Hating Jews is Becoming a Leftist Purity Test The Jewish groups that failed to fight campus anti-Semitism are about to live under it. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/hating-jews-becoming-leftist-purity-test-daniel-greenfield/

When Sunrise Movement DC issued its ultimatum that either the Jews had to be kicked out or it would boycott a D.C. statehood rally, it was a familiar purity test. And, like most purity tests, was about testing a willingness to hate people and endorse a new extremist position on demand.

Purity tests that have no constructive purpose except to undermine and oust a leadership that is insufficiently radical have become commonplace in the Reign of Terror era of American politics.

When Democrats adopt socialism, endorse the elimination of the police, tear down the statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, champion critical race theory, and insist that there’s no such thing as men and women, it’s as the result of an escalating series of purity tests.

Hating Jews is just the latest progressive purity test.

Sunrise DC declared that it would not participate in events with what it falsely claimed were Zionist groups, but were actually, mostly fellow leftists who hate Israel as much as they do.

The Moral Incoherence of an Academic Boycott Against Israel Virginia Tech’s grad students violate one of academia’s core values. Richard L. Cravatts

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/moral-incoherence-academic-boycott-against-israel-richard-l-cravatts/

Seeming to give credence to Orwell’s wry observation that “there are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them,” the fatuous members of the Virginia Tech Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) passed a “Resolution to Divest in Compliance with the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions Movement,” tendentiously pronouncing their solidarity “with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation from Israeli apartheid, colonialism, and military occupation . . . .” Resolution 2021-22N3 calls on the university administration and staff Virginia Tech administrators and employees to “immediately begin to implement the academic and cultural boycott of Israel” by “adopting as a general principle a boycott of all Israeli academic institutions complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation and the denial of basic Palestinian rights.”

The poisonous and historically inaccurate language of the GPSS resolution, including such loaded terms as “apartheid, colonialism, and military occupation,” was troublingly similar to that found in the dozens of unctuous statements that oozed from university departments, faculty unions, student groups, and other organizations in the wake of the latest Gaza insurgency in May. All of the blame and condemnation for the ongoing conflict was assigned to Israel, and, conveniently, for instance, no mention was made—either in this resolution or the many solidarity statements in May—of the more than 4000 lethal rockets Hamas had fired into southern Israeli towns with the express purpose of murdering Jewish civilians, nor any recognition that each of these instances of rockets being fired constituted a war crime, or that Israel had every legal right under the laws of war to suppress such aggression and to retaliate in an effort to protect its citizenry from attack.

What was different about the Virginia Tech resolution, however, is that included a demand for Virginia Tech to join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign, since, the resolution claimed, “academic institutions are not neutral arenas of knowledge production, exchange, and dissemination” and, therefore, “academic institutions are demonstrably key sites of contestation that can either uphold or challenge Israeli apartheid and colonialism . . . .” Moreover, any consideration that an academic boycott, in practice, constricts academic freedom should be ignored because, the resolution asserted without providing any evidence, “it is clear then that the existing status quo is not one which upholds academic freedom, but rather is one which violently denies Palestinian academics the ability to freely participate in academic institutions and conferences around the world.”

A Jerry-Rigged Budget ‘Framework’ The $1.75 trillion cost is phony, but the social and fiscal damage are real.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-jerry-rigged-budget-framework-joe-biden-white-house-reconciliation-bill-democrats-11635457542?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Nothing like an artificial political deadline to concentrate the warring liberal minds. Before departing Thursday for next week’s climate gabfest, President Biden declared he has sealed an agreement with Democrats in Congress on a “framework” for a spending bill that he declares will make a “fundamental change in America.”

He’s right about that last bit, but the blueprint the White House released is more frame than work. The jerry-rigged plan is an enormous expansion of government with quarter-baked entitlement programs that will retard work and $1.85 trillion in tax increases that will distort and limit investment. The $1.75 trillion cost that Democrats have assigned their bill is an illusion. They use phony accounting to finance a few years of new spending with 10 years of tax increases.

For example, the plan extends the $3,600 child tax credit for one year at a cost of $110 billion. But Democrats will inevitably extend the credit next year. If Republicans oppose this or try to scale the credit back, they will be attacked for raising taxes on middle-class families. The true 10-year cost is about $1.1 trillion.

The agreement drops the House’s proposed Medicare vision and dental expansion. But it preserves a new hearing benefit, which the White House claims will cost a mere $34 billion and start in 2024. The annual cost of the hearing benefit once fully phased-in is some $16 billion. Congress will invariably make it permanent. True cost: $160 billion.

