FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Biden to Israel: “They Cannot Continue Down this Road” “Biden said Netanyahu won’t be invited to visit the White House” by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on March 29th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/biden-to-israel-they-cannot-continue-down-this-road/

The leftist mobs shrieking hate and blocking ambulances claimed that they were fighting for “democracy” in Israel by demanding unlimited power for an unelected leftist judiciary that picks its own members.

This is what “democracy” looks like.

President Biden on Tuesday said he hopes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “walks away from” plans to pursue reforms to the country’s judiciary…

“Like many strong supporters of Israel, I’m very concerned, and I’m concerned that they get this straight. They cannot continue down this road,” Biden told reporters after a speech in North Carolina on the economy.

“Hopefully the prime minister will act in a way that he can try to work out some genuine compromise. But that remains to be seen,” Biden added.

Biden said Netanyahu won’t be invited to visit the White House “in the near term.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Even Democrats Are Rejecting Biden Nominees By Rick Moran

Posted By on March 29th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/03/28/even-democrats-are-rejecting-biden-nominees-n1682125

Democrats have a 51-seat majority in the Senate, but that doesn’t mean that Joe Biden’s nominees for federal office and the federal bench are getting an automatic stamp of approval. In fact, there have been several recent high-profile embarrassing withdrawals by nominees for a variety of reasons.

Some have been too radical — even for Democrats. Some have been woefully unqualified. But the curious thing about these withdrawals is that Senate Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer and the White House are blaming Republicans for the nomination’s failures.

Most recently, the nominee to fill the vacant FAA administrator position, Phil Washington, was forced to withdraw after some Democrats pointed out that Washington, a former military officer and CEO of the Denver International Airport, needed a waiver from the Defense Department to serve as FAA administrator. Washington claimed he didn’t despite what the law clearly says.

In addition to the waiver problem, Washington — embarrassingly — had no aviation experience. Sen. Krysten Sinema (I-Ariz.) alluded to this deficit in Washington’s resume in a statement, saying that “the administration should quickly nominate a permanent FAA administrator with the necessary, substantial aviation safety experience and expertise.”

The Commerce Committee has been a particular sore spot for Biden.

Politico:

The Commerce Committee in particular has given Biden’s nominees a rough ride. FCC nominee Gigi Sohn withdrew earlier this month after being twice nominated by Biden for a position on the commission. That’s on top of several other tough confirmation fights consuming the early days of this Congress.

Julie Su’s nomination to head the Labor Department is expected to draw most of the GOP’s attention in the coming weeks; she had no Republican support in the vote to confirm her as deputy Labor Secretary in 2021, and moderate Democrats will face pressure to oppose her even though she won Democratic support back then.

Before barely being confirmed as undersecretary of labor, Julie Su had served as California’s labor secretary during the time that more than $32 billion in COVID-19 unemployment fraud occurred. This may prove to be a bridge too far for many Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, who only said, “I’m looking forward to the hearing and looking forward to her confirmation.”

FOREIGN POLICY, HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

North Korea Unveils New Nukes as U.S. Argues about ‘Misgendering’ By Catherine Salgado

Posted By on March 29th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/03/28/north-korea-unveils-new-nukes-as-us-argues-about-misgendering-n1682402

As a U.S. aircraft carrier arrived in South Korea for military drills, North Korea responded by unveiling new nuclear warheads. I guess that’s what you call an explosive statement.

Photos of the  smaller nuclear warheads, called Hwasan-31s, were released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Reuters reported.

Nuclear experts reportedly said that, based on the photos, North Korea has made progress “in miniaturising warheads that are powerful yet small enough to mount on intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the United States.” 

