’s proxy forces — with the notable exception of Yemen’s Houthi militia — but in a calibrated fashion that has failed to restore deterrence. Joe Biden and his officials appear content to allow Iran to dictate the tempo of events in the region. At the very least, the nation’s foremost defense official doesn’t see these ongoing assaults on America’s men and women in uniform and the U.S.-led geopolitical order they maintain as an obstacle to taking an unannounced sabbatical. Nor, apparently, does the president believe that Austin’s dereliction merits any sort of reproach.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hide and Seek at The Pentagon Going AWOL as Head of the US Military Should Be A Career-Ending Mistake for Lloyd Austin Charles Lipson

By on January 9th, 2024

https://thespectator.com/topic/lloyd-austin-mistake-career-ending/

When the secretary of defense goes AWOL, the clear chain of command is severed.

The disappearance of defense secretary Lloyd Austin for a few days without notifying the White House, or even the second in command at the Pentagon, is more than a one- or two-day story. 

It’s a much larger problem. It’s a problem politically for the White House, an opportunity for Republicans, a dilemma for congressional Democrats and a problem for the most powerful military in the world. And, of course, it’s a major problem for Secretary Austin’s future in the position.

Let’s start with the problem for the military. It is absolutely essential that the military have a clear chain of command that is clearly specified and operational at all times. Within the military, that chain of command goes up to the senior-most officer in each service branch. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is above them in the military hierarchy. 

Because the US military operates in a democracy, where political control is essential for major decisions, the top military officials are beneath a civilian secretary for each branch. All of them, plus the chairman of the joint chiefs, are beneath the civilian secretary of defense, who is appointed by the president, subject to Senate approval, and is supervised by the president himself. The civilian secretaries of each branch are also nominees that must be approved by the Senate. That, then, is a clear chain of command under civilian control.

When the secretary of defense goes AWOL, that chain of command is severed. The severance appeared to be even more severe because the second in command to Secretary Austin was herself on vacation and not informed of his being out of the chain because he was in the intensive care unit.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Two flags. Same evil. Only one is condemned. Diane Bederman

By on January 9th, 2024

https://dianebederman.com/two-flags-same-evil-only-one-is-condemned/

These two flags represent the death of Jews, as a people and as a country.

We are living in a time when Jew hatred is once again condoned. There is no difference in the messaging between the Nazis and Muslims, today, who carry their flag while screaming “Palestine will be free from the River to the Sea.”

While the Swastika, the Nazi flag, represents the annihilation of all Jews, let us not forget that the Palestinian Flag, which represents a non-existent country, that according to the “Palestinians” includes the STATE OF ISRAEL. “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.” Where is Israel? In other words, the flag is a call for the eradication of Israel. But that’s OK in Canada and apparently around the world.

The Nazi flag, the Swastika, as a symbol, became associated with the idea of a racially “pure” state. The swastika became the most recognizable symbol of Nazi propaganda. The Reich flag became associated with hateful laws against the Jews. The government passed the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, which prohibited marriages and sexual relations between citizens of “German or those of kindred blood” and Jews.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Exquisite Irony of Claudine Gay’s Downfall Glenn Loury with John McWhorter

By on January 9th, 2024

https://glennloury.substack.com/p/the-exquisite-irony-of-claudine-gays?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=259044&post

Defenders of recently ousted Harvard University President Claudine Gay charge that outcries over the plagiarism in her dissertation and scholarly publications are merely a cover. Gay’s critics, the argument goes, actually objected to her support for DEI, her bumbling response to questions about antisemitism at Harvard, and her very race. Had she been white, more artful in addressing antisemitism, and more moderate in her views about DEI, she would still have her job today.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume all of that is correct, and Gay was ousted over matters of identity rather than academic integrity. That still does not explain why she plagiarized in the first place, nor does it excuse the offense. Whether or not one agrees with the motivations of Gay’s opponents, there is no excuse for a professional scholar to do what she did. None of the possible explanations—underhandedness, sloppiness, a belief that small acts of plagiarism don’t matter—could exonerate Gay, because they all betray a similarly cavalier attitude toward the integrity of the scholarly endeavor. Safeguarding that endeavor and ensuring Harvard’s continuing preeminence was a major part of Gay’s job, and she was not up to the task. Anyone who looked at her paper-thin CV could have guessed as much, and now the evidence is in.

It’s no small irony that a DEI ideologue who likely views “merit” as a suspect concept was brought down by her own demonstrable lack of same. Claudine Gay is the victim of her own debased principles. Harvard’s faculty and students deserve a leader who reflects the ideals of the institution, not a functionary with people skills. I don’t know who will be next in line for the job, but if they’re more of the same—another mediocre scholar with the “correct” politics—I’d advise them to rent a place in Cambridge rather than buying.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

The mirage of US guarantees and international peacekeepers Yoram Ettinger

By on January 9th, 2024

http://bit.ly/3tIU2eV

The Gaza theatre!