The Biden administration’s mind-boggling cash giveaway to illegal aliens By Bob Parks

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/the_biden_administrations_mindboggling_cash_giveaway_to_illegal_aliens.html

Aside from exploitative nonprofits and opportunistic politicians, very few Americans invited illegal aliens to break our immigration laws intentionally—their very first act in the United States. Indeed, many Americans have had negative interactions with illegals, examples of which we see on an almost daily basis. Just the other day, a drunk-driving illegal alien killed a five-year-old girl, and there are other stories of thefts, robberies, sexual assaults. There are very few things anyone can point to that would be considered a benefit to having them around.

Only crazed Democrats could find a way to excuse this. Of course, Joe Biden has almost erased our southern border in an act of petty vindictiveness against President Trump and law-abiding Americans. But they just had to throw more salt in the wound….

Thousands of migrant parents and children separated from each other at the U.S. border by Trump administration policies may soon be eligible for hundreds of thousands of dollars per person in compensation, according to three sources familiar with ongoing negotiations in a lawsuit brought on behalf of separated families.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Thursday that the Biden administration is in talks to offer separated migrant parents and children around $450,000 per person. That would mean that if a parent and a child were separated at the border, together they would be eligible for a combined payment of $900,000. The talks are part of negotiations between the Justice Department and lawyers representing the separated families in a number of tort cases that have claimed the families experienced harm when they were forcibly separated.

The Wall Street Journal has a few more pertinent details, most notably the fact that the “total potential payout could be $1 billion or more.”

The End of Science By Jeremy Egerer

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/10/the_end_of_science.html

Rebecca West writes, in The New Meaning of Treason, that a lot of our scientists during World War 2 were communists.  There are several reasons this is important, but the first is that they immediately leaked our research on atomic bombs to Stalin.

They honestly believed in a “global scientific community” — that science knows no political boundaries, and that the world would be better if scientists shared all their information with each other.  Somehow this would usher in an age of peace and plenty, and scientific know-how would mean food for the poor and an end to oppression.

So they gave the bomb to the Soviets.  To the people who used technology to keep millions in chains and torture them and starve them to death.

These days, American scientists are doing the same thing, helping abusive husbands track their wives in Saudi Arabia and helping the Chinese develop social surveillance systems and biological weapons.  The scientists tell you how to do something and fail to understand or care why we shouldn’t do it.  Or maybe it’s the money.

If this proves anything, it’s that people who are taught to analyze physics can be really bad at reading people.  They can theorize about matter and totally miss the substance of a movement.  People say we need a more “scientific” outlook on the world, and they’re right.  We need to teach our kids to be skeptical, and systematic, and logical.  What we don’t need for this world to be a better place is for more kids to become professional chemists.  We need more chemists to pick up The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

You would expect a person with a “scientific” mindset to look for information, and to share it — even a pie-in-the-sky communist.  But the new fan of “science” doesn’t trust the public with information, and so far as he can, when information doesn’t fit his goals, he buries it.

Bidenomics’ Build Back Better Blunder

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/10/29/bidenomics-build-back-better-blunder/

Swedish socialist economist Assar Lindbeck is semi-famous for saying that “in many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing.” It’s becoming clearer that one of the most efficient ways to destroy the U.S. economy, outside of bombing the country, is to put Joe Biden in the White House.

Economic growth in the third quarter was a meager 2%, the Commerce Department reported Thursday, the most feeble increase of the pandemic recovery. Some economists had forecast a gain closer to 3%, leaving many disappointed. As the Asia Times accurately summed it up, the U.S. “economy ground to a halt.”

The economy grew 33.8% in the third quarter last year, after two straight quarters of GDP losses due to ill-advised lockdown policies. It grew 4.5% in the fourth quarter, and 6.3% in the first quarter of 2021, when Trump economic policies were still in effect. A healthy 6.7% increase followed in the second quarter, but now that Biden’s economic policies have had a few months to stew, the economy looks to have a case of sclerosis.

Blame Biden’s inflation and the supply-chain crisis that has exploded on his sleepy watch. But don’t discount how much the White House and congressional Democrats’ tax-and-spending plans have negatively impacted growth.

One of the more common beliefs among Americans is that a stock market crash caused by greedy investors brought on the Great Depression. But a close look at the history shows that the markets watched, and reacted to, Washington’s actions in the months leading up to Black Tuesday – Oct. 29, 1929.

US economy ground to a halt in third quarter US looks dead in the water, inflation devouring demand stimulus the government poured into post-Covid economy by David P. Goldman

https://asiatimes.com/2021/10/us-gdp-data-show-stagflation/

Net of inventory accumulation, real GDP for the third quarter was slightly negative, US government data released Thursday morning show. Real GDP grew at an annual rate of 2%, below the forecasters’ consensus of 2.6%, the Commerce Department reported. But a jump in inventories added 2.07 percentage points annualized to GDP. That’s more than the reported growth.

That’s a very odd number, considering that the inventory-to-sales ratio of US business stands at the lowest level on record, due to supply-chain constraints that prevent businesses from restocking. It’s likely that the inventory number was exaggerated. If that’s true, the US economy shrank during the third quarter.

