Texas Bars Protest Civics and CRT By Stanley Kurtz

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/texas-bars-protest-civics-and-crt/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=second

The Texas legislature has just passed House Bill 3979, a landmark education bill. It is the first law in the country barring not only the core concepts of Critical Race Theory (CRT) from K–12 schools, but “protest civics” as well. The practice of protest civics — mandatory student protests and lobbying after school (invariably for leftist causes) — is every bit as much a threat to K–12 schools as CRT. Even if every state legislature in the country were to bar CRT, the federal civics bills being considered right now in Congress could still force leftist indoctrination on the states via protest civics. That is why the passage of Texas H.B. 3979 is so important.

The momentum coming out of Texas is significant. Already, Ohio representative Don Jones has introduced a bill broadly similar to what just passed in Texas. Other states are considering legislation that also take on both protest civics and CRT. We may soon see a wave of expanded K–12 protections sweep over the states. That means the news out of Texas — and now Ohio as well — is very good.

That said, the Texas bill emerged from its legislative struggle a bit raggedy. Democrats fought the measure tooth and nail. While they failed to undo the protections against protest civics and CRT, Democrats did manage to weigh the bill down with a long, scattershot list of readings that inappropriately forces a detailed and highly debatable curriculum onto local districts. Quite apart from arguments about the readings themselves, states should not dictate curriculum to districts at this level of specificity. Democrats also managed to block a number of important technical fixes to the bill.

None of this is prohibitive. Governor Abbott should certainly sign H.B. 3979. Abbott would be well-advised, however, to pare down the vastly over-extended list of required readings and make some additional technical fixes during September’s special session.

Journalist Andy Ngo Recounts Brutal Beating at the Hands of Portland Antifa By Caroline Downey

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/journalist-andy-ngo-recounts-brutal-beating-at-the-hands-of-portland-antifa/

Independent journalist Andy Ngo was brutally beaten late last month while reporting on an Antifa riot in Portland that was organized to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the group’s months-long courthouse siege. He described the incident in an exclusive interview with National Review.

The Friday demonstration organized by Antifa marked the one-year anniversary of the first outbreak of post-George Floyd violence in Portland, when activists stormed the local courthouse and set it on fire. After that first instance of violence, rioters dressed in Antifa’s tell-tale black bloc gear laid siege to the courthouse for more than 100 consecutive nights last spring, causing millions in property damage and hospitalizing dozens of police officers and federal agents dispatched to protect the property.

Ngo, who initially described the assault in a series of Tweets posted Thursday morning, has developed a reputation for going undercover to film leftist violence in the Antifa stronghold of Portland. He returned to the area the night he was assaulted to report on the commemorative chaos for a new chapter of his previously released book, “Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy.”

Masked and dressed head to toe in black, Ngo marched with the protestors for several hours to observe the destruction he was sure they would unleash. He wasn’t wrong; they hurled projectiles at law enforcement and the police station and committed other acts of violence. After some time, Antifa grew suspicious of Ngo, who wasn’t engaging in criminal activities alongside them, and turned on him.

Ngo said that four other journalists were standing by, but only started photographing when police arrived at the scene and never recorded any evidence of Antifa wrongdoing. He argued that there’s a small cabal of journalists who comply with Antifa rules to avoid the repercussions, such as assault or property theft. Ngo himself knows first hand the consequences meted out to journalists who report on the group’s wanton destruction; he was hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage in 2019 after being attacked by an Antifa mob while reporting in Portland.

What does a Bennett-Lapid government mean? David Isaac

https://www.jns.org/analysis-what-does-a-bennett-lapid-government-mean/

“This looks to me like a car with four different wheels, and every wheel is going in a different direction,” said Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar. “The only thing they agree upon is the need to get rid of [Benjamin] Netanyahu. This objective will be achieved in the first minute of this government.”

