NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘I Hope You Die’: The Murderous ISIS Jihadi From New York City You Heard Nothing About By Robert Spencer

Posted By on November 24th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2021/11/22/i-hope-you-die-the-murderous-isis-jihadi-from-new-york-city-you-heard-nothing-about-n1535561

Ali Saleh, 28, was born and raised in the Jamaica, Queens neighborhood of New York City, in idyllic circumstances: according to court documents, he came “from a loving home, surrounded by parents and siblings, and was both educated and employed.” Yet despite the fact that we are constantly told that ignorance and deprivation cause terrorism, Saleh’s enviable upbringing didn’t prevent him from turning to the dark side. Wednesday, he was sentenced to thirty years in prison after pleading guilty to aiding the Islamic State (ISIS). He gives every indication of being as hardcore an adherent as the jihad terror organization ever had. And one question that no one seems to be asking is: Where did he get these ideas in Queens?

In addition to the 30 years for aiding ISIS, Saleh was also sentenced Wednesday to eight years and four months in prison for assaulting a federal correctional officer. According to the Justice Department, “on July 13, 2018, at approximately 12:35 p.m., while a senior correctional officer was retrieving trash through an access slot of Saleh’s cell, Saleh reached through the slot and slashed the officer with an improvised knife, lacerating the officer’s right forearm and damaging the officer’s radial nerve.  Saleh smiled at the officer and said, ‘I hope you die.’” Charming guy.

That was after Saleh amassed a long record of support for the world’s most brutal and murderous jihad terror group. Matthew G. Olsen, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division, stated that “Saleh made numerous attempts to travel overseas to join ISIS, and when those efforts failed, attempted to assist others in joining the terrorist organization.”

Saleh made his loyalties abundantly clear. On July 10, 2014, he wrote online: “We are going to see a lot of be headings [sic] of American soldiers and I want front row seats.” Then on August 25, 2014, he declared: “I’m ready to die for the Caliphate, prison is nothing.” Three days later, he added: “Lets [sic] be clear the Muslims in the khilafah [caliphate] need help, the one who is capable to go over and help the Muslims must go and help.” He also wrote: “I’m ready to die for the Caliphate, prison is nothing.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Replacing History with a ‘Narrative’ The Left’s vicious assault on America. Mary Grabar

Posted By on November 24th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/we-cannot-rest-mary-grabar/

Voters this election rejected the teaching of The 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory, as proven by the results of Virginia’s gubernatorial race and, less publicized but as equally telling in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, where nineteen-year-old, Nicholas Seppy won a seat on the school board. Seppy said he thought that the history of slavery should be taught in the classroom, but it should be taught objectively.

I agree with him. That’s why I wrote Debunking The 1619 Project and before that Debunking Howard Zinn.

So hats off to Christopher Rufo who exposed these toxic materials and to Seppy and Virginia governor-elect Glenn Youngkin who listened to parents who were rightfully outraged.

But we cannot rest. The radical “educrats” who believe they are the ones to remake your children never do.

Over the years I have seen how “educators” introduce a topic, put on a pretense of retreating, and then sneak back. This happened with the teaching of Ethnic Studies in California, which was withdrawn for about eighteen months after complaints about antisemitism. Then—surprise!—it was signed into law by the governor. Superficial changes had been made but the promotion of politicized ethnic identity—what the educrats wanted—will remain for all California high school graduates.

Similarly, the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which claims to “establish clear, consistent guidelines for what every student should know and be able to do in math and English language arts from kindergarten through 12th grade,” was rebranded under various names by states. But the damage remains as demonstrable knowledge of the subject matter was replaced by students’ ability to “collaborate” and accept “diversity.” As I pointed out back in 2012, Common Core broke down the distinctions between nonfiction and fiction. English teachers were tasked with having students read “cold” such historical materials as the Gettysburg Address.

EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Shutting Down Pro-Israel Speech at Duke Defending the Jewish state from lies is not allowed. Richard L. Cravatts

Posted By on November 24th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/shutting-down-pro-israel-speech-duke-richard-l-cravatts/

As if further evidence were needed for the hypocrisy about who may say what about whom on college campuses, the recent action by the Duke Student Government to withhold recognition to a new pro-Israel student group seems to confirm that academic free speech is not always free depending on who is speaking. On November 9th, DSG President Christina Wang made the outrageous decision to veto the recognition of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) after the group posted a response to an anti-Israel Duke sophomore, Elyana Riddick, who had captioned a now-deleted Twitter post about SSI by writing, “My school promotes settler colonialism.”

“To Yana and others like her,” SSI posted on its Instagram account, “please allow us to educate you on what ‘settler colonialism’ actually is and why Israel does not fall under this category whatsoever. These types of narratives are what we strive to combat and condemn, which is why Duke’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel has been officially established & is here to stay,” the post read.

While it seems that denouncing Israel, as Ms. Riddick did, as a racist colonial occupier of stolen Arab land is perfectly acceptable, SSI’s response to her was obviously totally unacceptable, violating, it seems, her sensibilities and right to express disdain for groups with which she disagrees.

Ms. Riddick posted on Twitter, a social media platform that is open for all to see, so she certainly could not and should not have what lawyers refer to as an “expectation of privacy,” since SSI did not quote her from statements she made in a private conversation or email exchange, for instance, where she had not agreed to have her opinions publicized.

And, more to the point, her counter-factual assertion that Israel is an example of settler colonialism is precisely the type of slander against the Jewish state that groups like SSI have as their mission to answer back to—and particularly when that type of characterization of Israel is both historically and factually inaccurate and slanderous. The campus enemies of Israel have regularly tried to suppress pro-Israel views from being heard or even debated in an honest dialogue with those with pro-Palestinian viewpoints, and the DSG’s decision to drop recognition of SSI at Duke achieved that very situation, making it impossible for SSI to correct falsehoods that are the animating content of the anti-Israel campaign at Duke and elsewhere.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Women’s March beclowns itself with an almost unbelievable tweet By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on November 24th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/the_womens_march_beclowns_itself_with_an_almost_unbelievable_tweet.html

Leftism is unsustainable. It’s unsustainable economically, although nations must be destroyed before that fundamental truth emerges. Leftist revolutions also invariably eat their own. America is now witnessing that cannibalism and we can only hope the mutually assured destruction of leftism occurs before it succeeds in wrecking America. Today’s Exhibit A showing leftist cannibalism is a perfectly wonderful tweet from the Women’s March organization apologizing for offending people with the average dollar amount of its donations.

The Women’s March emerged after Trump was accused of “grabbing women by the [vulgarism].” I listened to the entire recorded conversation, and it was clear that Trump wasn’t saying he engaged in that conduct. Instead, he was making the point that, if you’re rich and famous, you can get away with anything. I’ve always imagined that, had the bus ride during which he was recorded not ended then, he would have added, “At least, that’s what Bill Clinton told me.”

In any event, an enterprising leftist made herself a symbolic little pink hat and put the pattern online. And so, the vulgarity of the Women’s March was born. Within a short time, because this was a leftist organization, the anti-Semites came to the fore, dimming the group’s luster.

Still, the organization continues to exist and, as is true for all political organizations, it’s constantly sending emails to people begging for money. In this case, the email apparently informed recipients that they didn’t need to send a lot of money. Really, any amount would do. But just as a guide, the average amount that supporters sent was $14.92.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Global warming scaremongers refuted as Arctic ice growing, on track to be the most ice in 2 decades By Thomas Lifson

Posted By on November 24th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/global_warming_scaremongers_refuted_as_arctic_ice_growing_on_track_to_be_the_most_ice_in_2_decades.html

The scariest scenario of the global warming doomsayers has been the idea that the melting Arctic ice cap would put coastal cities underwater. For example:

‘Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice,’ reported the BBC back in 2007. ‘Their latest modelling indicates that northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.’

