ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Why Trump Haters Have Set Their Sights on J. D. Vance  Vance will continue to be an object of scorn for liberals who feel betrayed by him.  By Chris Buskirk

Posted By on July 6th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/07/05/why-trump-haters-have-set-their-sights-on-j-d-vance/

The Progressive Left has a bullseye on J. D. Vance. Ever since he announced his run for the U.S. Senate in Middletown, Ohio last week to replace retiring Republican Rob Portman, the media has been bashing him. The Daily Beast claims he’s “an avatar of GOP corruption” and is upset that he mentioned Jeffrey Epstein and John Weaver as sex predators (the author says that’s a QAnon conspiracy!), while New York magazine says Vance’s campaign “feels doomed” less than 24 hours after he made his announcement speech in front of a pumped-up crowd of around 500.  

The liberal press is joined in its opposition to Vance by the anti-Trump ex-Republicans at the Lincoln Project, which spent close to $100 million against Trump last year. Bill Kristol and a list of other D.C.-based Trump haters have spent the days since his announcement calling Vance a “dirtbag” and a racist for using horrible terms like “nation-state.”

These same people have said almost nothing about Vance’s opponents in the Republican primary. Josh Mandel doesn’t seem to interest them, despite some warning signs about his candidacy—including the fact that much of his fundraising team resigned—or questions about his electability since he was trounced in his 2012 Senate race against far-left Sherrod Brown. 

Likewise, they haven’t had much to say about his other competitor Jane Timken, the former chairman of the state GOP. She, too, has some serious political problems, including defending her protégé, Ohio Representative Anthony Gonzalez’s vote to impeach Donald Trump and the fact that her family’s steel company outsources Ohio jobs to China.

So why are they so focused on J. D. Vance? Fox News host Tucker Carlson seems to like him, which probably only adds fuel to the fire. He said last week, “I’m really glad you’re doing it. J. D. Vance, I admire you and I wish you luck.”

Still, there’s a political angle that probably makes the anti-Trump contingent’s silence strategic: they realize the other candidates’ flaws make them weaker in the general election against Representative Tim Ryan, the likely Democratic nominee, and they would like to see the Democrats pick up what should be a safe Republican seat in the Senate.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

What is China Buying in the Biden Administration? by Peter Schweizer

Posted By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17518/china-biden-administration

The simple fact is that there are large, powerful donors to the Biden campaign that have big financial stakes in these green energy companies. It is a wealth transfer to Biden’s biggest bundlers, and that is a huge and massive problem.

For those companies with inside connections to the Biden campaign, it is American taxpayer money that is truly “shovel-ready.”

Former congressmen and senators, and former US ambassadors are being paid large sums of money by governments such as China, or by firms directly linked to those governments, which do not have America’s best interest at heart. They are lobbying in Washington to get their paymasters’ voices heard.

If you invest a couple of million dollars, let us say, in lobbying, or you invest a couple of million dollars in campaign contributions, often you can get benefits that are worth ten times that.

For Wall Street and Silicon Valley, the prospect of doing deals in China is mesmerizing. To do those deals in China, as they have learned, you must play nice with the regime, speak well of them, feather their nests…. It is no less tempting for American politicians….Of greatest concern are the deals that actually advance Chinese state interests.

There is no other way to state this. The only way we can correct this situation is by exposing these people and showing U.S. citizens exactly what they are doing in our society.

[J]ust before the 2020 election, the [New York Times ran a piece by its “media reporter” bragging about their role as gatekeepers that would not pursue the Hunter Biden story.

What is China buying in the Biden Administration? A look to the recent past may provide some answers.

If you go back to 2009-10 and look at the “shovel-ready” stimulus package that President Barack Obama pushed through, as most people now know, there were huge amounts of money in the form of direct grants and loan guarantees that went to Solyndra and other “green energy” companies that failed. Yet, the question remained: Where did all that taxpayer money go for green energy?

If you trace it, you will find that 80 percent of that money went to green energy companies that were owned by individuals who sat on Barack Obama’s Finance Committee for his 2008 campaign.

Now that Obama’s former VP is president, another infrastructure package will include plenty of expenditures for more green schemes. Whether they work or whether they will simply raise our energy prices, the simple fact is that there are large, powerful donors to the Biden campaign that have big financial stakes in these green energy companies. It is a wealth transfer to Biden’s biggest bundlers, and that is a huge and massive problem. For those companies with inside connections to the Biden campaign, it is American taxpayer money that is truly “shovel-ready.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

20 Questions for Nancy Pelosi About January 6 Americans, and Republicans leaders including Donald Trump, should keep asking legitimate questions and demanding truthful answers. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on July 6th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/07/05/20-questions-for-nancy-pelosi-about-january-6/

No one has milked the events of January 6 more than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). She set the official narrative early and often, a storyline her scribes in the news media have dutifully repeated without question or scrutiny.