(June 2, 2021 / JNS) Yesh Atid Party head Yair Lapid and Yamina Party head Naftali Bennett announced on Wednesday that they have secured an agreement to form Israel’s next government, thereby likely ending the 12-year consecutive term of Benjamin Netanyahu as the country’s prime minister.

The new government will be unprecedented in its composition, consisting of seven parties spanning the entire Israeli political spectrum, plus the backing of an Arab party for the first time. As such, questions remain over the ability to successfully govern such a disparate group of parties at a time when the country faces serious security threats stemming from Iran and its terror proxies, as well as internal social discord between Jews and Arabs.

Nevertheless, most analysts JNS spoke with were hopeful, especially when it comes to improving U.S.-Israel ties.

“It could certainly help the mood, initially,” Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, told JNS, saying that the United States will be pleased with a government that includes left-wing members. Though he cautions, “I could well see the Biden administration disappointed if the right-wing parties—which are, in fact, more right than Netanyahu—have their way.”

Pipes expects the right-wing coalition partners to dominate, noting that in the negotiations on forming the coalition, the three right-wing parties—Yamina, New Hope and Yisrael Beiteinu—“have been in the driver’s seat,” and Yamina, with only seven seats, has been given the premiership.

The FBI’s Strange Anthrax Investigation Sheds Light on COVID Lab-Leak Theory and Fauci’s Emails Mainstream institutions doubted the FBI had solved the 2001 anthrax case. Either way, revelations that emerged about U.S. Government bio-labs have newfound relevance. Glenn Greenwald

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-fbis-strange-anthrax-investigation?token=ey

One of the most significant events of the last two decades has been largely memory-holed: the October, 2001 anthrax attacks in the U.S. Beginning just one week after 9/11 and extending for another three weeks, a highly weaponized and sophisticated strain of anthrax had been sent around the country through the U.S. Postal Service addressed to some of the country’s most prominent political and media figures. As Americans were still reeling from the devastation of 9/11, the anthrax killed five Americans and sickened another seventeen.

As part of the extensive reporting I did on the subsequent FBI investigation to find the perpetrator(s), I documented how significant these attacks were in the public consciousness. ABC News, led by investigative reporter Brian Ross, spent a full week claiming that unnamed government sources told them that government tests demonstrated a high likelihood that the anthrax came from Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program. The Washington Post, in November, 2001, also raised “the possibility that [this weaponized strain of anthrax] may have slipped through an informal network of scientists to Iraq.” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) appeared on The David Letterman Show on October 18, 2001, and said: “There is some indication, and I don’t have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.” Three days later, McCain appeared on Meet the Press with Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and said of the anthrax perpetrators: “perhaps this is an international organization and not one within the United States of America,” while Lieberman said the anthrax was so finely weaponized that “there’s either a significant amount of money behind this, or this is state-sponsored, or this is stuff that was stolen from the former Soviet program” (Lieberman added: “Dr. Fauci can tell you more detail on that”).

A message for President-elect Isaac Herzog By Ruthie Blum  

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/a-message-for-president-elect-isaac-herzog-opinion-670080

Upon the election of Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog as Israel’s 11th president on Wednesday, letters of congratulations began to pour in from the leaders of organizations whose paths have frequently crossed with him in his current position, which he’s held for the past three years.

The heads of the American Jewish Committee, World Jewish Congress, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, American Jewish Congress and the Israeli-American Council all welcomed the news on the grounds that Herzog is just the right man for the job of unifying Israelis and strengthening bonds between the Jewish state and Jewish communities around the world.
Incumbent President Reuven Rivlin, too, extended felicitations. “I send you my warmest greetings, Mr. President,” Rivlin said in a phone call to his successor. “I can tell you that the responsibility of the role that you are about to assume is unlike anything you have done until now. The Jewish and democratic system we established here, in the land of our ancestors, has a body and soul. If the Knesset is a place of argument, as we have certainly seen recently, Beit Hanassi [the office and official residence of the president] is a place of discourse, partnership and statehood.”

