MEDIA Comments turned off

CNN+: Grand Opening, Grand Closing By Jim Geraghty

Posted By on April 21st, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/cnn-grand-opening-grand-closing/

Many conservatives will be dancing on the grave of CNN+, and there’s no getting around the fact that CNN just didn’t put out a sufficiently appealing slate of programming to get enough people to shell out $59.99 per year. But as Discovery’s announcement implied, there was never much reason to pay an additional fee just to get additional CNN programming, when regular CNN was available on basic cable, and it gave you more or less the same thing.

Discovery streaming head J. B. Perrette said that, “In a complex streaming market, consumers want simplicity and an all-in service which provides a better experience and more value than stand-alone offerings, and, for the company, a more sustainable business model to drive our future investments in great journalism and storytelling.”

No, Chris Wallace is not popular enough, but it’s not clear that any news anchor or collection of hosts would get a sufficient number of people shelling out to make a streaming news network sustainable. (Fox Nation comes closest, in part because it has made a subscription to it feel like a tribal symbol — a statement about who you are and what you value. If someone tells you they subscribe to Fox Nation, you probably know how they feel about Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, and Colin Kaepernick.)

In the end, CNN+ didn’t offer anything sufficiently unique. As I noted earlier this month, this streaming service didn’t have a programming equivalent of The Mandalorian or Stranger Things or Bridgerton — something really popular that couldn’t be seen anywhere else. It is hard to imagine what CNN could offer that would be akin to that. Maybe the work of Clarissa Ward in Afghanistan and Ukraine over the past year is the most compelling, jaw-dropping, must-watch television journalism that CNN has done in a while. But I’m still not sure people would subscribe to a separate streaming service just to watch it.

News is unlikely to ever sustain a streaming service, by itself. But it is likely that some form of CNN will appear on any streaming service that emerges from the merger of HBO Max and Discovery+.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Inclusive Segregation:The diversity imperative has had a double character from the start. Peter Wood

Posted By on April 21st, 2022

https://americanmind.org/salvo/inclusive-segregation/

The following is an excerpt from A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education, edited by Gail Heriot & Maimon Schwarzschild.

The idea of “inclusion” was born in debates in the 1980s over how colleges and universities should deal with disparities in academic performance, mainly between black students as a category and all other students. Any explanation that pointed to average differences in ability, especially as measured by standardized tests, were deemed outrageous and insulting. Explanations that focused on the inadequacy of earlier academic preparation were more bearable but still carried the implication that black students as a whole were not capable of performing at the level of other students. The socially acceptable explanation that emerged was that the black students were victims of multiple forms of racism. American society had short-rationed their schools; college teachers treated them as racially inferior; racist assumptions were built into everyday life in America; and universities were “structurally racist.”

This last is the bridge to the conception of “inclusion.” Inclusion means recognizing that black students must be recognized as possessing their own cultural standards of expression, achievement, and excellence. Judging them by “white standards” is racist—structurally racist. A non-racist college or university would accommodate black students by judging them by black standards.

The connection to multiculturalism is evident. Inclusion, as a doctrine, incorporates the idea that black students have a separate culture, the norms of which must be respected. Eradicating all the “white assumptions” that pervade the university, however, is no small task. It requires a deep dismantling, the name for which is “Anti-Racism.” We get to “inclusion” by identifying and removing anything that might make black students feel disrespected or that might cast their academic performance in unflattering contrast to the average performance of other students.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel sustains high-favorability among Americans Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on April 21st, 2022

  https://bit.ly/3OoVkB1

According to the February 2022 annual Gallup poll of country favorability, 71% of Americans accord Israel a “very favorable” and “mostly favorable” rating. It matches

Israel’s average favorability since 2013, compared to 58% in 2002, 71% in 2012, 69% in 2019 and 75% in February 2021.  Israel’s all-time high favorability was in February 1991 – 79% – in the aftermath of the January-February Iraqi Scud Missiles striking Tel Aviv.

Israel is ranked 7th among countries rated by Gallup, trailing Canada, Britain, France, Japan, Germany and India. However, none of these countries have been targeted – as has Israel – for daily criticism by the State Department (which fiercely opposed Israel’s establishment in 1948), the United Nations, the NY Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times, CNN, MSNBC and many of the political and social science departments on US campuses.

