EDUCATION Comments turned off

Prominent University College London Scholar Resigns After Academic Board Rejects Leading Definition of Antisemitism: ‘You Are All Going to Hell!’ By Benjamin Kerstein

Posted By on February 16th, 2021

https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/02/15/prominent-university-college-london-scholar-resigns-after-academic-board-rejects-leading-definition-of-antisemitism-you-are-all-going-to-hell/

DPS Note: This is in the UK. But if you’re in America and have access to news other than from the legacy media, you know it’s here and getting worse. In fact, if you happen to be in Congress, you can be a real Jew hater and get to be vice chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on Africa and global human rights issues which covers Israel amongst other countries.

A prominent scholar at University College London has resigned in disgust after the institution’s Academic Board demanded the administration rescind its adoption of the leading definition of antisemitism.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition, which has been adopted by governments and educational institutions worldwide, is opposed by some in academia for including antisemitic ideas and rhetoric that attack Israel and Zionism.

The Board called on the university to “replace the IHRA working definition with a more precise definition of antisemitism.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Opinion: Is Israel still a US ally? The answer was no David Isaac

Posted By on February 16th, 2021

https://worldisraelnews.com/opinion-is-israel-still-a-us-ally-the-answer-was-no/

Jen Psaki’s circuitous answer wasn’t pretty but it said plenty.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

There are at least 42 ways to say “yes” in English. Biden’s White House press secretary chose none of them. That’s because the answer was “no.”

“Does the administration still consider the Saudis and the Israelis important allies?”

The question was simple enough, but at last Friday’s press briefing, Jen Psaki couldn’t get the appropriate one-syllable answer to form on her lips, which is incredible, because even if you plan to shaft Israel at every turn, you still say, “Of course it is!” Then you throw out the well-worn cliches like, “unbreakable,” “unshakeable,” and “special relationship.”

Psaki did none of that, so she gets credit for being honest, if turgidly so. She said, instead:

“Well, you know, again, I think we — there are ongoing processes and internal interagency processes — one that we, I think, confirmed an interagency meeting just last week — to discuss a range of issues in the Middle East. We’re — we’ve only been here three and a half weeks, and I think I’m going to let those policy processes see themselves through before we give, kind of, a complete laydown of what our national security approaches will be to a range of issues.”

She didn’t even circle back.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Lockdowns are killing us by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA 4)

Posted By on February 15th, 2021

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/lockdowns-are-killing-us

We are now nearly a year into the most self-destructive social experiment in the recorded history of human civilization.

On this day a year ago, we enjoyed the greatest economic expansion in our lifetimes. The poverty rate was the lowest in 60 years. The unemployment rate was the lowest in 50 years. Wage growth was the strongest in 40 years. The wage gap was narrowing, with blue-collar wages growing the fastest. Unemployment rates for minority groups and women were the lowest ever recorded.

And then, over the course of just a few catastrophic weeks, our government took a wrecking ball to it all. In the second quarter, GDP plunged by a third — the worst decline in productivity ever recorded. Unemployment exploded to its highest levels since the Great Depression. Tens of millions of people lost their jobs. Trillions of dollars of the nation’s wealth were squandered.

In the months since, our children have been robbed of a year of education. Millions of people have been forbidden from earning a living by their own government. Shopkeepers have seen their life’s work destroyed, and when in desperation they try to hold on, they are led away in handcuffs. Our most cherished rights to worship freely, to assemble peaceably, and not to be deprived of our lives, liberty, or property without due process of law have been destroyed.

COVID-19 didn’t cause this damage. Public officials did. They promised us it was for our own good, that it would save lives.

HISTORY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Significance of San Remo Eugene Kontorovich thinks that the 1920 San Remo conference sits at the foundation of Israel’s legal legitimacy. Martin Kramer disagrees. Who’s right?