Professor Wieslaw Maslowski from the Department of Oceanography of the US Navy predicted an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the summer of 2013.

Maslowski added that his prediction was on the conservative side, too: “Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007. So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”

There are plenty more such forecasts:

‘Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice,’ reported the BBC back in 2007. ‘Their latest modelling indicates that northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.’

Professor Wieslaw Maslowski from the Department of Oceanography of the US Navy predicted an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the summer of 2013.

Maslowski added that his prediction was on the conservative side, too: “Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007. So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Granholm’s (and Biden’s) energy clown show By Ethel C. Fenig

Posted By on November 24th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/granholms_and_bidens_energy_clown_show_.html

Reassuring worried Americans that there will be enough oil for the Thanksgiving holidays, yesterday President Joseph Biden (D) informed a concerned citizenry of plans to release 50,000,000 barrels of oil from the emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to bring down high gas prices. 

Wow!  Fifty million barrels of oil!  That’s a lot of oil isn’t it, Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm?  That should take care of America’s energy needs for quite a while right?   “How many barrels of oil does the U.S. consume per day?,” a reporter commonsensically asked. “I don’t have that number in front of me. I’m sorry,” Granholm replied.

Tech challenged, non-Department of Energy Secretary me managed to get the answer in front of me in less than five seconds, conveniently from Granholm’s own Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration’s site, discovering

In 2020, the United States consumed an average of about 18.19 million barrels of petroleum per day, or a total of about 6.66 billion barrels of petroleum.

Oh.  But…but…that means the extra 50,000,000 barrels is only about 2 1/2 days’ worth of extra petroleum — long enough to transport people to and from their Thanksgiving celebration, heat residences for the holiday and to cook all the extra and special holiday foods.  Then what?  How can that literal drop in the empty bucket from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve bring down gas prices, up 60% since last year?

Energy Secretary Granholm could not be reached for comment as the numbers were not in front of her.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Poll: Arizona Senator Mark Kelly’s Favorability Rating Is Underwater By John McCormack

Posted By on November 24th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/poll-arizona-senator-mark-kellys-favorability-rating-is-underwater/

Arizona Democratic senator Mark Kelly, husband to former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and a former astronaut, won his first Senate race in November 2020—a special election to serve out the final two years of the late John McCain’s term.

Kelly defeated Republican Martha McSally by 2.4 points in a state that Biden carried by only 0.3 points. He has kept his head down and has served as a generic Democrat during his first year in the Senate, and voters appear to be souring on him. 

According to a new poll by OH Predictive Insights, “the freshman Democratic Senator’s favorable numbers are underwater by seven percentage points – he is viewed favorably by 41% of Arizona voters, and unfavorably by 48%.” 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Tearing Down Thomas Jefferson Over Slavery Is Moral Idiocy By Dan McLaughlin

Posted By on November 24th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/11/tearing-down-thomas-jefferson-over-slavery-is-moral-idiocy/#slide-1

Actually, Thomas Jefferson did a lot of good, even on slavery.

Y ou can always count on woke progressives to live up to the worst caricatures of their ideas. Democrats on the New York City Council have now removed a statue of the founder of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson, from the City Council chamber in New York City Hall. The statue has been in City Hall since 1834 (eight years after Jefferson’s death), when it was erected to celebrate his advocacy of religious liberty. It is a sign of how proud Democrats are of their decision that they tried to block the press from witnessing the removal.

This is madness, and it vindicates many on the right — prominently including Donald Trump — who argued that the campaigns against Confederate statues were dangerous precisely because the people pushing for the removals were certain to move next against the Founding Fathers. When Trump made that argument in 2017, he was met with sneers. In a piece titled “Statues of Washington, Jefferson Aren’t ‘Next,’ But It’s Complicated, Historians Say,” Dartunorro Clark of NBC News wrote:

Historians who spoke to NBC News said such fears are slightly misplaced and that Trump is championing a murky interpretation of history. . . . “The president can raise the slippery slope, but it’s a false slippery slope,” said Kevin Levin, a Boston-based historian who specializes in American Civil War history.

