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December 2023

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Fetterman: Tiktok ‘warping’ young people’s views on Israel-Hamas war “Hamas started this, and they actually broke the ceasefire and they attacked and murdered babies, children, women,” the Pennsylvania senator said. “It’s outrageous.” David Swindle

By on December 21st, 2023

https://www.jns.org/fetterman-tiktok-warping-young-peoples-views-on-israel-hamas-war/

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) on Wednesday told Jake Tapper of CNN that the popular social media app TikTok is distorting Americans’ perception of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Tapper, who is Jewish, had asked Fetterman—who is not, but has been one of the most vocal Zionists in Congress of late—about a New York Times/Siena College poll which found that 72% of registered voters aged 18 to 29 disapprove of the way U.S. President Joe Biden is handling the Israel-Palestine conflict. Why do so many younger people, especially Democrats, see Israel differently from the senator, Tapper asked.

“I really don’t know,” Fetterman replied. “I do know that a lot of people are getting their perspective from TikTok.”

“If you’re kind of getting your perspective on the world on TikTok, it’s going to tend to be kind of warped or not reflective of the history and actually the way things absolutely are,” said Fetterman. “Hamas started this, and they actually broke the ceasefire and they attacked and murdered babies, children, women—attacked a music concert and everything. It’s outrageous.”

He went on to say that “it’s been very clear that Israel would very much want there to be peace. But they’ve made it very clear that after Oct. 7, that’s just not possible so long as Hamas is allowed to exist.”

Earlier this month, Jewish TikTok employees reported experiencing antisemitism on the job and anti-Israel bias in content moderation. 
In March, Noa Tishby, the former Israeli special envoy for combating antisemitism, told JNS she regarded TikTok as the most hateful social media platform.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Elite American Universities Completely Beyond Hope Francis Menton

By on December 21st, 2023

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-12-20-elite-american-universities-completely-beyond-hope

In a post last week I marveled at the sudden discovery by the Presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT of the importance of freedom of speech when it involves demonstrators favoring elimination of Israel and slaughter of Jews. Yet somehow, at the same institutions, comparable principles just don’t seem to apply in the case of basic dissent from leftist political orthodoxy. When the official party line gets questioned, all the elite universities have multiple tactics to diminish and banish the deviators, whether that be by demanding loyalty oaths (e.g., “diversity statements”) in hiring or admissions, holding mandatory “diversity” or “sensitivity” training sessions, disinviting speakers, conducting pretextual investigations of dissenters, funding the favored and denying tenure to the disfavored, and many other such methods.

So how bad is it out there on elite campuses, really? It’s not so easy to find out. Mostly, the schools keep the worst of the rot fairly well hidden from the public, and for that matter from alumni. The publications sent to alumni (I get several of them) wildly play down the extent of the left wing political orthodoxy enforcement.

But the controversy following the Congressional testimony of the three Presidents had caused the curtain to get somewhat pulled back. The past couple of weeks have seen a few enterprising commenters putting together some collections of very revealing university materials for students, and of statements by university officials.

My first example comes from an unlikely source, an op-ed columnist at the New York Times named Pamela Paul. Ms. Paul is a relatively recent addition to the Times’s stable of regular columnists, having come off a stint as editor of their Book Review. Many commenters at the Times seem to think Ms. Paul is a “conservative,” although I would say that is far overstating things. (For example, here is a November 30 column about the possibility of a second Trump presidency (“[W]e know there’s a bomb under the table — the threat of a second Donald Trump presidency . . . [C]rippling destruction . . . will ensue.”), and another from September 21 defending President Biden against a potential impeachment (“The impeachment inquiry is just the latest twisted Republican abuse of Democratic precedent.”))

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Liz Peek: ‘Bidenomics’ is a flop – and America knows it

By on December 21st, 2023

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4371449-bidenomics-is-a-flop-and-america-knows-it/

“Wages for workers are up!”  

That was the sunny news delivered by President Biden at a recent campaign stop. Is it true? Not really. Though real wages have finally trended slightly higher, Americans are still underwater since Biden entered the Oval Office.  

The Biden camp may have dropped talking up “Bidenomics,” but the spiel’s half-truths and tone deafness live on.  

The Biden reelection campaign is still trying to sell its economic policies to skeptical voters, even as a recent Wall Street Journal shows that “Only 23% of voters say Biden’s policies have helped them personally, while 53% say they have been hurt by the president’s agenda.” Biden’s pitch hasn’t worked, isn’t working and won’t work. But, they aren’t giving up.   

Joe Biden is unhappy about his poll numbers — as well he should be. They are historically terrible; the only person those low grades could possibly please is Jimmy Carter, who no longer sets the benchmark for most unpopular president ever. According to Real Clear Politics, Biden’s average approval rating across all polls stands at 40.5 percent; that compares with44.5 percent for Donald Trump at the same point in his presidency, 46.5 percent for Barack Obama and 58 percent for George W. Bush.   

