EDUCATION Comments turned off

America’s Dismal Test Scores Are a Bipartisan Failure US students are falling further behind the rest of the world. Politicians don’t seem to have noticed. Michael Bloomberg

Posted By on December 17th, 2023

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-12-13/michael-r-bloomberg-students-dismal-test-scores-are-a-bipartisan-failure?srnd=opinion

For anyone concerned about America’s future, the latest findings from the Program for International Student Assessment are nothing short of alarming. US math scores fell by 13 points between 2018 and 2022, with students continuing to underperform their peers in most other developed countries. This failure underscores the need to improve America’s schools and hold them accountable for results. Sadly, it’s not clear our country’s elected leaders are paying attention.

The PISA test measured the aptitude of students from 81 countries in math, reading and science. And while US students mostly held steady in reading and science, overall, they are behind many competitors. Out of 37 participating members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US ranked 26th in math — a slight improvement over 2018, but still unacceptably low. Yet it was enough for Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to declare that the $190 billion in federal relief spent on public schools since 2020 has “kept the United States in the game.”

If so, too many students are still losing. Student math performance was its worst in two decades. The gap between the US and the highest-performing countries grew. More than a third of American students failed to demonstrate basic proficiency in math. Just 7% of 15-year-olds scored in the highest two levels, compared to 41% in Singapore and 32% in Taiwan.

At the most basic level, US students need more classroom instruction to make up for pandemic learning loss. That should include high-dosage tutoring, longer school days and mandatory summer school for those furthest behind. Over the longer term, closing academic deficits with the rest of the world also requires policymakers to bolster teacher quality, adopt more rigorous instructional materials and promote greater competition through the expansion of high-quality public charter schools.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Most Powerful Anti-Trump Argument in the GOP Has Evaporated With Biden’s poll numbers plummeting, Trump’s electability isn’t an issue anymore. Rich Lowry

Posted By on December 17th, 2023

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/14/trump-biden-primary-electability-00131616

Joe Biden has done Donald Trump the enormous favor of collapsing before our eyes.

As the 2024 GOP presidential race heads into the first contests, Biden’s abysmal run of polling has boosted Trump and undercut his Republican opponents by hanging a neon sign on our politics reading, “TRUMP CAN WIN.”

It may be that Trump, such is his hold on GOP voters, didn’t need any help establishing a dominant position in the fight for the Republican nomination, but two exogenous events have boosted him.

First, the indictments from the Justice Department and Democratic prosecutors created a predictable rally-around-Trump effect that put him on a fundamentally higher trajectory in the race, and second, Biden’s execrable polling has completely eliminated any possibility of making an electability argument against Trump.

There’s picking your opponent through underhanded ads — something Democrats did to help get vulnerable MAGA opponents in 2022 — and then there’s picking your opponent through your own incredible weakness that makes him look even more alluring to his partisans.

The most salient doubt about Trump among on-the-fence Republicans has never been his policy priorities, governing effectiveness or conduct after the 2020 election, but his ability to win.

Trump’s standing in the party was shaken after the 2022 elections when Republicans underperformed, and he had his fingerprints on the disappointment. The Ron DeSantis landslide in Florida created a contrast that seemingly opened a vista for an intuitive, winning argument — stick with Trump and lose, or go with the young, fresh governor and win.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Claudine Gay’s way with words How to get away with plagiarism at Harvard Peter Wood

Posted By on December 17th, 2023

https://thespectator.com/topic/claudine-gay-way-words-dei-plagiarism/

Claudine Gay is a self-declared “transformational” president of Harvard University. She campaigned for the job by promising to retire the old Harvard of privilege and patrimony and to bring into being a new Harvard founded on principles of anti-racism and social justice. How is she doing?

At the moment, she is a bit distracted by allegations of plagiarism in her slim portfolio of publications. But she has a whole sea of troubles to take arms against. Let’s let her rest a moment on the shore and consider a small story from the not-always-illustrious past of America’s greatest university. 

In 2007 Harvard admitted as a transfer student a young man, Adam Wheeler, who had completed his first two years at Bowdoin College in Maine. Adam had achieved a spectacular academic record at Bowdoin and would go to achieve comparable results as junior and senior at Harvard. But before he could graduate, Adam was exposed as a fraud who through a combination of plagiarism, forgery and arrant lying had faked his way through his whole undergraduate career. Julie Zauzmer, a reporter for the Harvard Crimson, provided the audacious nuts and bolts in her 2012 book, Conning Harvard. 

How did Adam Wheeler get so far? He worked very hard at fooling people but, beyond that, he trusted that Harvard would never bother to double-check anything he submitted. His test scores were phony. His grades were doctored. His letters of recommendation were forged. And his essays were plagiarized. And he was right.

Wheeler’s luck ran out only when the chairman of the English Department, James Simpson, read his application for a Fulbright fellowship and discovered that Wheeler had stolen long passages from a book he knew well: Essays on General Education in Harvard College.

