EDUCATION Comments turned off

Do Children Belong to the State? The struggle for the hearts and minds of children. William Kilpatrick

Posted By on November 8th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/do-children-belong-state-william-kilpatrick/

Do children belong to their parents or to the state?  That was one of the central questions raised in the recent Virginia gubernatorial race.  Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic Party candidate started the debate when he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” 

The issue came to a head when parents in Loudoun County, Virginia loudly complained at school board meetings about the introduction of Critical Race Theory and transgender policies—policies that resulted in the rape of a 14-year-old girl by a boy wearing a skirt in the girl’s bathroom of a local high school.

In reaction, the left-leaning National School Board Association (NSBA) called such parents “domestic terrorists” and requested that the Department of Justice intervene to protect school boards from angry parents.  In turn, Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the FBI to look into the NSBA complaint.

But the NSBA’s complaint seemed to be that unless parents are quiet and compliant, they should be viewed as right-wing extremists. Although the letter gives lip service to encouraging “varying viewpoints,” it’s written in a self-righteous tone that portrays educators and school boards as heroic defenders of children, while parents who challenge the schools are a threat to children. Reading between the lines, one gets the impression that for the NSBA, what goes on in schools is none of a parent’s business.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Biden straining relations with Israel over plans for East Jerusalem consulate By David Zukerman

Posted By on November 8th, 2021

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

President Biden’s announced intention to reopen a U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem for outreach to Palestinians looms as a significant point of contention between the administration and Israel.  A look at the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963, is a logical starting point to analyze the problem.  The Convention provides in Article 2.1.:   

“The establishment of consular relations between States takes place by mutual consent.” 

Article 4.1 provides:

“A consular post may be established in the territory of the receiving State only with that State’s consent.”

What, then, is the problem? President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and relocated the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, later closing the consulate in East Jerusalem, merging it into the Embassy. 

It would seem clear, then, that as the U.S. recognizes undivided Jerusalem as part of the territory of Israel, a consulate in Jerusalem may be opened (or re-opened) only with the consent of Israel as the receiving State.

But thus far, Biden intends to proceed with reopening the Jerusalem consulate for outreach to the Palestinians.   Will he proceed over Israel’s objections?  If he does so, it seems to this observer that he could only justify such a move by declaring that the United States does not consider East Jerusalem (the apparent venue of a reopened Jerusalem consulate) Israeli territory.  And that would be a HUGE thorn in the side of the relationship between Biden administration and the Bennett government in Israel. 

On the other hand, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett could back down from opposition to a reopened U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, and give the Consular Convention’s Article 4.1 consent to the Biden move, consent that, from the Israel point of view, would still be consistent with Israel’s claim of sovereignty over an undivided Jerusalem.  Biden, of course, could go along with this face-saving approach to the issue, on Israel’s behalf.  

If Biden, or Secretary of State Antony Blinken, were to declare that Israel’s consent was not required, relations between the allies would suddenly become so frigid as to cause unsettling reverberations in the Middle East.  Why?  Because Biden establishing a consulate in East Jerusalem without Israel’s consent would be signaling that American no longer accepts Israel’s sovereignty over an undivided Jerusalem.

International law, however, is not the only factor in consideration of the question of reopening a U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem.   There is the matter of U.S. law to consider, specifically, the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 (Public Law 104-95) cited in the November 1, 2021 letter to the president signed by 200 House Republican members.  (Twelve GOP members did not sign, but the signers included such disparate Republicans as Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger, on the one hand, and Reps. Taylor Greene and Gosar, on the other.)

ISRAEL Comments turned off

American Perfidy Against Jews Is Never A Good Thing By Barry Shaw

Posted By on November 8th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/11/american_perfidy_against_jews_is_never_a_good_thing.html

The Balfour Declaration was signed on November 2, 1917, at a time when Britain and its allies were driving the Turks and Germans out of Palestine, a barren region of a decayed and defeated Ottoman Empire.

The Palestine Campaign turned the tide of World War One. It was won by allied troops, including a large fighting contingent of Palestine Jews. No Arabs fought on the west side of the Jordan River, part of which is called, by ignorant activists and politicians, “the West Bank.”