Meanwhile, back in America, mainstream media outlets, including New York Times, USA Today, and CNN, are apologizing for referring to a female murderer as a woman because she called herself “he/him,” and President Joe Biden cracks jokes about ice cream before discussing the shooting of six people, including three young children. Somehow, that’s not encouraging.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un visited the Nuclear Weapons Institute to inspect the nukes, nuclear counterattack operation plans, and ballistic missile warhead mounting tech. Kim was further reportedly briefed on an “IT-based integrated nuclear weapon management system called Haekbangashoe,” which Reuters reported means “nuclear trigger.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Has Trump Won The Free-Trade Debate In The U.S.? I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

Posted By on March 29th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/03/29/has-trump-won-the-debate-over-free-trade-in-the-u-s-ii-tipp-poll/

Trump’s ideas resonate even among Democrats

In recent decades, Americans have shown strong support for the idea of free trade, based on the belief that they would benefit as much as or more than our trading partners did. But in recent years, as trade and geopolitical conflict with China grew and economic growth slowed, Americans’ support for free trade has waned, as the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

Given recent public debates over trade, the online I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,358 adults, taken from March 1-3, asked Americans three questions about current trade policy proposals. All come from recent proposals made by former President Donald Trump, as he presumably moves to run again for the presidency in 2024.

The results clearly showed a strong shift toward greater trade protection for domestic markets and workers, and a shift away from free trade.

The three questions all began identically, as follows: “Thinking about America’s trade and tax policy, please indicate the extent to which you support or oppose the following ideas:”

Respondents were then given three policy proposals to react to, including: 1) “Placing new tariffs on foreign goods;” 2) “Imposing strict controls on trade and investment with China;” and 3) “Cutting taxes for American workers and companies.”

The available answers included “Support strongly,” “Support somewhat,” “Oppose strongly,” “Oppose somewhat,” and “Not sure.”

Surprisingly, the answers showed a strong turn in favor of more protectionist measures for trade.

EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Shining Light on Science Education’s Dark Age By Gregory Wrightstone

Posted By on March 29th, 2023

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/03/27/shining_light_on_science_educations_dark_age_889136.html

The science teachers’ bureaucracy is driving climate education into an unquestioning adherence to unscientific methodology. The cost will be measured in students without facility for the more than 400-year-old scientific method and lacking the critical thinking necessary for sustaining civilization and advancing humankind.

Many observers of education have been concerned for some time about the state of science education in America. Teaching, it seems, has drifted from open inquiry to an indoctrination of students into a political agenda. Members of the science-based CO2 Coalition of Arlington, Virginia were concerned enough to launch an education initiative to provide scientific knowledge for elementary and middle school-age students without the climate alarm that permeates the public-school curriculum. 

Their concern spiked to alarm with the publication of “The Teaching of Climate Science,” a position paper of the 40,000-member National Science Teaching Association (NSTA). In it, the NSTA advocates that teachers conform to the “consensus” opinion that man-made emissions of carbon dioxide will cause dangerous overheating of Earth. Possibly even worse than the promotion of “consensus” was their endorsement of censorship of any scientific information that deviates from the consensus groupthink. 

A critical review of the NSTA Statement was recently completed by a select panel of CO2 Coalition experts and summarized in their publication Challenging the National Science Teaching Association’s Position Statement on Climate Change. The panel was comprised of some of the most esteemed scientists and experts in the field including three members of the National Academy of Sciences. 

The review found that the NSTA’s Position Statement on Climate Change promotes the education of students through indoctrination instead of critical thinking skills and the scientific method. Throughout the document, promotion of “consensus” is advanced, while all dissenting scientific facts are censored or derided. 

EDUCATION Comments turned off

DEI at Law Schools Could Bring Down America After the Stanford episode, Ilya Shapiro sounds a warning: The threat to ‘dismantle existing structures’ is an idle one in English class. But in legal education it targets individual rights and equal treatment under the Constitution. By Tunku Varadarajan

Posted By on March 29th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/woke-law-schools-could-bring-down-america-ilya-shapiro-dei-bureaucracy-stanford-supreme-court-rule-of-law-34c402c2?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Wokeness, or what used to be called political correctness, once seemed merely harebrained, the product of shallow ideas and immature passion. The common view was that undergraduates would outgrow it once they left campus and faced the rigors of the real world.