Posted By on February 15th, 2021

https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/israel-zionism/2021/02/the-significance-of-san-remo/

In December 2020, the historian and regular Mosaic contributor Martin Kramer asked whether those recently celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 1920 San Remo Conference were justified in seeing it as a cornerstone of Israeli sovereignty. In particular, he found that the historical case for San Remo’s importance was overstated, even as he sympathized with the celebrants’ impulse to strengthen Israel’s legitimacy. Below, we present an exchange between Eugene Kontorovich—another Mosaic contributor and a frequent commentator on international law as it applies to Israel—who writes to dispute Kramer’s argument, and a last word in response from Kramer himself. —The Editors

Eugene Kontorovich: The San Remo Treaty Sits at the Foundation of Israel’s Legitimacy in International Law

This spring, I was among those arguing that the centennial of the San Remo conference—where the League of Nations assigned the mandate for Palestine to Great Britain—should be celebrated as a milestone in Israel’s pre-history, and remembered alongside the more widely-known Balfour Declaration and the UN General Assembly’s stillborn 1947 partition proposal. Martin Kramer recently criticized this stance, contending that the conference did little to advance the Zionist project of establishing a sovereign state in the Land of Israel. As he mentions with particular disapproval my suggestion that a street in Jerusalem currently named in honor of the UN resolution should be redubbed to commemorate San Remo, I thought I’d respond. At stake is more than street signs and civic commemorations festivals. Such engagements with the past, along with the work of careful scholars like Kramer himself, together amount to the reconstruction of Zionism’s legal and political history.

Kramer’s disagreement centers on the fine points of historical emphasis. He does not claim that the League of Nations’ actions were unimportant. Rather, he claims that San Remo was a disappointment relative to the other events.

But first, let’s summarize these key events in order. On November 2, 1917, the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, issued his famous declaration that “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” At that moment Palestine was still part of the Ottoman empire, although parts of it had been occupied by Britain, which would go on to conquer the rest in the remaining year of World War I. But only at the April 1920 San Remo conference would the victors in the war—by this time acting under the supervision of the newly created and broadly-based League of Nations—award the territories west of the Jordan River to the United Kingdom. The text of the corresponding “mandate” included phrases from the Balfour Declaration about establishing a Jewish national home there. Finally, in 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of dividing parts of the mandatory territory into Arab and Jewish states. The Arabs rejected the suggestion, Israel declared independence, and the rest, as they say, is history.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Person or the Constitution? Falsely Charging McConnell with Inconsistency by Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on February 15th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17071/impeachment-constitution-mcconnell

[I]t is CNN and the other media that failed to understand the distinction between defending the Constitution and defending the person.

To have voted to convict citizen Trump would have given Congress a roving commission to seek out and disqualify any potential candidate who ever held federal public office or who might run for office in the future. McConnell correctly rejected that open-ended power grab.

One does not have to agree with the substance with what President Trump did or said on January 6, in order to correctly conclude that the Senate had no jurisdiction over him once he left office, and that the statements he made — whatever one might think of them — are fully protected by the Constitution.

Back in the bad old days of McCarthyism, anyone who supported the constitutional rights of accused communists was deemed to support communism. That was wrong then, just as it is wrong today to believe that everyone who defends Trump against an unconstitutional impeachment necessarily supports his views or actions.

CNN and other left-wing media went on a rampage after Senator Mitch McConnell delivered his speech explaining why he voted to acquit Donald Trump, despite his belief that Trump had engaged in improper behavior. They accused McConnell of hypocrisy and inconsistency — arguing that if he believed Trump had done wrong, he was obligated to vote for conviction. But it is CNN and the other media that failed to understand the distinction between defending the Constitution and defending the person.

McConnell taught the American people a civics lesson by explaining that the Senate had no constitutional authority to place a former president on trial, even one who had been impeached while still serving in office. In doing so, he echoed a constitutional argument I have been making from the very beginning of this unconstitutional power grab by the Democrat-controlled Congress. The language of the constitution is clear:

“The President … shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

MY SAY: Comments turned off

My Say: China Bad ?What Phyllis Schlafly Knew in June 1998

Posted By on February 15th, 2021

https://eagleforum.org/psr/1998/june98/psrjune98.html

Congress Must Stop Kowtowing to China

The vote on Most Favored Nation (MFN) status for Communist China is coming up again. Taking a principled position against MFN would give Republicans the high ground on morals, national security, and economics. It would put them on the side of human rights, freedom, fair trade, and jobs for Americans, while at the same time exposing Clinton’s policy of abandoning human rights, exporting U.S. jobs, and endangering national security in order to get cash for his reelection.

We were promised that trade relations would encourage the Chinese Communists to become civilized members of the family of nations and open up a billion-person market. We gave them 17 years of MFN to prove it, and they flunked the test.