Rivlin went on, “Beit HaNasi is the ‘neshama yetera,’ the additional soul of democracy. It is the home of the people, all the people of Israel. Its door is open and its ear is bent to all partners in building our home, their pains and their troubles, as well as to the fundamental issues of concern to Israeli society as a whole. The title of ‘first citizen’ and the task of guarding the character of the State of Israel, particularly at this point in time, are heavy responsibilities. I have no doubt that you will bear them superbly. I am proud to pass the baton on to you in a month’s time.”

Fauci should drop the mask on Wuhan The nation needs to know the whole truth about the COVID-19 pandemic Tom Fitton

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/2/fauci-should-drop-the-mask-on-wuhan/

While our masks come off, Dr. Anthony Fauci still wears his mask of secrecy – one that cloaks the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ response to COVID-19. The time for an honest discussion regarding Dr. Fauci’s leadership and actions during the pandemic is long overdue.

Scientists have learned a great deal about the coronavirus, including how it transmits and attacks the body and crucially, how to treat patients and create seemingly effective vaccines. However, scientists are requesting more information that they say is necessary to determine how COVID-19 originated and became a pandemic in order to develop strategies to prevent such a pandemic from ever again visiting such destruction upon humanity. But to this day, Dr. Fauci and NIAID have steadfastly refused to release documents that would help answer this and many other important questions. 

Over the past year, Judicial Watch has bird-dogged Dr. Fauci’s records through the Freedom of Information Act. And when FOIA requests were ignored, Judicial Watch filed lawsuits compelling NIAID to comply. Although the agency continues its unprecedented stonewalling, it has released at least some documents, some of which are deeply troubling. In one instance, Dr. Fauci approved a press release that was specifically designed to praise China’s initial response to the coronavirus. In an even more troubling case, officials from the NIH tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms, and the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” COVID-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.

Banning Critical Race Theory Teaching ‘systemic racism’ was imposed on students, until politics pushed back. By Daniel Henninger

https://www.wsj.com/articles/banning-critical-race-theory-11622670206?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

An emerging reality of the current American presidency is that any normalcy Joe Biden may have promised was entirely fake.

The latest exhibit is the first anniversary of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis occurring as about six states are enacting or planning restrictions on teaching what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota are calling “critical race theory.”

This was the sort of hyper-polarization Mr. Biden was supposed to arbitrate. Instead, he marches leftward, covering his trail with pixie-dust rhetoric.

As always, it defaults to the media to substitute its own explanations for the country’s social tension. Two reporters for the New York Times connected the dots in a piece this week: “Republicans’ attacks on critical race theory are in sync with the party’s broad strategy to run on culture-war issues in the 2022 midterm elections.” Little wonder so many say they are tuning out politics and the media. The reductionism is hopeless.

This new divide is a textbook example of the Founding Fathers’ (if one may still cite them) fears about destructive political factions. “By a faction,” James Madison wrote in his now constantly cited Federalist No. 10, he meant citizens “who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens” (emphasis added). We are there.

The Middle East: An Alarm Bell to the Biden Administration by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17429/biden-middle-east-alarm-bell

If you want to look at the positive aspect of this whole thing…many [Palestinian lists] had very young people… reformists — people who want democracy, who want regime change, who are saying, “We are fed up with corruption. We want new, young leaders. It is time to get rid of the old guard represented by Abbas.”

The Biden Administration was quick to announce the resumption of financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, unconditionally… which I think was a mistake…. If you are rewarding the Palestinian Authority without demanding anything in return, you will have no leverage with the Palestinian Authority anymore. You have already given them what they wanted, so why should they do what you ask them in the future?

If the Biden Administration thinks that President Abbas will return to the negotiating table with Israel and resume the peace process because they have resumed the financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, that is not going to happen. If it happens, President Abbas will not be serious about the peace process….