“[Y]esterday, the president of the United States incited an armed insurrection against America, the gleeful desecration of the U.S. Capitol, which is the temple of our American democracy,” Pelosi lamented in a hyperdramatic press conference the day after the raucous protest. She accused President Trump of “sedition” and urged his cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him just two weeks before he officially left the White House.

Nearly every word in her opening statement that day is untrue. The president didn’t “incite” the violence; it was not an insurrection, armed or otherwise, and the only person who used a firearm was a still-unidentified Capitol police officer who killed an unarmed female veteran.

Aside from a few smashed windows, no one gleefully desecrated property—one could convincingly make the argument that the daily presence of lawmakers such as Representatives Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Cori Bush (D-Mo.), among others represents the true desecration of the property—and America isn’t supposed to believe in sacred “temples” of governmental power. It’s also the same place where Democrats plotted for four years to “attack our democracy” by attempting to remove the duly-elected president of the United States.

To the contrary, buildings paid for by taxpayers to conduct the official business of taxpayer-funded employees once considered public servants but who now consider their taxpaying constituents the servants to their heavy-handed mastery is the ideal location to rise up against the U.S. government. 

It has always been this way. For example, it was just fine when thousands of hysterical protesters occupied the Hart Senate Office building and stalked U.S. senators in 2018 to try to stop the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, screaming from the Senate gallery then pounding on the doors of the Supreme Court in an effort to disrupt his swearing-in ceremony. An MSNBC reporter at the time called the chaos “an extraordinary moment,” not an “insurrection.”

It also was totally cool when thousands of climate activists, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), occupied Pelosi’s office that same year to demand action on the environment. Pelosi didn’t scold those activists for desecrating the temple of democracy; she quickly acquiesced to their public pressure campaign.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

A University Capitulates to the Woke Mob Nikole Hannah-Jones, having been awarded tenure, will be around for a long time to come. If her past is prologue, the University of North Carolina can expect repeats of controversy and scandal.  By Peter W. Wood

Posted By on July 6th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/07/05/a-university-capitulates-to-the-woke-mob/

May and June were lovely months. The cherry trees in Riverside Park put on their annual extravaganza. The eastern redbuds came a beat later with their mysterious clusters of lavender flowers bursting straight out of their bark. And free-range New Yorkers met the sunlight, maskless as the day they were born. This glorious freedom was bound to fade, but not before we had one more gift: the revelation that the trustees of the University of North Carolina had summoned the courage to say “no” to the proposal that Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the New York Times‘ now-infamous “1619 Project,” be appointed with tenure to UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism. 

I expressed my delight in this development several weeks after it was reported. And while the American higher education establishment was seething with resentment over the decision, it looked like those UNC trustees had the gravel to stick with their unpopular choice.

Now we know better. Last week, in a 9-4 vote, the UNC trustees approved a grant of tenure to the award-winning journalist. No explanation was offered, but the decision followed an intense campaign of vilification of the trustees for their failure to recognize Hannah-Jones’ exceptional merits.

Kudos to the four trustees—Dave Boliek, Haywood Cochrane, Allie Ray McCullen, and John Preyer—who had the fortitude to stand against the surrender. 

The vote is a significant defeat for those of us who hope to see American colleges and universities cease their seemingly relentless slide into the politicization of their faculty, curricula, and academic standards. 

Hannah-Jones’ tenured appointment, of course, is far from the first time that a public university board has capitulated to pressure to go along with a meretricious appointment, and it won’t be the last time either. It feels a little different, however, because it was preceded by that short spring of hope. 

What should we make of the trustees’ reversal? Some of the lessons will be abundantly clear to Hannah-Jones’ supporters. Noise works. Bluster, threats, and intimidation are effective ways to advance an academic appointment that is meritless on its face. University trustees are as susceptible to social and political pressure as anyone else. The trick is to spot their particular vulnerabilities. 

The other lesson is more speculative. UNC has willingly sacrificed some of its reputation for high academic standards in order to appease its woke critics, to land a celebrity journalist, and to stave off the threat of a boycott by some other black academics. 

The university faces a potential cost in doing this—the cost of reputational damage. That cost, of course, is unknowable at this point. Will the Hussman School fail to attract some good students who are turned off by the prospect of studying under a teacher who has conspicuously played fast and loose with the facts? Or will her celebrity and the controversy itself yield a bonanza of starstruck students? Plainly, UNC faces no reputational cost within the progressive American professoriate which rallied to her cause. But what happens among alumni, parents, and taxpayers in North Carolina? 