*The track record of the Gaza Strip reveals that it lends itself to terrorism, as contended by the June 29, 1967 memorandum submitted by General Earl Wheeler, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff, to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

*Gaza is contiguous to the largely lawless Sinai Peninsula, which has been a platform for
anti-US ISIS-supported and Iran-supported Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan, Egyptian terrorists and drug traffickers.

*The Gaza reality is impacted by the unpredictably volcanic Middle East, especially by Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic terror entities.  

*A postwar plan for the Gaza Strip must be based on exclusive Israeli military control, not on well-intentioned US guarantees and defense pacts, and not on non-Israeli peacekeepers, who would not be limited to observing compliance, but mostly to combatting terrorists. However, non-Israeli peacekeepers should not be expected to sacrifice their lives on the altar of Israel’s security.

*In 1983, Hezbollah terrorists car-bombed the US Marine barracks and US Embassy in Beirut, killing 260 Americans, prompting the withdrawal of US soldiers – who participated in the Multinational (peacekeeping) Force – from Lebanon.

US guarantees and defense pacts?

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

With Blinken in Tel Aviv, IDF mothers protest US interference in war By David Isaac

By on January 9th, 2024

https://www.jns.org/with-blinken-in-tel-aviv-idf-mothers-protest-us-interference-in-war/

A group composed of some 7,000 mothers of Israeli soldiers fighting in the Gaza Strip held up huge posters depicting the children of senior U.S. officials as IDF recruits during a protest in front of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s Tel Aviv hotel on Tuesday.

The message: What if it were your children fighting in the Gaza Strip? Would you continue to demand the resupply of the enemy?

The group behind the protest, Imahot HaLohamim (“Mothers of Combat Soldiers”) is demanding an end to U.S. pressure on Israel.

“Our message is very simple. Our soldiers’ lives have to come first and foremost, and be prioritized over those of enemy civilians,” Mirit Hoffman, the group’s spokesperson, told JNS.

Since the war’s start, the U.S. has insisted Israel permit humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip. President Joe Biden promised during an October visit to Israel that aid would cease if it was found that Hamas had diverted it for its purposes.

It’s a promise that has not been kept. The U.S. has instead doubled down, demanding that aid increase, including the entry of fuel, something that Israel at first categorically refused to allow.

“Every time Blinken comes, he brings more and more demands that endanger our soldiers,” said Hoffman, who has a son and a son-in-law fighting in Gaza.

“It’s a total double standard. The demands that the U.S. administration put on our soldiers goes far beyond what America practiced after 9/11, or Pearl Harbor,” she said, adding, “We know the supplies go to Hamas. Hamas is telling everybody that it goes to Hamas. It’s not even a secret.”

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Root Cause of Academic Groupthink By Bruce Abramson

By on January 9th, 2024

https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2024/01/08/the_root_cause_of_academic_groupthink_1003644.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The shroud is coming off elite academia and America is not pleased with what it’s seeing. Its leaders have told us that genocidal antisemitism is too complex to recognize and that plagiarism is a problem for students, perhaps for junior faculty, but not for the president of Harvard. DEI policies elevated demographic considerations far above merit at our most prestigious institutions.

How did this happen? What can be done to fix it?

Those are tough questions. Major institutions don’t become corrupt overnight. The process is long, slow, and methodical. The solutions go far beyond the removal of a few high-profile officials. In academia, the egregious examples that gain sudden visibility are merely manifestations of a corrupt core.

That corrupt core stems from the inherent difficulty of assessing the quality of knowledge work. Suppose that there are multiple competing theories to explain some phenomenon—freakish weather, persistent crime, disparate outcomes, reactions to a vaccine, the variance of election results from poll predictions, etc. How can anyone know which theory to believe?

Most people turn to one of two heuristics. The first is personal, and few people like to admit it openly: They accept whichever theory comes closest to what they’d like to believe. The second is societal, and most people who advocate it do so with pride: They ask the experts.

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ISRAEL, MORE HEADLINES Comments turned off

MORE HEADLINES ON ISRAEL FROM MOSHE PHILLIPS

By on January 9th, 2024

Checkpoints in Israel face criticism, but checkpoints abroad don’t
THE JERUSALEM POST https://www.jpost.com/opinion/ article-780861

A Possible Future For Hamas Depends On One Thing
FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE https://www.frontpagemag.com/ a-possible-future-for-hamas- depends-on-one-thing/

Do you know who the oldest active IDF reservist is?
ARUTZ SHEVA https://www. israelnationalnews.com/news/ 382468

Jewish-studies head at Wake Forest University spreads anti-Israel conspiracies
JNS https://www.jns.org/ jewish-studies-head-at-wake- forest-university-spreads- anti-israel-conspiracies/

Veteran Labor Zionist calls for de-Nazifying Gaza
JNS https://www.jns.org/ veteran-labor-zionist-calls- for-de-nazifying-gaza/

Brandeis publishes author who claims Israel practices mass rape
JNS https://www.jns.org/ brandeis-publishes-author-who- claims-israel-practices-mass- rape/

Leftist Jewish magazine literally rewrites Israeli history
ARUTZ SHEVA https://www. israelnationalnews.com/news/ 381803

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