America remained neutral until April 1917 and didn’t get into the fight until the summer of 1918, by which time the Palestine Campaign was over. The Allied Powers met in San Remo in 1920 to decide the future of the defunct Ottoman Empire. The United States participated only as observers.

Arabs were rewarded with independence in Syria, Lebanon, and Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq). Jordan was created later as a reward for Arab participation in the Palestine Campaign on the East Bank of the Jordan River. This part of Palestine was given to the Hashemite tribe, a minority in Jordan. The majority of Jordanians are Palestinians, as is the queen.

This fact has been conveniently forgotten by those physically and verbally fighting against Israel. Those with an aversion to history have held back peace for decades with a two-state non-solution that demands Israel give up its ancient historic homeland and divide Jerusalem, its eternal capital.

The Allied Powers gave Britain the mandate for Palestine based on the principle of the Balfour Declaration, which had become official British policy: It called for establishing Palestine as the national home for the Jewish people while protecting the civil and religious rights of all its citizens, which Israel has diligently done.

This was reaffirmed at the 1922 League of Nations Conference on the Mandate for Palestine. (The League of Nations was the forerunner of the United Nation.)

The world celebrated the return of the Jews to their ancient biblical…and then things went wrong.

British officers arrived in Jerusalem to administer British policy but instead turned against their own government policy by encouraging a raging anti-Semitic Arab leader to incite the murder and expulsion of Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, and throughout pre-state Palestine.

The notorious Haj Amin al-Husseini was the architect of anti-Jewish terror that has lasted a century. After fleeing Jerusalem, he joined Adolph Hitler to plan the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem in the Middle East.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

A Theater Professor Suggested Students Should Have Thicker Skins, So They Demanded He Be Fired By Brittany Bernstein

Posted By on November 8th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/a-theatre-professor-suggested-students-should-have-thicker-skins-so-they-demanded-he-be-fired/?utm_

Coastal Carolina University (CCU) recently bowed to a woke mob of theater students who demanded professor Steven Earnest be ousted from his role after 16 years at the university — because he suggested that a misunderstanding on campus was not a big deal.

The controversy began with a September 16 incident in which students discovered a list of names on a classroom whiteboard. The students, realizing that the names all belonged to students of color, quickly assumed that racial foul play was behind the list, and they organized a protest.

However, a prompt investigation by the university revealed that the list had come out of a discussion between a visiting artist and two students of color who said they were hoping to connect with other non-white students on campus. The trio wrote down the names of other students of color who might wish to form a group to discuss their shared experiences.

The committee explained the misunderstanding in an email to campus but wanted to make clear that the investigation — which revealed the whole to-do had been over nothing — “in no way undermines the feelings that any of you feel about this incident.”

“It should have never happened and the DEI committee will be discussing with faculty and students the gravity of the situation and how to handle these requests in the future,” the email said.

Earnest dared to question that pandering attitude, writing back: “Sorry but I don’t think it’s a big deal.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

FBI Raids Project Veritas Writers . . . Over A Missing Biden Diary? Jonathan Turley

Posted By on November 8th, 2021

https://jonathanturley.org/2021/11/07/fbi-raids-project-veritas-over-a-missing-biden-diary/

There is a curious story out this weekend on reported FBI raids of writers or associates of Project Veritas, the conservative investigative journalism outfit. Project Veritas has been described variously as “Gonzo” or “guerilla” journalism and some insist it is more of a political than a press organization. However, it fits the definition of journalism, in my view, and that makes the raids troubling. All the more troubling is the cause: the missing diary of President Biden’s daughter Ashley. [Update: The FBI reportedly also raided O’Keefe’s home]

The New York Times reported that the FBI searched two locations in New York in search of the “stolen” diary that went missing days before the 2020 presidential election. Project founder James O’Keefe questioned how the Times received the story within an hour of the first raid.

O’Keefe says that the organization actually received a tip that the diary was abandoned in a room, an allegation that harkened back to the abandoned laptop of Hunter Biden.  However, Ashley reportedly insisted it was stolen.