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

‘They Saw the Polling’: Top Democrat Comes Out in Favor of Voter ID Requirement Matt Vespa

Posted By on July 6th, 2021

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/07/05/james-clyburn-yeah-im-open-to-voter-id-n2592029

Was it a dream? Is it our imagination? What happened? Voter ID requirements were long considered facets of white supremacy and of Republicans wanting to suppress to vote. This was Jim Crow 2.0, remember? For years, voter ID requirements were popular. Across geographic, political, and racial lines, the act of showing a photo ID to vote was met with overwhelming approval. So, are Democrats listening now? This was an interesting admission from top Democrat Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) (via CNN):

James Clyburn, a member of House Democratic leadership, said Sunday he was “absolutely” open to West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s proposed changes to election law reform that include a voter ID requirement — as long as it’s equitable.

“We are always for voter ID. We are never for disproportionate voter ID. When you tell me that you got to have a photo ID and a photo for a student activity card is not good but for a hunting license it is good,” Clyburn, the House majority whip, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” I don’t know of a single person who is against ID’ing themselves when they go to vote. But we don’t want you to tell me my ID is no good because I don’t own a gun and I don’t go hunting.”

The comments from the South Carolina Democrat, who has previously criticized voter ID requirements as a form of voter suppression, comes days after the Supreme Court ruled two provisions of an Arizona voting law that restrict how ballots can be cast do not violate the Voting Rights Act. After Senate Republicans blocked a path forward on an elections reform bill and as GOP-led state legislatures move to enact restrictive voting laws, Democrat lawmakers are also calling for action, including ending the filibuster.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

India: Public School Organizes Summer Camp to Promote Islamic Values Among Children And it triggers massive outrage. Ashlyn Davis

Posted By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/07/india-public-school-organizes-summer-camp-promote-ashlyn-davis/

A shocking and communally charged invitation put out by a Moradabad school has come under scrutiny and led to tremendous public fury in India, except, of course, among the Muslims. The Delhi Public Global School had set up a summer camp for students aged 8-15, intending to impart Islamic education online. The school also created a website to further this purpose. The colorful pamphlet posted on the school’s official site featured the image of the Ka’ba, along with a green structure resembling a mosque, accompanied by the text, “How to Adopt Islamic Values in Personal Life.” The subjects listed on the agenda to be discussed in the summer camp were, among others, “What is Islam?,” “How to understand Qura’an,” and “Responsibility of a Muslim.” It was supposed to be a two-day schedule with the sessions lasting three hours each.

The poster triggered massive outrage on social media. We must emphasize that the Delhi Public Global School is not a madrassa running on Islamic principles. It is affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education, which is a national level board of education under the purview of the Union government of India. Various Hindu groups have alleged that the school is attempting to change the mindset of pupils from non-Muslim families, so that they will embrace Islam. The fact that the Moradabad school is focusing on students in the developing years of their lives, a time when they have malleable minds and are easily indoctrinated, supports the allegations brought by the Hindu groups.

The Hindu groups, led by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, VHP) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (All Indian Student Council, ABVP) have strenuously objected to the “attempts at Islamization” of the English medium school. “This type of religious education for kids coming from other faiths is targeted towards changing their beliefs and converting them to Islam,” said ABVP representative Sachin Singh. The VHP, on the other hand, has warned the management that it would launch a social media campaign against the school.

Responding to the massive indignation, School Manager Mansoor Siddiqui (a Muslim) explained, “We had picked up these subjects to draw in Muslim students for the summer camp and inculcate nationalistic values in them. We had no intention of hurting anyone’s religious sentiments or promoting religious conversion.” The school management supported its decision to consider these religiously motivated topics by noting that over 90% of students in their school hailed from Muslim families.

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Biden Revives Obama’s Middle East Policy U.S. “evenhandedness” is back in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Joseph Puder

Posted By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/07/president-bidens-return-obamas-middle-east-policy-joseph-puder/

President Joe Biden is of a generation that appreciated the Jewish state as America’s closest and most reliable Middle East ally. He and the likes of the late U.S. Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA) were staunch friends of Israel. Most Democrats in the U.S. Senate shared with Jackson and Biden their appreciation of Israel. Today however, the “progressive” wing of the Democrat party no longer shares that kind of appreciation, and support for the Jewish state. Six months into his presidency, Biden has been under pressure from the “progressives” to be tougher on Israel. Many in that “wing” have not forgiven Israel’s former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for standing up for his people in the U.S. Congress against the weak nuclear deal with Iran. A nuclear Iran poses an existential threat to the Jewish state and its people. Now that Israel has a new Bennett-Lapid government that is leaning a bit more to the left, it is hoped in Jerusalem that Biden will give serious consideration to the mistakes made by the Obama administration in dealing with Iran, and the shortcomings of the 2015 nuclear deal.