ANTI-SEMITISM, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

We Were Taught to Hate Jews ‘It’s like asking me how often I drink water. Antisemitism was everywhere.’ Apostates, former Islamists, and an almost-terrorist on how they changed their minds. By Madeleine Rowley

Posted By on December 17th, 2023

https://www.thefp.com/p/we-were-taught-to-hate-jews?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The following five ex-Muslims grew up in Canada, Europe, and the Middle East, but they were all indoctrinated, they say, with the same views on Jews and Israel. They remember a childhood shot through with antisemitic moments ranging from the mundane (one woman recalls her aunt claiming Jews put cancer in her vegetables at the market) to the deadly (a former extremist went as far as to pick a location in London for a terrorist attack he planned to carry out at 17).

These hateful ideas, repeated by their family members, religious leaders, and teachers, are part and parcel of the same animus, they say, that fueled Hamas’s attacks on October 7.

Some of the people you will hear from below have received death threats for speaking out on issues like antisemitism and sexism in the Muslim world. One uses a pen name to protect herself and her daughter from her terrorist ex-husband, who is currently jailed in Egypt. All of them came to reject their loathing for Jewish people and the West, and have rebuilt their lives in the wake of their realizations. Here are their stories, which you can read or click to listen to each author recite in the audio recordings below.

“To enter our classroom, we had to step on a painting of the Israeli flag on the ground.”

When I was born, Iran was still free. You could drink and dance, and women could wear whatever they wanted. I’ll never forget my first day of school after the Islamic Revolution. I was six, and my mother entered my room with a long, dark, and formless manteau and a piece of fabric for my hair and neck.

“My darling,” she said, “this is your uniform.”

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Today’s Hyper-Connected Network Systems Face Myriad Security Challenges Chuck Brooks

Posted By on December 17th, 2023

https://www.securityinfowatch.com/critical-infrastructure/article/53078430/todays-hyper-connected-network-systems-face-myriad-security-challenges

The current state of the cyber ecosystem is a precarious one. The perimeters have become blurred, and as the capabilities and connectivity of cyber devices have grown exponentially, so have cyber intrusions from sophisticated malware to both Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) Industrial Control Systems (ICS), and SCADA networks. The threat is even more amplified as those networks are converging.

According to PMMI Business Intelligence’s “2021 Cybersecurity: Assess Your Risk,” report from, Information Technology (IT) attacks “specifically target the enterprise IT systems at a manufacturer, seeking to gain entry through vectors such as email, a CRM system, or an ERP program, which can span across an operation.” Operational Technology (OT) attacks “are designed to exploit the systems that are directly on the plant floor. An OT attack can originate through vectors such as individual sensors on the production line, SCADA/HMI panels, or even unsecured PLCs.” Cybersecurity 101: The Difference Between IT and OT Attacks | OEM Magazine

But in our increasingly hyper-connected internet environments, most physical security systems have become tethered to IT networks and evolving cloud infrastructure. The trend of integration of Industrial hardware and software combined with growing networked IT sensors is redefining the surface attack opportunities for hackers across all digital infrastructures.

The IT OT Convergence Supply Chain

Protecting the fusion of IT/OT networks from cyber-attacks is an urgent challenge that requires orchestration. They all have unique operational frameworks, access points, and a variety of legacy systems and are intertwined with varying regulation and compliance protocols. And a lack of trained skilled workforce is a continual issue in IT, OT and ISC cybersecurity.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘I’m not a progressive’: Sen. John Fetterman breaks with the left, showing a maverick side: Sahil Kapur

Posted By on December 17th, 2023

https://www.aol.com/im-not-progressive-fetterman-breaks-120000771.html

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., is breaking with progressives on hot-button issues with his fiery support for Israel and calls for Democrats to engage on tougher immigration laws, disappointing some on the left [who want more potential Democratic voters] as he shows an independent streak.

He’s also continually scolding Democrats for not pushing Sen. Bob Menendez out of office after he was indicted on federal charges of taking bribes and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt, which the New Jersey Democrat denies.

In the 2022 campaign, Fetterman’s ties to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., prompted GOP opponent Mehmet Oz to tell voters he’d be a mere “sidekick” for the democratic socialist. But Fetterman’s recent stances point to an unorthodox brand of blue-collar liberalism, with a dash of outsider populism, in a purple state that is expected to be hotly contested again in the 2024 elections.

In an interview, the first-term Pennsylvania Democrat said his critics shouldn’t be surprised.

“I’m not a progressive,” Fetterman told NBC News. “I just think I’m a Democrat that is very committed to choice and other things. But with Israel, I’m going to be on the right [not wrong] side of that. And immigration is something near and dear to me, and I think we do have to effectively address it as well.”

Fetterman insisted he can be pro-immigration while also favoring policies to restrict the flow of migration to manageable levels, disagreeing with progressives who oppose new limits on asylum and bash some of the ideas in the negotiations as cruel.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

BILL MAHER: FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA VIDEO

Posted By on December 17th, 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP-CRXROorw

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Multi-culti Reckoning The Democrats’ appeal to racial resentment is wearing thin. Joel Kotkin

Posted By on December 16th, 2023

https://americanmind.org/salvo/multi-culti-reckoning/

The explosion of support for Hamas’s assault on human decency could well turn out to be the high-water mark of the progressive Left. The authoritarian multicultural ideology generated on campuses and transmitted dutifully by the established media has reached its apex and may now begin to descend.