The use of the FBI is also reminiscent of the still unexplained use of the FBI when Joe Biden was Vice President to search for a gun owned by Hunter Biden that was discarded behind a restaurant.

Project Veritas decided not to run the story because it could not verify that the diary belonged to Biden. (The FBI may have just offered that confirmation). Instead, it alerted the police, according to O’Keefe: “Project Veritas gave the diary to law enforcement to ensure it could be returned to its rightful owner. We never published it.”

So why the raids?  Since when does the FBI conducted raids over missing diaries?

The FBI can cite the interstate elements of the alleged theft as raising a federal crime. However, what is the crime? It is not clear if they are suggesting that the responsible parties were seeking to sell the diary or that there was some national security element (which would be bizarre since Biden’s daughter was writing before her father ever became president).

MEDIA Comments turned off

Maybe it’s time the Washington Post and The New York Times return those Russian collusion Pulitzers By Becket Adams

Posted By on November 8th, 2021

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/maybe-its-time-the-washington-post-and-the-new-york-times-return-those-russian-collusion-pulitzers

Did you know there’s a process whereby an undeserved Pulitzer Prize may be returned?

Disgraced former Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke in 1981 returned hers after it was discovered she fabricated the feature story that won her the award in the first place.

It’s worth revisiting this factoid this week with the news the primary source for the infamous Steele Dossier, which launched two solid years of white-knuckled award-winning Russian collusion news coverage, has been indicted on five counts of lying to federal investigators about how and where he got his supposed information.

Igor Danchenko is accused of making several significant false claims, one of the biggest being he was informed of a “conspiracy of cooperation” between Moscow and the Trump 2016 campaign by a man federal authorities identify only as the president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce.

The federal indictment plainly accuses Danchenko of contributing multiple exaggerations, rumors, and flat-out lies to the Steele Dossier. The indictment also alleges Danchenko received a good deal of his supposed information from a longtime Democratic Party operative with ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign instead of actual intelligence experts with keen and relevant knowledge regarding the Kremlin’s inner workings. Danchenko told federal investigators he did not receive certain information from a Democratic operative. Federal authorities say this is a lie. The indictment likewise hints at the possibility Danchenko worked recently for a Russian intelligence agency.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

For Whom Do the Covid “Fact Checkers” Really Work?Vinay Prasad MD MPH

Posted By on November 8th, 2021

https://brownstone.org/author/vinay-prasad/

Vinay Prasad MD MPH is a hematologist-oncologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco. He runs the VKPrasad lab at UCSF, which studies cancer drugs, health policy, clinical trials and better decision making. He is author of over 300 academic articles, and the books Ending Medical Reversal (2015), and Malignant (2020).

I recently came across two tweets that caught my eye.

Here is the first one from the CDC director:

And here is the second one, from a couple months back:

Together they got me thinking. What do they have in common? What do they tell us about the state of the public communication of science?

Let’s start with the one by Dr. Walensky. I don’t know how to put this politely, but it is a lie, and a truly unbelievable one at that.

First, of all, if it were true, it would mean that masking was more effective that the J&J vaccine (implausible). Second of all, we have actual cluster RCT data from Bangladesh showing a 11% (relative risk reduction). This occurred in a massive trial where masks were provided for free and encouraged. Even here, only surgical masks worked, and cloth did not, and had no where near this effect size. The idea that masks could reduce the chance of infection by 80% is simply untrue, implausible, and cannot be supported by any reliable data.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Batya Ungar-Sargon: Media Narrative About “Critical Race Theory” Is A Way To Avoid Talking About Class Posted By Tim Hains

Posted By on November 8th, 2021

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/11/07/batya_ungar-sargon_media_narrative_about_critical_race_theory_is_a_way_to_avoid_talking_about_class.html

Newsweek’s Batya Ungar-Sargon, author of Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy, speaks with CNN’s “Reliable Sources” about how the media covered the Virginia gubernatorial election.

“We are hiding a class divide in America,” she said. “We are hiding disgusting levels of income inequality in America. We are hiding the total dispossession of the working class of all races by focusing on a very highly specialized academic language about race.”