The Chinese cracked down brutally on all the brave Tiananmen Square youngsters in 1989. If we care about human rights, we must not forget those who marched with the papier-maché Statue of Liberty.

China leads the world in the persecution of people of all religious faiths, especially Christians. China bans all religious activity and expression unless directed by Communist Party officials. Priests have been arrested for saying Mass. Evangelical “house churches” have been disrupted and closed. Christians have been interned for “re-education.” The police intimidate the people with anti-religious slogans painted in public places. China’s policy of forced abortions, sterilizations, and infanticide is a festering scandal.

The Chinese are professional thieves. Chinese plants openly steal, then manufacture and sell, our computer software, video films, musical recordings, compact disks, books, and other intellectual property. These illegal products are sold all over the world, resulting in a loss to Americans of $2 billion a year.

In 1996, the Chinese were caught red-handed smuggling 2,000 AK-47 automatic assault rifles to Los Angeles street gangs. Our BATF uncovered a sophisticated operation, which must have enjoyed the complicity of the Chinese government, to sell weapons at a 400% mark-up to U.S. big-city gangs that want to wipe out their rivals. Those arrested had direct links to China’s Defense Ministry, Deng Xiaoping’s son-in-law, and arms dealer Wang Jun (the same one who attended a Clinton White House coffee).

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Don’t Give Money to Your Alma Mater! Demand reforms, and wait until those reforms are carried out before you give them another dime. By Peter D’Abrosca

Posted By on February 15th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/14/dont-give-money-to-your-alma-mater/

A couple of months ago I wrote about my esteemed alma mater, Elon University. 

At the time, I was miffed about the administration’s decision to hire far-left radical Megan Squire, a purported educator and a fellow at America’s most prestigious hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center—a woman whose sole purpose in her sad life is to deplatform young conservatives from the internet over alleged thought crimes. For the record, I remain miffed about that. 

But I regret to inform you that my alma mater is at it again. 

Last week, I read that Elon University was, until recently, segregating “white-identifying individuals to engage in conversations that unpack race and systemic oppression . . . in a way that does not burden or re-traumatize people of color.” 

This form of segregation, I learned, is called a “white caucus,” and it gives “white people a space to learn about and process their awareness of and complicity in unjust systems without harming their friends of color.”

After this report became widely circulated and ridiculed, the school said it canceled the “white caucus.” 

Maybe you’re wondering how white students at Elon will learn to hate themselves for their immutable characteristics—an exercise that’s considered essential in today’s academy—now that the “white caucus” has been dismantled. 

If that’s the case, please don’t be alarmed. 

In July, Elon President Connie Book sent an email to all alumni informing us she had created a new position called the “Vice President and Associate Provost for Inclusive Excellence,” which she filled immediately. She also vowed to assemble the faculty brain trust, minuscule though it might be, to “require students in all majors to take courses that drive [a] deeper understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Faculty and staff will now be graded and considered for raises and promotions based on how well they promote the school’s social justice agenda.

After all, white students couldn’t possibly learn biology without also learning how biology is racist. They couldn’t possibly obtain a degree in say, mathematics, without also being taught that long division is somehow “racist.” 

If all of this is sounding a bit bizarre to you, that’s because it is. But it’s not unusual. 

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden Undercuts Israeli-Arab Peace, Boosts China and Iran Joe Biden should be reinforcing the Abraham Accords. He should be extending Trump’s successful security policies and diplomacy instead of sabotaging them.  By Dana Rohrabacher

Posted By on February 15th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/14/biden-undercuts-israeli-arab-peace-boosts-china-and-iran/

Imagine Ronald Reagan, during his first days as president in 1981, had started to dismantle the Camp David Accords—the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Imagine, too, that Reagan’s only discernible motive for such an astonishing diplomatic about-face was an obsession with humiliating the man who had brokered the peace deal, his defeated rival Jimmy Carter.  

It follows that Reagan would have faced universal denunciation at home and abroad. The Democratic majority in the House of Representatives would have considered impeachment. Demoralized White House and State Department staff might have quit in protest. I was one of Reagan’s presidential speechwriters. If I was ordered to write a speech repudiating Camp David, my conscience would have prompted me to decline the assignment, or even resign. 

Of course, President Reagan never considered such an outrage. He embraced and strengthened President Carter’s Camp David achievement. 