While Israel is considered favorably by 71% of Americans, the Palestinian Authority has earned a meager 27% favorability rating, at the bottom of the favorability scale, along with Cuba – 40%, Pakistan – 21%, China – 20% (all time low), Libya – 19%, Iraq – 16%, Iran – 13%, Afghanistan – 12%, Russia – 12% and North Korea – 10%.

Israel has retained a high-level of favorability among the three major US political groups: 63% of (mostly moderate) Democrats, 71% of Independents and 81% of Republicans. At the same time the Palestinian Authority received a 38% favorability rating among Democrats, 29% – Independents and 14% – Republicans.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The unholy alliance of Israel haters Both Islamic fanatics and the Western woke left treat the Jewish State as uniquely wicked. Brendan O’Neill

Posted By on April 21st, 2022

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/04/12/the-unholy-alliance-of-israel-haters/

Certain rituals follow every terror attack in the West. People take to social media to express feelings of grief. They post an image of the flag of the nation whose citizens have been slaughtered. ‘I Stand With…’ France, Belgium, Spain, they say, or whatever unfortunate nation has attracted the bloody attention of ideological mass murderers. They might even take part in a sing-song. They might gather somewhere, flowers in hand, to sing ‘Imagine’ or hum along to a national anthem. But there’s one exception to this custom. One nation for which this never happens. For whom virtue is never signalled, flags never waved, songs never sung, no matter how much terror comes its way. You know which nation it is. Israel.

Israel has been subjected to a wave of terror over the past three weeks and social-media mourners are nowhere to be seen. You’ll be searching a long time – forever – to find a blacked-out square on Instagram or an Israeli flag in the Twitter bio of a member of the great and good. Many people I’ve mentioned the terror wave to hadn’t even heard of it. From the mass stabbing carried out by an ISIS-supporting fanatic in the city of Beersheba on 22 March, which left two women and two men dead, to the mass shooting at a crowded bar in Tel Aviv last Thursday, in which three people were murdered, horrific attacks on Israeli citizens have passed many by. Five terror attacks, 14 deaths, and it barely makes a ripple in the Western consciousness.

The individual stories behind the wave of terror are truly grim. In the attack of 29 March – in which a Palestinian terrorist opened fire in the city of Bnei Brak, killing five – two Ukrainian nationals were among the victims. Aged just 23 and 32, they were sitting outside a shop, taking a rest, when they were shot to death. So it isn’t only in Ukraine that Ukrainians face murder in the streets right now – they’re at risk in Israel, too. One of the other victims in Bnei Brak was an Israeli-Arab police officer, a 32-year-old Christian who was engaged to be married. Two of the victims at the Tel Aviv bar were lifelong friends, both 27, meeting for a post-work drink. These are the human realities behind a wave of indiscriminate slaughter that many in the West can’t even be bothered to notice.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Tulsi Gabbard brings a sledgehammer to Mitt Romney and Keith Olbermann By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on April 21st, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/tulsi_gabbard_brings_a_sledgehammer_to_mitt_romney_and_keith_olbermann.html

Tulsi Gabbard is a former Democrat party member of the House of Representatives, a former presidential candidate, and a current lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve.  She’s too left on some things for me, but she’s got a good head on her shoulders, lots of common sense, and a dislike for being used as cannon fodder for America’s newly hawkish leftists and RINOs.  Because she’s suggested that America should not rush into a shooting war with a nuclear Russia on behalf of Ukraine, especially given revelations about biological labs in Ukraine, Mitt Romney and Keith Olbermann have called her a traitor.  What’s great is that Tulsi is pushing back by demanding an apology or, if she does not receive one within a week, promising to sue.

Tulsi’s attorney is the brilliant, and very successful, Harmeet Dhillon.  On Wednesday, Dhillon sent a “cease and desist” letter to both Romney and Olbermann.  In the letter to Romney (here), Dhillon details Tulsi’s long record of active service in the United States military.  She then spells out Romney’s defamatory statement:

On March 13, 2022, you tweeted the following: “Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.” [Footnote omitted.] Your tweet had no surrounding context and was not part of a broader conversation. Your accusation that Representative Gabbard, a combat veteran and current military officer, has engaged in “treasonous” activity is completely false, a fact of which you were well aware when you made your claim. And as explained below, your accusation that Representative Gabbard lied also has no basis in fact.