President Abbas is also now under attack by many Palestinians…. He will not be able to make any concessions to Israel because people will say, “You are an unelected leader. You are a dictator. You have been in power for more than 15 years without elections. Who voted for you?” This will all have a negative impact on any future peace process.

What worries me is not that Fatah and Hamas are at each other’s necks and killing each other. They have been doing that for years. What worries me is that… all these leaders are continuing their incitement against Israel…. That is what is driving all these terrorists to go out and carry out all these attacks…. [and] emboldening the radicals. It is promoting terrorism.

You delegitimize Israel in the eyes of your people, the Palestinians, to a point where your people will never accept any kind of an agreement or compromise with Israel.

This incitement has to stop…. I would have liked to see the Biden Administration tell the Palestinian Authority, “Listen. We will resume financial aid to the Palestinians, but before we do that, on Palestine TV, can you please stop calling for jihad? Can you please stop publishing or broadcasting all these messages that encourage violence?” But the Biden did not demand any of these things….

If you want to rejoin the [Iranian nuclear] agreement, at least make sure that they abide by it…. that they are not hiding things. You cannot just walk back into an agreement without verifying it. A nuclear bomb in the hands of Iran is not only a threat to Israel.

Listen to what the Arabs are saying: “We are also worried. These mullahs in Iran will not hesitate to use any type of weapon… who is going to prevent them in the future from using nuclear bombs against moderate Arabs, moderate Muslims, or any other Arab or Muslim?”

When we talk about a solution [to the Arab-Israeli conflict], I can think of 10,000 solutions. Everyone here has a solution…. If you ask Hamas, they will tell you… replace Israel with an Islamic state. If there are some Jews who would like to live as a minority, they are welcome. Otherwise, get out of here or I will destroy all of you.

President Abbas has a solution. He is saying Israel must give me 100% of what I am demanding, which is all of the West Bank, all of Gaza, and all of East Jerusalem. On top of that, I want the right of return… to bring millions of Palestinian refugees into Israel itself…. I want the Palestinian state next to Israel. Then I want to turn Israel into another Palestinian state by flooding it with millions of refugees. These are unrealistic solutions. No one takes them seriously.

I think that at present, all Israel can do is work with any Palestinian who wants to work with you and shoot back at any Palestinian who shoots at you…. Maybe, right now, there is no solution that will satisfy the needs or the demands of the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, any Palestinian state you have in the near future will be the same. We have reached a situation… where people in the West Bank, even in Gaza, tell me, “We hope one day, we will have a democracy like the one the Jews have in Israel.” Do you know how many times I hear in Ramallah people telling me, “We wish one day that we will have our own Knesset”?

Any Palestinian leader under the current circumstances who tells Israel, “Okay, Israel, I will sign an agreement with you that will give me 90% percent,” will be shot…. executed in a public square and condemned as a traitor. President Abbas knows that…. Because Palestinian leaders keep telling their people that anyone who makes concessions to Israel is a traitor.

If you are going to give us a Palestinian state that is going to look like Sudan in the past, or Syria, or Lebanon, and all those other failed states, no thank you. Just leave us alone…. We do not want another failed Muslim, Iranian‑backed dictatorship in the Middle East. It is bad for the Arabs before it is bad for Israel.

Many journalists in the mainstream media appear not to be interested in certain stories here, particularly ones that reflect negatively on Arabs or Palestinians. Most are only searching for stories that reflect negatively on Israel, that have an anti‑Israel angle.

The Elusive Pursuit of World Peace-John Moses

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/05/the-elusive-pursuit-of-world-peace/

The preservation of international peace and the problem of negotiated disarmament among nations have been a problem for humanity from biblical times at least. Turning spears into pruning hooks and swords into ploughshares was urged by ancient Jewish prophets in the Old Testament and echoed in the New Testament by Jesus of Nazareth in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) by calling peace-makers “blessed”. That was an aspiration which the course of history has mocked. Wars and rumours of wars have plagued human history from time immemorial. Wars to end war have been fought and have succeeded only in the sowing of dragons’ teeth. The First World War led almost inexorably to the Second.