“The media’s response to Youngkin’s victory is literally the reason he won.”

“Glenn Youngkin managed to flip majority Black districts, he managed to get about 50 percent of Latino voters, are all of those people white supremacists? Of course, they’re not. They’re people who are worried about, number one: the economy.”

“Number two: schooling. It is such a self-own to tell people who are worried about the economy that that is white supremacy, right? You are essentially criminalizing the views of working-class Americans, and you saw the same thing with the conversation around critical race theory, right?” she told CNN’s Brian Stelter. “You saw all these pundits saying these people don’t know what ‘critical race theory’ is. That is not a political statement. it is a class statement. [You’re saying] they are not educated enough to be opposed to ‘critical race theory,’ how dare they oppose it?”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

ADL’s anti-hate speaker accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” The ADL conference on anti-Semitism should not be a forum for criticism of Israel. Moshe Phillips

Posted By on November 7th, 2021

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/316346

The Anti-Defamation League’s upcoming international conference on combatting hate will include a speaker who has publicly accused Israel of perpetrating “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinian Arabs.

Was she the only speaker available in the whole world? Couldn’t the ADL find anyone else?

The ADL says that the conference, titled “Never is Now” and scheduled to take place (via Zoom) on November 7-9, will be “the largest annual summit on antisemitism and hate” ever held.

If the event will indeed be that large, that makes it all the more urgent that the featured speakers not include anybody who has engaged in smears against Israel.

Yet Dr. Sara Yael Hirschhorn, who has repeatedly circulated anti-Israel slurs, will be one of the featured speakers. Hirschhorn, who teaches at Northwestern University, has repeatedly criticized Israel on Twitter.

One particularly extreme and troubling string of accusations appeared in a series of Hirschhorn tweets this past January 12:

— Hirschhorn wrote: “The Palestinian case shares some common features with South Africa—population transfer/ethnic cleansing, restriction of movement, lack of citizenship rights (beyond the Green Line), continued second class citizenship and technocracy.”

Isn’t it remarkable to hear Israel accused of “transferring” and “ethnic cleansing” of an Arab population which has constantly grown over the years? Where were the Palestinian Arabs all “transferred” to, exactly?

— Hirschhorn declared that Israel is guilty of “daily violations of human rights.” That’s the kind of vicious smear I would expect from Arab propagandists, not from a speaker at an ADL conference.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

NANCY PELOSI IN HER OWN WORDS….IS THIS DEMOCRAT NEWSPEAK?

Posted By on November 7th, 2021

https://conservativebrief.com/pelosi-descends-54057/

Concern Mounts After Pelosi Descends Into Incoherent Rambling Carmine Sabia

Is there a glitch in the Matrix? And if there is can someone explain what House Speaker and California Rep. Nancy Pelosi is saying?

The House Speaker gave her weekly press conference this week, which started as normal, but by the end she was stammering and making no sense.

As she was speaking on passing President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda the press conference delved into an incoherent mess.

We grabbed the transcript from the Speaker’s website to make some kind of sense of what she was saying, or at least get the words she was saying.

“The other thing that we’re getting or – we’re sending stuff over to the Senate.  Most of the product that we’ve done is – except now we may have added in the last hour or so – and some of what we added is Senate, to the bill, like hearing.  Bernie doesn’t like hearing – excuse me – Bernie loves hearing.  Manchin doesn’t want hearing in the bill and all that stuff.  So, some is Senate-oriented, and then we have the family/medical leave.  We figured if they’re putting things in, then we can put something in, even if Manchin doesn’t like it,” the Speaker said.

“So, we are getting some Byrd and privilege.  I think mostly we’re getting privilege scrub because privilege scrub is deadly to a bill.  Byrd?  Well, it’s important.  You have to take it out, but a privilege violation can take you out.  So, we’re, again, getting that as we go along as well.  But when we pass a bill, then they will see it in its aggregate and make some –,” she said.

If you are scratching your head and wondering what you just read do not worry, it is not you. We are baffled too but we assume she was talking about Medicare coverage for hearing aids.