The Obama administration, (in which Biden served as Vice President) displayed too much eagerness to reach a deal with the radical Ayatollahs. Although Obama declared that “all options are on the table,” he never intended to use the military option, and the Ayatollahs of Iran recognized it. As a result, the Iranians toughened their positions, and were able to extract many concessions in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). These included restrictions on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from observing and monitoring a number of nuclear sites, and in particular military sites. It enabled the Islamic Republic of Iran to develop and produce ballistic missiles that will eventually have long-range capabilities with the possibility of reaching the U.S. The Iranian regime was cheating all along, and working secretly on producing a nuclear bomb. A nuclear device, along with a long-range ballistic missile, would be able to threaten and intimidate the US, and certainly fulfill their vows to “wipe Israel off the map.”

The JCPOA deal ignored Iran’s malignant actions in the region in seeking to bring down the Sunni-Arab regimes, including those in the Gulf States. Additionally, Iran’s military interventions by proxies, and directed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, was ignored. As president, Biden has removed Iran’s proxy — the Houti (Shiite) rebels in Yemen from the list of terrorist organizations. This was clearly a way to warm up to Iran. He also ended U.S. support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign, which aims to restore the legitimate government in Yemen. This has encouraged the Houtis and their Iranian paymasters to increase their attacks inside Yemen, and against Saudi Arabia.

For a second time since assuming office, President Biden retaliated against the pro-Iranian Iraqi militia that fired missiles into a US base in Iraq, seeking to carry out Iran’s policy of removing the US presence in the region. To fulfill Iran’s aims, Biden ordered the reduction of U.S. forces in the Gulf. At the same time, Biden administration officials leaked to the media the details of the Israeli attacks on Iranian ships, including the attack on an IRGC intelligence gathering vessel. Israel, it should be said, attacked the Iranian vessels in retaliation for previous Iranian bombing of Israeli-owned commercial vessels in the Gulf.

MEDIA Comments turned off

WaPo Promotes the Sexual Grooming of Children Civilization dies in darkness. Mark Tapson

Posted By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/07/wapo-promotes-sexual-grooming-children-mark-tapson/

Last week The Washington Post, one of the most prominent news outlets in the world, the newspaper whose self-important motto “Democracy dies in darkness” belies its own undemocratic propaganda, saw fit to promote an opinion piece calling for the increased exposure of small children to sexual deviance.

In the article titled, “Yes, kink belongs at Pride. And I want my kids to see it,” freelance writer Lauren Rowello declared her support for the presence of “kinksters” – practitioners of sexual fetishes – in parades during so-called “Pride Month,” the thirty days a year officially devoted to the compulsory celebration of LGBT narcissism. More specifically, she called for it in order to expose children as young as toddlers to “the scope and vitality of queer life.”

Rowello, a self-described “gendervague” person who is married to a transgender woman, described how the couple attended a Pride parade in Philadelphia five years ago. (The term gendervague, in case you’re overcome by curiosity, refers “to a specifically neurodivergent experience of trans/gender identity.” You’re welcome.) At one point during the parade, Rowello wrote, “our elementary-schooler pointed in the direction of oncoming floats, raising an eyebrow at a bare-chested man in dark sunglasses whose black suspenders clipped into a leather thong. The man paused to be spanked playfully by a partner with a flog. ‘What are they doing?’ my curious kid asked as our toddler cheered them on.”

Her toddler cheered them on. In a saner time, parents wouldn’t allow adults “playfully” engaged in sado-masochism within a hundred miles of their toddlers, but today a generation or two of fanatically woke parents intentionally expose their children to such a repellent display in order to inculcate, as young as possible, a sexual awareness that kids aren’t equipped to process.

“The pair was the first of a few dozen kinksters who danced down the street, laughing together as they twirled their whips and batons, some leading companions by leashes,” Rowello continued. What kind of mother thinks it is appropriate to expose her children to human beings degrading each other with leashes? “At the time, my children were too young to understand the nuance of the situation, but I told them the truth,” Rowello explained. “That these folks were members of our community celebrating who they are and what they like to do.”

Here’s something else she could have told her children: all human beings are children of God, deserving of dignity, and literally parading them around like animals for sexual kicks is morally reprehensible. Maybe that’s too much “nuance” for Rowello.