You seldom hear that anymore, as those ideas have run amok in culture- and economy-defining institutions ranging from news organizations and local governments to professional societies and corporate boardrooms. But Ilya Shapiro thinks we’re not alarmed enough about their influence in one important corner of academia: law schools. The professional ideologues who wield administrative authority on American college campuses want nothing less than to “change the American constitutional system,” Mr. Shapiro says. They pose a grave long-term threat to “the rule of law and inalienable rights, and even concepts like equal treatment under the law.”

Mr. Shapiro, 45, is director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. Hunkered down in the study of his Virginia home, he’s working on a book, “Canceling Justice: The Illiberal Takeover of Legal Education,” that seeks to lay bare the process by which bureaucrats appointed to promote “diversity, equity and inclusion” on campus have “perverted our system of legal education.”

A prime example was in the news as we spoke. Stanford’s Federalist Society chapter had invited Judge Kyle Duncan of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to speak on campus. Confronted by a vicious leftist student mob, he asked administrators to intervene. Tirien Steinbach, the law school’s associate dean for DEI, arose to deliver prepared remarks, which concluded: “I look out and I don’t ask, ‘What’s going on here?’ I look out and I say, ‘I’m glad this is going on here.’ ”

Mr. Shapiro experienced a different kind of DEI humiliation in January 2022. He was concluding his tenure as a vice president of the Cato Institute and due to start a new job as executive director of the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown’s law school. Then Justice Stephen Breyer announced he would retire. Mr. Shapiro tweeted that Judge Sri Srinivasan was the “objectively best pick” for the vacancy but President Biden had already disqualified him on the basis of race and sex. Mr. Shapiro opined that Judge Srinivasan “alas doesn’t fit into the intersectional hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The problem with Israel’s protests This movement is defending the power of an unaccountable judiciary.Daniel Ben-Ami

Posted By on March 29th, 2023

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/03/28/the-problem-with-israels-protests/

Many of those watching the footage of the massive angry protests that have been engulfing Israel since the start of the year are likely to feel inspired. It looks like a sizeable proportion of the Israeli public is demonstrating for democracy against a right-wing coalition government, which includes a significant far-right element.

These protests have developed in response to the government’s judicial-reform package. This includes the controversial override clause, piskat hahitgabrut, which gives the elected Knesset the right to override the powerful Supreme Court’s veto on legislation, with a simple parliamentary majority. Many opponents of the reforms accuse Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of wanting to overhaul the judiciary for dubious, personal reasons. He is currently standing trial on corruption charges, which he denies.

On Monday, the protests spiralled into a general strike, affecting airports, hospitals, schools and universities. And now, under intense pressure, Netanyahu has announced that he is to pause the legislation until the summer, in order to prevent a ‘rupture among our people’.

It might seem tempting to draw a parallel between the demonstrations in Israel and the recent protests in France against Emmanuel Macron’s pensions-reform package. In both cases, it seems that the public is on the streets protesting against unpopular measures imposed by an authoritarian leader. But such an impression of Israel’s protests would be misleading.

Aside from the obvious differences between Israel and France (no nearby militias or nations have pledged to destroy France, for one thing), the nature of both protest movements is very different. Above all, the protests in Israel are driven principally by the nation’s elites. These include reserve military pilots and senior intelligence officers, who play a prominent role in Israeli society. It also involves the heads of high-tech firms – the richest section of Israeli society.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Fed Passes the Buck on Bank Failures Michael Barr’s excuses for regulatory blunders are simply unbelievable.

Posted By on March 29th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-reserve-michael-barr-senate-testimony-martin-gruenberg-silicon-valley-bank-failure-f16d23d8?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

One certainty in politics is that the Federal Reserve will never accept responsibility for any financial problem. Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr played that self-exoneration game on Tuesday before the Senate as he blamed bankers and Congress for Silicon Valley Bank’s failure. This act is simply unbelievable.