The signs are tentative but some are unmistakable. Corporate and university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) departments are being slashed, and increasingly seen as both burdensome and discriminatory toward whites, Jews, and Asians. One-third of DEI professionals lost their jobs in 2022. Brands that posted Pride month messages in 2022, such as Lego and Miller Lite, have abandoned such posturing. Even the Navy deleted Pride-related messaging from Instagram and Twitter.

Perhaps more significant may be the rebellion of donors to the leading universities, prime movers of the ideology that drives everything from the DEI establishment. Money is the mother’s milk of politics and universities and foundations alike. The overt hostility toward Israel on campuses, and the resulting feeling of threat among Jewish students, makes Jewish and non-Jewish donors wonder where their money is going.

Even liberal Jews, such as Berkeley Law School dean Erwin Chemerinsky, have been shocked by the rise of racialized and antisemitic politics at prestigious institutions. A possible loss of Jewish voters matters little at the presidential level but could prove relevant in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Unlike their French, Canadian, and British co-religionists, they may function as a rearguard in reining in the far Left.

But the biggest loss may be financial, as well as intellectual. As William Domhoff pointed out in his 1972 book Fat Cats and Democrats, wealthy Jews have been, since the New Deal, major leading donors of the Democratic Party. Jews provide roughly half of all donations, and comprise many of Biden’s top contributors.

This shift, however, extends well beyond Jews, as many long-time Democrats recoil from the party’s embrace of an ideology—propounded by influential leftist intellectuals such as Frantz Fanon, Herbert Marcuse, and Michel Foucault—that justifies criminal violence if committed by an oppressed identity group, a policy calculated to spark ever more ethnic turmoil.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden Turns on Netanyahu Ahead of 2024 The treatment of America’s closest ally is shameful and unprincipled By Fred Fleitz

Posted By on December 16th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/15/biden-turns-on-netanyahu-ahead-of-2024/

A few weeks ago, I predicted that after giving Israel a few weeks to end its war with Hamas, President Biden would turn on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024 because of growing and outspoken opposition to the war by Mr. Biden’s anti-Israel progressive base.

I was wrong. President Biden began vilifying Netanyahu and his government this week.

This included President Biden making the very damning public statement that Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza.

The President also this week called for Netanyahu to “change his government” to expel hardline ministers who oppose a two-state solution peace agreement between Israel and Palestinians and criticized Netanyahu’s administration as the “most conservative government in Israel’s history.

President Biden’s criticism comes at a pivotal time when Israel is facing growing global opposition to the war and a recent nonbinding UN General Assembly resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire that passed overwhelmingly.

Although President Biden has described his support for Israel after the horrific October 7 terrorist attack as “rock solid,” his support has been accompanied by public criticism and statements on how Israel should conduct the war. For example, the President conditioned his October 19 visit to Israel on an explicit commitment from Netanyahu to open Gaza for humanitarian aid. He has called on Israel to respect international and humanitarian law, implying that it has not done so. President Biden and his senior officials also have repeatedly stated that the Palestinian Authority must govern Gaza after the war concludes and that Israel cannot occupy Gaza.

Over the last few weeks, Biden Administration officials told the Israeli government they want the war wrapped up in weeks, not months, and want a process to place Gaza under the administration of the Palestinian Authority.

Netanyahu has rejected calls for a cease-fire or an early end to the war, pledging on December 13, “We are continuing until the end, there is no question. I say this even given the great pain, and the international pressure. Nothing will stop us, we will continue until the end, until victory, nothing less.”

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden Administration Empowered Iran’s Terror Group, the Houthis by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on December 16th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20221/houthis-iran-empowered

The Houthis have been fortunate to have, as a powerful patron and sponsor, Iran. Their backers in Tehran will not let them run out of ammunition and the Biden administration will not let the Iranian regime run out of funds.

Iran has been employing every political and military tactic possible — including racing toward nuclear weapons capability — to complete its objectives of annihilating Israel, driving the United States out of the Middle East, and establishing an Islamist caliphate.

Does anyone seriously think that if Iran finally acquires a nuclear bomb, they will not use it — or at least threaten to?

To deter further escalation, the US needs seriously to target the real source of this mayhem — the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its IRGC. Perhaps the US might try incapacitating the Iranian ports that are used for oil exports, or take out a few IRGC facilities — or maybe just send every IRGC officer a picture of his home?

Thanks to the Biden administration’s alarmingly misguided officials and their counterproductive policies of appeasement towards Iran and its proxies, the Iranian regime’s militia and terrorist group in Yemen, the Houthis, has ratcheted up attacks on ships in the Red Sea, and escalated the launching of missiles and attack drones at Israel. Now, the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah (“Partisans of Allah”), are threatening to attack any ship headed to Israel, regardless of its nationality or ownership. Why not just replace their flags with American ones?

The current problem with the Houthis began almost three years ago, when the Biden administration, after less than a month in office, reversed yet another policy of the Trump administration. On February 12, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken officially revoked the designation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.