Rowello did acknowledge that even among the LGBT crowd, there is debate about whether “kinksters” belong in Pride parades at all, at least partly because of the presence of children. But she argued that “kink visibility is a reminder that any person can and should shamelessly explore what brings joy and excitement. We don’t talk to our children enough about pursuing sex to fulfill carnal needs that delight and captivate us in the moment.”

Read that last sentence again, and ask yourself what kind of parent is in a hurry to push his or her child to fulfill carnal needs. The answer is that there are only two kinds: pedophiles and neo-Marxist ideologues who are targeting impressionable minds and vulnerable souls, with the intention of weaponizing them against the “cis-normative” status quo.

EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Nation’s Largest Teachers’ Union Rejects Anti-Israel Resolution By Caroline Downey

Posted By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/nations-largest-teachers-union-rejects-anti-israel-resolution/

The representative assembly of the National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest teachers’ union, rejected an anti-Israel resolution that would condemn the Jewish state for its “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.

The failed measure, which only 23 percent of members supported, was one of over 30 items the organization was scheduled to debate at its annual conference, according to The Algemeiner.

The decision comes after certain teachers’ unions, including three local unions affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, denounced Israel as an apartheid state and indicated sympathy for the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement last month.

New Business Item 29 asked that the union allocate approximately $71,500 to advance Palestinian causes through a number of programs. The resolution used language that legitimized Palestinian terrorism as a “heroic struggle” in the fight to combat alleged Israeli “military repression” and “ethnic cleansing.” It also urged the NEA to “publicize its support for the Palestinian struggle for justice and call on the United States government to stop arming and supporting Israel.”

After Jewish members and others voiced their opposition and lobbied against it, the item was defeated in the chamber by a significant margin.

Chairman of the NEA Jewish Affairs Caucus Patrick Crabtree noted, “I’m almost positive 29 is so divisive, it will go down in flames.”

In a statement, the Jewish caucus leadership wrote that the resolution, in addition to another anti-Israel item on the table, “could inadvertently exacerbate antisemitic sentiment, or anti-Arab sentiment, in the United States, and G-d forbid, lead to hate crimes of some sort.”

The letter warned that the measure could make Jewish students “feel uncomfortable” and put the NEA “at odds with the larger Jewish community.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Universities Don’t Celebrate Diversity — They Crush It By Aron Ravin

Posted By on July 6th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/07/universities-dont-celebrate-diversity-they-crush-it/

What the ideologically monolithic campus approach to ‘diversity’ forgets.

American universities have made it a part of their mission to embrace so-called diversity. Through a combination of outreach groups, equity officers (so official!), affirmative-action policies, and more, schools across the country have implemented measures to be as “accepting” as possible. To an extent, colleges are right to take steps to prevent the formation of a homogenous student body. Part of a university’s job is to prepare undergraduates for the rest of their lives. If all the students at Columbia were wealthy white kids from the Upper East Side, they wouldn’t be living in an environment that represents the world around them. But as they are so prone to do, the bureaucrats residing in the ivory tower have overcorrected.

As has been described in countless works, intellectual diversity at universities has greatly suffered. The pervasive cloud of wokism has seeped into almost every branch of academia. Law professors cut portions of curricula, such as the study of laws pertaining to rape, Jim Crow, and abuse, to avoid offending their students. Public medical schools punish discussion of “microaggression theory.” Worst of all, untold numbers of faculty have faced repercussions for expressing the slightest disagreement with the woke, hyper-inclusive ideology that progressives peddle.

But it is not only intellectual diversity that suffers in today’s college climate. Even the diversity that admissions officers favor, diversity of background, is weakened by wokeness.

The unhinged drive toward inclusion has resulted in some terribly exclusive practices. According to a report published by the National Association of Scholars, covering 173 private and public universities from all 50 states, over 70 percent of the schools surveyed offered separate, racially designated graduation ceremonies and residential areas. Elite institutions such as Harvard and Columbia have hopped on the bandwagon. But how will the broader student body reap the benefits of a diverse campus if the students opt into self-segregated programs?

One particularly innovative school, Chapman University, a midsize California university, has decided to host not one, not two, but seven individual graduation ceremonies based on students’ various ways of self-identifying. As one can imagine, there are problems with this. For one, it creates an almost comical scenario for Chapman students who fit under multiple categories. Maybe a gay, disabled, and Afro-Latino student should get five graduations! But, more seriously, the profusion of separate ceremonies detracts from the primary purpose of commencement. It is supposed to be a time when students in STEM, humanities, and business programs abandon their differences for the sake of celebrating their accomplishments together. Students toss their caps as one because they have finished as one. It seems wrong to have them throw their caps in separate groupuscules.