No one disputes that bankers failed to hedge the risk posed by rising interest rates to asset prices and deposits. What Mr. Barr didn’t say is that the Fed’s historic monetary mistake created the incentives for the bank blunders. The Fed fueled the fantastic deposit growth at SVB and other banks with its prolonged quantitative easing and zero interest-rate policy that caused banks to pile into longer-term, higher-yielding assets.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg noted in his testimony Tuesday that SVB’s balance sheet more than tripled in size between the end of 2019 and 2022, “coinciding with rapid growth in the innovation economy and a significant increase in the valuation placed on public and private companies.” That’s a cagey way of saying the Fed inflated tech valuations.

Silicon Valley investors cashed out shares at elevated prices and poured their windfall into startups with SVB accounts. SVB had more deposits than it could safely lend, so it loaded up on long-dated Treasurys and Fannie Mae securities that offered relatively high yields and were deemed low or no risk by regulators. What could go wrong?

When near-zero interest rates persist for nearly 13 years with hardly a blip upward, some bankers will bet this will last forever as they hunt for yield. The Fed had also assured the world until very late in 2021 that it had no plans to change its policies because inflation was transitory.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

EVs Are The Yugo Of The 21st Century

Posted By on March 28th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/03/28/evs-are-the-yugo-of-the-21st-century/

Way back in the mid-1980s, communist Yugoslavia exported the Yugo, a compact car that sold for around $4,000. It was so poorly made that bumping into a pole at 5 mph could total it.

Fast forward to today, and a new class of cars has a similar problem. A minor accident can cause a total loss, even if the car’s been driven only a few miles. The only difference is that these cars aren’t cheap imports from some godforsaken socialist state. These are state-of-art electric vehicles that come with an average sticker price of $55,000.

Why are insurance companies totaling low-mileage EVs that have been in a fender bender? For the same reason you could total a new Yugo when backing out of a parking spot. The cost of repair is exorbitant.

As Reuters reported recently, “For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents,” which means the only viable option is to replace the battery, which represents about half the cost of the car.

A replacement battery for a $44,000 Tesla Model 3 can cost up to $20,000.

One expert told Reuters that Tesla’s Model Y has “zero repairability” because its battery is built into the structure of the car.

As a result, drivers are finding that even a minor accident ends up with their shiny new EVs being hauled away to the junkyard.

Reuters’ search of EV salvage sales in the U.S. and Europe found a large number of low-mileage EVs made by Tesla, Nissan, Hyundai, and others being scrapped.

MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why the Nashville Christian School Shooting Is About to Disappear from the News Cycle Matt Vespa

Posted By on March 28th, 2023

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/03/27/of-course-you-all-know-why-the-liberal-media-is-going-to-smother-the-nashville-shooting-n2621182

Julio has been covering the tragedy in Nashville, Tennessee. Six people, three children, and three adult staffers, were shot and killed at the Covenant School, a private Christian learning institution. Anti-gun activists hijacked a press conference on the incident earlier today. The Biden White House will probably push the usual talking points about banning so-called assault weapons, which will be echoed by their allies on the gun control issue. Unlike the shootings at Michigan State University and East High School in Denver, Colorado, this perpetrator had a handgun and two AR-15-style rifles. You can already hear the anti-gun Left licking their lips—now they had a chance to score some points. Except they can’t, Audrey Hale was identified as the shooter, and this person was transgender. Hale was shot and killed by police during the assault. 

As Julio wrote, there is a manifesto and maps of potential targets. This shooter planned this attack, and given the setting; a hate crime cannot be ruled out. The lingering question will remain unresolved since a transgender mass shooter is one story the media will avoid like the plague. Authorities said they have a working theory on a motive but are unwilling to disclose it at this time (via NBC News): 

The shooter, Audrey Hale, 28, of Nashville, identified as transgender and had no previous criminal record, according to the chief.