Joe Biden has taken the opposite approach from Reagan. During his first two weeks in office, he has moved to undermine the Abraham Accords, the most significant advance in Arab-Israeli peace since the Camp David agreement was signed more than four decades ago.  

Trump Defied Conventional Wisdom

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Wages of Trump Hatred Hating Donald Trump in the hater’s eyes makes one moral. But in the real world, such pathological fixations usually result in abject immorality and moral decline. By Victor Davis Hanson *****

Posted By on February 15th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/14/the-wages-of-trump-hatred/

Over the last five years, the pathology of Trump Derangement Syndrome has been widely described. It was more than a chronic disease and was often characterized by an array of rapidly advancing symptoms of deterioration in reasoning, emotional stability, and personal ethics. 

More practically, often the deranged Trump hater found in his odium a cover for all sorts of prior personal intemperance and careerist dissipation. Loudly hating Trump became a passport for excess, private and public, and a sort of preemptive insurance that excused or rather greenlighted smears, slander, and personal misdeeds.

The Anti-Lincoln Project

For over a year, the theme of the NeverTrump Lincoln Project was the organizers’ professed superior morality. They had it; most others on the Right did not. Only a select heroic few of the Republican Party would dare to break ranks to end the danger to the country posed by a supposedly morally inferior Donald Trump. 

Forget Trump’s economic, domestic, cultural, and foreign policy record that had belied critics by its successes—despite historic opposition, investigation, denigration, and obstruction. No matter. Character was king. Again, the Lincoln Project had it; Trump followers did not. 

The Lincoln Project’s Band of Brothers—initially four financially strapped, embittered middle-aged white male Washington insiders—lectured the country that those few, those happy few, that band of brothers would fight for us. If only they were adequately funded, they could save us from the moral turpitude of four more years of Trump. 

Their ostensible promise to the Left was that they would hold down their end of the bargain by maintaining the 10-12 percent of Republicans who did not vote for Trump in 2016. In truth, they may have had nothing to do with preserving a bare six percent of Republicans who would again vote against Trump. That was a modest aim, but apparently, every bit of Trump derangement was fundable. Or as the departing, now mansion-buying Steve Schmidt put it, “I really didn’t give a sh-t how many Republicans were voting for Trump or not.”

If one were to believe all the sermonizing of these latter-day Elmer Gantrys, then their inherent paradoxes, hypocrisies, and selfish agendas might magically disappear. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Seven turncoats By Patricia McCarthy

Posted By on February 15th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/seven_turncoats_.html

What motivated those Republicans to vote guilty?

Burr, (NC), Sasse, (NE), Romney, (UT), Collins,(ME), Murkowski, (AK), Cassidy,(LA), Toomey, (PA)

I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery.  Aeschylus

Is it their own moral narcissism as Roger Simon suspects, a misplaced sense of their own moral righteousness?  It can’t be because their constituents wanted them to vote guilty.  They will likely each be censured in their home states for their betrayal.  

Is it their own insecurity re: their membership in the swamp?  Is it money?  Were they somehow paid for their guilty votes?  That would surprise no one.  

We’ve long known that Romney’s hatred for Trump ate his brain, destroyed any core values he ever had, if he had them.  Murkowski has never been a reliable conservative nor has Susan Collins.  They are both Democrats in their heart of hearts. Cassidy was a Democrat all his life until 2006, so he too is a fake republican.   

As for Toomey and Burr?  Pick any of the above suggestions but the most obvious answer is they are both moral narcissists. They each probably think they are securing some sort of positive legacy, but their names will be infamous.  How could they get things so wrong?  

They live in the bubbles of their own making.  They each seem to believe they are superior to their colleagues who voted not guilty when in fact they are just garden variety arrogant pretenders.  They’re political hacks without a shred of decency.  

Oh, they think they’re the most decent people amongst the swells, but they are just cheap reproductions in a long line of cheap reproductions.   The American Congress has a long and storied history of seating scoundrels.  Perhaps they took their cues from the Lincoln Project; that would make perfect sense.  Like-minded reprobates generally find each other in their common causes.

This second sham of an impeachment was clearly unconstitutional, which is why Chief Justice Roberts wanted no part of it, even though he loathes Trump.  It would have been nice if he had released a public statement asserting that fact, but he is something of a cowardly cad himself as we all now know.