John Oliver:

I’ll tell you where it stops. Somewhere! Any time someone asks, where does it stop, the answer’s always . . . somewhere. You might let your kid have Twizzlers, but not inject black tar heroin. You don’t just go, “Well, after the Twizzlers, where does it stop?”

Actually, you do ask that, and this is why. Whatever Trump understood about history, he understood the madness of mobs better than Kevin Levin or John Oliver did.

Without rehashing here the whole debate over Confederate icons — which has been going on for years now and has been vigorously debated on this website, sometimes by me — the strongest argument for removing some or all Confederate statutes and monuments is that the Confederate cause was not just flawed in the way that many great Americans are flawed; it was actively wrong, and the people who supported it made the country worse, or at any rate tried to, and thus should never have been memorialized in the first place.

MEDIA Comments turned off

I&I Awards Its First ‘Foolitzer Prize’ To MSNBC For Its Thanksgiving Coverage

Posted By on November 24th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/11/24/ii-awards-its-first-fool-itzer-prize-to-msnbc-for-its-thanksgiving-coverage/

In our continued effort to point out the ugly media bias that misleads and divides us, we have created a prize that will be occasionally handed out to outlets and journalists that promote the Democrats’ agenda, violate decent sensibilities, tell outright lies, or demonstrate an obvious hatred of America. Our first Foolitzer goes to MSNBC for a rant of the sort that has become all too common this time of the year.

During Saturday’s “The Cross Connection,” host Tiffany Cross turned the screen and the microphone over to a “Cross Connection favorite,” who launched into a tirade about settlers who brought nothing but took everything.

In what appears to be a pre-taped “essay” for the show, Gyasi Ross, identified as an American Indian, lectured viewers on “the mythology of Thanksgiving,” which he believes “closely mimics the mythology of white America.” The idea of “equal exchange” between Native Americans and settlers on what some say is the first Thanksgiving is how America “wants to see itself.”

“I’m still trying to find out what indigenous people received of value” from the first Thanksgiving, he said. “Instead of bringing stuffing and biscuits, those settlers brought genocide and violence.”

Of course, he conveniently ignores the genocide and violence among the tribes before Europeans arrived on the continent, the same genocide and violence that has afflicted humans throughout their history. He also forgets to mention that the first Thanksgiving happened more than 150 years before there was an America, and there’s no acknowledgement that some Cherokees owned black slaves.

But never mind. He’s on a roll.

“That genocide and violence is still on the menu, as state-sponsored violence against native and black Americans is commonplace, and violent, private white supremacy is celebrated and subsidized,” Ross continued, seamlessly moving on to a wild claim that “from Ahmaud Arbery to Trayvon Martin, white Americans are still killing native and black Americans with no fear of reprisal.”

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, EDUCATION Comments turned off

THE ANTI-CRT PARENT GUIDEBOOK Here’s how to fight critical race theory in your school district. Christopher Rufo

Posted By on November 24th, 2021

https://christopherrufo.com/crt-parent-guidebook/?mc_cid=b2a6b50851&mc_eid=0c92b54a27

The parent movement is the currently most vital force in American politics. Millions of mothers and fathers have rallied to defend their children against racialist indoctrination in public schools. Earlier this month, they won the gubernatorial election in Virginia and sent shockwaves through the political establishment.

To help build on this momentum, I’ve written a guidebook for parents who want to fight against critical race theory in their local communities. The guidebook contains everything you need to know to get started: how to define critical race theory, develop a strong argument, and get organized with other families. It’s free to download, but if you would like to contribute to this work, you can become a monthly supporter here.

Christopher F. Rufo is a writer, filmmaker, and senior fellow of Manhattan Institute. He has directed four documentaries for PBS and is currently a contributing editor of City Journal, where he covers critical race theory, homelessness, addiction, crime, and other afflictions.