The great irony is that these most destructive wars in human history have been fought among avowedly Christian nations. The Florentine Machiavelli has triumphed over Jesus of Nazareth, the Prince of Peace. It is noted, however, that Machiavelli in his work The Prince of 1513 was only describing the behaviour of rulers at that time and what they did to stay in power. They all simply acted in their dynastic or national interest whenever they took up arms against a neighbouring state.

Nothing, it would seem, has really changed throughout history, despite the well-intentioned efforts of pacifists, who continue to recommend unilateral disarmament as if that were the magic formula to create a knock-on effect inspiring all other powers to risk doing the same. Peace, and hopefully justice on earth, would then prevail. Pacifists also accuse statesmen of duplicity and deceptive actions against their own people while in reality they are furthering their class interests.

During the great naval race between Britain and Germany, the English journalist and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Norman Angell published a book called The Great Illusion (1909). He had hoped to illustrate that modern warfare between great industrial powers would be so costly regardless of who actually won, that decision-makers would shy back from the risk. The naval build-up went on anyway and hostilities eventually broke out in August 1914 and lasted four horrifically ruinous years for all concerned.

The most reliable research on all this was carried out by the Hamburg-based Professor Fritz Fischer and more recently confirmed by his doctoral student Bernd Schulte in a number of detailed publications based on hitherto unexplored sources. The assertions made by Cambridge Professor Christopher Clark in his 2013 book The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 have created a furore, especially in Germany where liberals and social democrats have been outraged by Clark’s downplaying of the “guilt” of the imperial German power elite who were bent on war. Not a few Australasian historians have welcomed Clark’s assertions because it allows them to denigrate the imperial connection by arguing that the dominion contribution to that conflict was the result of a deception perpetrated by British decision-makers in Whitehall. In reality, so it is agued, the First World War had nothing to do with the Pacific dominions. Our leaders were simply duped into supplying cannon fodder for wicked British capitalists.

BLM Founder Patrisse Cullors, Marxist Abolitionist She doesn’t want to just defund the police — she wants to abolish them. Paul Kengor

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/blm-founder-patrisse-cullors-marxist-abolitionist-paul-kengor/

Black Lives Matter founder Patrisse Cullors has been in the news a lot lately because of controversy over her income and financial dealings, including recent purchases of several new homes. Cullors lashed out at these criticisms by protesting, “The fact that the right-wing media is trying to create hysteria around my spending is, frankly, racist and sexist.”

The fact is that Cullors’ own organization has demanded answers. Hawk Newsome, head of Black Lives Matter Greater New York City, called for “an independent investigation” of Cullors. “If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes,” says Newsome. “It’s really sad because it makes people doubt the validity of the movement and overlook the fact that it’s the people that carry this movement.… We need black firms and black accountants to go in there and find out where the money is going.”

But another particularly striking Cullors revelation of late has gotten almost no publicity. It was flagged for me by Mike Gonzalez, author of an upcoming major new book on BLM. It’s a video by Cullors titled, “What Is Abolition And Am I An Abolitionist?” Posted on her personal YouTube channel, it needs to be widely watched.

In that video, Cullors repeatedly calls herself an “abolitionist.” She talks about her “abolitionist journey” and the “abolitionist future we deserve.” She announces that she’s writing a book titled An Abolitionist Handbook.

Cullors applies her abolitionist goals to police — and not just police but even prisons and jails. She states flatly, “Abolition is the getting rid of police, prisons and jails, surveillance, and courts.”

Yes, the abolition of police, prisons, jails, surveillance, and courts — all part of what Cullors calls the “prison industrial complex.” As many of us have noted, she emphasizes that BLM’s “defund” movement is about literal abolition. That is, not just defunding the police, but abolishing the police. Plus prisons and jails, and now surveillance and courts, too.