Dhillon’s demand letter explains to Romney that defamation occurs when a person knowingly publishes a false, and derogatory, statement about another.  When the defamatory statement falsely accuses someone of criminal activity, it’s called “defamation per se,” which means that the plaintiff does not have to prove injury; it’s assumed.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Real Reset is Coming… But Not the One the Elites Expect By Ron Wright

Posted By on April 21st, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/04/the_real_reset_is_coming_but_not_the_one_the_elites_expect.html

“We are at a tipping point with the coming midterms. The lies of the elite are catching up with the common sense of the American people.”

“The ‘Real Reset’ is Coming,” As Victor Davis Hanson writes on the upcoming midterm elections.

In truth, we are about to see a radical reset – of the current reset.  It will be a different sort of transformation than the elites are expecting and one that they should greatly fear. . .

In the November 2022 midterms, we are likely to see a historic “No!” to the orthodox left-wing agenda that has resulted in unsustainable inflation, unaffordable energy, war, and humiliation abroad, spiraling crime, racial hostility — as well as arrogant defiance from those who deliberately enacted these disastrous policies.

The public has been marinated in false narratives and disinformation spread by our elite ruling class and echoed by the dominant media. For example, climate change (more), green energy and its consequences, and Putin inflation.  Then there’s the COVID-19 origin and authoritarian mandates fostered by the spurious meme follow the science, the Russian collusion narrative, there was no election fraud in the 2020 Election, voter suppression, wokeism, and equity-speak.  Don’t forget gender fluidity/grooming, the mask mandates by woke schoolboards supported by teachers’ unions,  cops shooting Black men, and Critical Race Theory, including the divisive memes of White Supremacy/domestic terrorism/systemic racism and many other crises de jour.

These false narratives can be very pervasive when embedded in many people’s minds.  For example, I was recently in SoCal.  A Gen Z young man was discussing American government and politics with two older British men in the hotel lounge.  As I left, I mentioned Hunter Biden’s laptop from hell and the election fraud in the 2020 Election.  The discussion was civil, but the young man was wed to the progressive narrative that this was disinformation and wasn’t open to debate.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Biden’s dismal poll numbers imperil Dem Senate control The president’s popularity is dangerously low in the four states where Democratic incumbents are most endangered.By Natalie Allison

Posted By on April 21st, 2022

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/21/senate-democrats-midterm-election-biden-00026781

Democrats’ path to saving their narrow Senate majority comes down to defending four states this fall. And in all of them, President Joe Biden is underwater in the polls.

Biden’s drag on swing-state incumbents is emerging as a pivotal factor in the midterm Senate elections, where the loss of just one Democratic-held seat in November could put Republicans in control.

Acutely aware of the need to get distance from the president, the four most endangered Democratic incumbents — Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan — are increasingly taking steps to highlight their independence from the president and underscore their differences.

Their public pushback against Biden’s plan to lift the Trump-era border restriction known as Title 42 is the most visible expression of the effort to get distance from the president. But the four Democrats are also finding other ways of signaling to voters. They’ve visited the border wall and blocked his nominees. A month before a Trump-appointed judge struck down Biden’s mask mandate on mass transit, three of the four voted in favor of a Republican bill to do just that

On social media, where they shy away from praise of the president and instead focus on their efforts to prod the White House to action, it’s hard to tell they’ve voted in line with Biden no less than 96 percent of the time.

“In these four states, these are senators just doing the work, keeping their head down, getting things done for their states while the Republicans are obviously tearing each other apart in these primaries,” said Martha McKenna, a Democratic ad maker who previously worked for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

BOOKS, HISTORY Comments turned off

‘Common Sense’ Indeed by Lawrence Kadish

Posted By on April 21st, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18465/common-sense-indeed

Founding father Thomas Paine knew a crisis when he saw one.

When America’s Revolutionary War was sputtering he wrote a powerful essay that spoke directly to the men being asked to shoulder their muskets against the British Empire and the most powerful army in the world, giving them the spirit to sustain the fight.

In his Common Sense pamphlet, “American Crisis No.1, 1776,” he shared, “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

With these inspiring words Thomas Paine dismissed the Loyalists, Tories, and traitors who were against the patriots and would throw aside the demand for independence and freedom. He would scathingly ask, “And what is a Tory? GOOD GOD! what is he? I should not be afraid to go with a hundred Whigs [Patriots] against a thousand Tories, were they to attempt to get into arms. Every Tory is a coward, for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.”