The GDP measure of inflation rose at a 5.7% annual rate during the third quarter, following a 6.2% rate of increase during the second quarter. After inflation, final sales to domestic purchasers rose at an annual rate of just 1%. That’s a textbook portrait of stagflation.

Disposable personal income fell at a 0.7% annual rate, as prices outstripped income growth. By the Labor Department’s measure of prices and average wages, real earnings of US workers have fallen by about 2% over the past year despite nominal pay raises averaging about 4%.

Critical thinking theory By John Feehery

https://thehill.com/opinion/education/578391-feehery-critical-thinking-theory

Education is the top issue in the Virginia governor’s race.

That’s usually not a good topic for Republicans, because the Democrats typically make it a referendum on spending more money.

But this year, this issue is not how much money is being spent on education; it’s how the money is being spent in the public schools.

Last year, parents got a better glimpse into how local schools spend taxpayer dollars. It wasn’t pretty.

If money wasn’t being wasted on critical race theory, it was being wasted on critical gender theory. Parents watched in horror as their kids were taught less about math, science and critical thinking skills and more about how they were either racist or victims, about how they may not be either boys or girls, and worse, about how evil and corrupt America truly is.

One thing has become readily apparent over the last year and a half in the United States.  Everybody needs more critical thinking skills and the courage to apply those skills to everyday life. We might as well start teaching them to the children.

You can’t believe everything you read in the paper these days. In fact, you really can’t believe anything you read in the paper. When our politicians say something, don’t take it face value.  They may not be willfully lying to you, but they are not telling you the whole truth. When health experts like Tony Fauci say something, get a second opinion. Fauci is not infallible. And for God’s sake, be careful with the internet. There is a lot of nonsense being spewed forth on social media.

The fight over our nation’s schools is long overdue.

Our education establishment has been failing our children and our nation for far too long.

D’oh Biden: Charles Lipson

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/10/28/doh_biden_146641.html

So much has gone wrong so quickly, it’s hard to remember we are only nine months into Joe Biden’s presidency. Less than one-third of the country now thinks America is “on the right track,” according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. That’s a dramatic deterioration since last spring, and a disturbing one, not only for the Biden and his party but for the country. Three developments are driving this collapse in confidence.

First, Biden is pursuing a self-proclaimed strategy to “transform” America despite his campaign promises to bring the country together, stress bipartisanship, and restore comity and normality. That’s not what he’s done. He’s tried to force big, progressive changes, a strategy that was bound to be divisive since he didn’t campaign on that platform or win a congressional mandate to pursue it. Second, all Biden’s major policies so far have failed — some spectacularly. He can point to no major triumphs to offset them. Third, Biden himself has been unable to mount an effective, coherent defense of his administration and its priorities.

The cumulative result is a sharp decline in public approval, especially among independents. Biden won the White House because he carried their votes, or perhaps because Donald Trump lost them. Now, with Trump gone and Biden standing alone, only one in four independents approve of the job he’s doing in the Oval Office.

Instead of heeding those red flags, the Biden administration is plowing ahead, undeterred, as the disasters mount. What the public sees are rising prices, bottlenecked supply chains, an open Southern border, and a bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan. They see a wobbly president who seems overwhelmed by a sea of troubles.

The immigration failures were evident from the start and have gotten progressively worse. The problems began on the campaign trail, when Biden and Kamala Harris contrasted their “humane” approach to illegal immigration to Donald Trump’s wall of resistance. Potential migrants in Central America, the Caribbean, and South America heard that message as “Y’all come.” So did the human smugglers who would transport them, as well as drugs and gang members, across the border. Once the new administration took over, it confirmed this new approach, ending construction of the border wall (including sections already contracted and paid for but not yet built) and discarding Trump’s policy requiring migrants to stay in Mexico while applying for asylum.

Is Jill Biden asking about a ‘process’ for removing Kamala Harris? Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/is_jill_biden_asking_about_a_process_for_removing_kamala_harris.html

It’s been known for awhile that the honeymoon between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has pretty much congealed.

In August, Kamala Harris was reportedly asking about how to get rid of failing old Joe:

Jack Posobiec:  Hearing K discussed the 25th amendment for the first time – Aug. 16.

SEE HERE.

Jill Biden asking if there is a process for removing the Vice President.

CLICK HERE.

If the report is true, that’s some White House they’ve got there over in the Biden administration. Not only is Biden struggling to hold his badly split Democrat Congress together to pass his signature porkulus infrastructure and reconciliation bill with progressives reportedly in a rage, he’s also beset by infighting in his own White House, with the two main players trying to get rid of one another. Call it the White House of the long knives. As a lagniappe, we already know that Harris and Jill Biden can’t stand each other.