What would Paine make of today’s American “Tories” – those against American patriotism, no longer patriots loyal to America; these might be the Americans whose enormous wealth has so altered their perception of self that they may not even view themselves as citizens of our threatened democracy? Rather, their self-concept may be that of a sovereign entity answerable only to themselves and their stockholders.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Are We Letting Putin Win? by Guy Millère

Posted By on April 21st, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18461/letting-putin-win

General Jack Keane, former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army, keeps repeating that Russia is on the verge of defeat: “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to stop the atrocities by driving them [the Russians] out. He wants a victory, and he can get it”.
A small contingent of Ukrainian soldiers is still heroically resisting Russian forces in what remains of the destroyed city [Mariupol]. Is anyone coming to their rescue?
Others still say that Putin should be offered an “off-ramp” as a face-saving device. Putin does not want an off-ramp. Putin wants Ukraine — as much of it as he can get. Putin getting any of it simply sets a precedent for other predators. Putin should not be rewarded with land. He should be rewarded with a war crimes tribunal, perhaps similar to the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda or, as former US National Security Advisor John R. Bolton recommended, by Russians or Ukrainian tribunals — just not by the “illegitimate” and “lawless” International Criminal Court (ICC). But that would be later.
Arming Ukraine, providing it with means to defeat Russia’s unprovoked aggression and drive the Russians out of Ukraine, should be seen as a way to force Putin, and other potential predators, to understand that the costs for aggression are astronomical. So far, although the Biden administration has been generous, many Americans find that it has not given Ukraine many of the weapons it desperately needs, or given them fast enough. Hopefully, this is changing.
Does the Biden administration secretly want Putin to win? The former chess grand champion and Russian dissident Garry Kasparov has suggested that Putin is “the devil you know.” The US seems naively to have considered Russia an ally to negotiate a new “nuclear deal” with Iran and as a partner for “climate change”. For Russia, climate change concerns in the US means Russia can sell more oil to a country that has shut down its own gargantuan energy supply. So far, as Russia and Iran plan how to evade US sanctions on Russia and enrich themselves, America’s interests appear the last concern of Russia’s negotiators in the Iran nuclear talks.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

New World Disorder: What the UN Vote on Russia Really Reveals About Global Politics by Ahmed Charai

Posted By on April 21st, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18462/un-vote-russia

Fear and food are more important to many developing nations than democratic ideals.

In Latin America, a form of anti-Americanism among the educated classes has translated into a reluctance to openly criticize Putin. This is amplified by messages vocally propagated by Cuba and Venezuela.

China sees no reason to anger Russia, a major supplier of oil, gas, and coal, especially since Western nations are discouraging the production of the very fossil fuels that China needs. Policy-making circles in Beijing are not crowded with idealists, and its decisions are invariably self-interested and pragmatic.

Arab leaders are unhappy with the Biden administration for its precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, its ongoing negotiations with the threatening regime in Iran, and its laxity in the face of the Yemen-based Houthi terrorist and rocket attacks. For the first time, Arab leaders are asking questions, publicly, about the sustainability of the American political system and the coherence of American foreign policy.

On the Iranian nuclear dossier, Israel, one of the firmest allies of the US in the region, fears that the Biden administration wants at all costs to conclude an agreement with the Iranian regime without taking into account the possible impact on the regional aggression of Tehran.

What has been eroding for some years now is the commitment of American leaders to defend, maintain, and advance an international order in which states observe common rules and standards, embrace liberal economic systems, renounce territorial conquests, respect the sovereignty of national governments, and adopt democratic reforms.

In today’s increasingly complex global environment, the US can only achieve its goals by leveraging its strength through a cohesive foreign policy that responds to the challenges posed by Russia and China. To do this, the US must deliberately strengthen and cultivate productive relationships with its allies, partners, and other nations with common interests.

The US must offer attractive political, economic, and security alternatives to China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific, Africa, and beyond.

Rather than condemn the nations that abstained from voting against Russia, America must seek to understand why they thought sitting out the vote was their best option. Next, America must make clear that it still supports the rule of law and the ideal of democracy and put steel behind its ideals.

The latest battle zone in the Russia-Ukraine war was in the quiet, mostly mannerly halls of the United Nations. There, in the UN’s iconic New York headquarters, the world voted on Russia’s largest invasion since World War II — revealing fractures and fissures in global support for democracy.