Biden apparently laid into his team before Thanksgiving, demanding his aides do something to improve his standing. The upshot is yet another salvo from the White House about the wonders of Bidenomics, including the usual rewriting of history about what a catastrophe Joe Biden faced as he took office in January 2021.  

In a campaign event just recently, Biden claimed, “You know, when we started, the … economy was reeling.” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated that myth in a briefing a few days ago, saying the economy “was in a tailspin.” It was not; in the quarter he took office, the recovering economy grew 6 percent, unemployment was dropping sharplyand annualized inflation stood at 1.4 percent.   

The president’s pitch rests largely on dishonest or misleading data, as is the case when Jean-Pierre touts the number of new business start-ups and applications as a sign that Bidenomics is working. As it happens, there was a big surge in new business applications — during Donald Trump’s presidency.   

When Trump took office, in January 2017, monthly new business applications totaled 263,878; in December 2020, his last month, applications — at the height of the COVID panic — amounted to 349,734, an increase of 32.5 percent. So far in Joe Biden’s presidency, applications have actually dropped slightly, from 486,082 recorded in January 2021 to 464,838 last month. 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Scholars Say They Were Plagiarized by Claudine Gay, Ignored by Harvard Investigation By Ryan Mills & Zach Kessel

By on December 21st, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/scholars-say-they-were-plagiarized-by-claudine-gay-ignored-by-harvard-investigation/

Harvard and its president Claudine Gay are doing damage control amid an ongoing plagiarism scandal, with the embattled leader requesting even more corrections to her past work, this time her 1997 Ph.D. dissertation — the foundation of her academic career.

But the total of seven corrections requested so far still leaves dozens of other instances of potential plagiarism unresolved. And scholars who believe their work was plagiarized have told National Review that they were never contacted by Harvard as part of its investigation into Gay’s academic work.

For instance, it does not appear that any of the corrections will address portions of Gay’s doctoral dissertation drawing heavily from the work of Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain, in some cases reproducing her writing word for word without citation.

Swain — who has been outspoken about her feelings on the plagiarism scandal — told National Review that she is concerned by Harvard’s response to the revelations of its president’s academic-integrity issues. She feels that the university should have reached out to her and the other scholars both as a professional courtesy, to inform them their work may have been plagiarized, and as part of their fact-finding effort to determine the extent of Gay’s transgressions, since they’re the foremost experts on their own work.

“I have a problem with the way Harvard has reacted to the entire situation, because it seems like — with the assistance of some of their professors and other elites — they’re trying to redefine what is plagiarism,” Swain said, “and they’re making the argument that there are different levels and, by extension, that some of it is acceptable. That is a problem for higher education in America.”

A number of experts and academics contacted by National Review said that the examples of potential plagiarism that have been flagged are serious, and the large number of instances suggests a pattern.

Lee Jussim, a social psychologist and distinguished professor at Rutgers University, said he’s “never seen anything like” the plagiarism scandal involving Gay.

“I can tell you, I expelled a student from my lab when I first got to Rutgers who I caught doing something not all that different — probably less — than what she has done,” he said.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM RUTHFULLY YOURS

By on December 21st, 2023

T’WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE

NOT A CREATURE WAS STIRRING, NOT EVEN A MOUSE.

I MUSED WITH REGRETS AND TREPIDATION

AT THE PARLOUS STATE OF OUR BELOVED NATION.

CORRUPTION STALKS THE BIDEN CLAN

BUT THE MEDIA PROTECTS THE FAILING MAN.

ISRAEL WAS ATTACKED WITH GENOCIDAL REFRAINS

IGNORED BY ANTI-SEMITES WITH FECAL BRAINS.

QATAR FUNDS THE HATRED STUDENTS UTTER

COGNOSCENTI PRONOUNCE THAT NATION AS “GUTTER.”

OUR BORDERS NO LONGER CONTAIN AN INVASION

OF UNDOCUMENTED MILLIONS WITH LEGAL EVASION.

OUR MILITARY INDULGES WOKE POLICIES WITHOUT SENSE

WHILE OUR ENEMIES PREPARE FOR A MAJOR OFFENSE.

 

SUDDENLY THERE AROSE SUCH A JOYFUL CLATTER

I RUSHED TO THE WINDOW TO SEE WHAT WAS THE MATTER.

IT WAS A BRIGADE OF CITIZENS SAYING “ENOUGH!”

TO PROGRESSIVE POLICIES THEY WOULD REBUFF.

ON ELECTION DAY THEY WILL PROCLAIM THEIR NOS

TO BETRAYING ALLIES AND KOW-TOWING TO FOES.

NO TO QUOTAS INSTEAD OF MERIT AND GRADES.

NO TO 1619 PROJECT, DEI AND WOKE CHARADES.

NO TO LOCKDOWNS AND CLOSING OF SCHOOLS.

NO TO HEALTH CZARS THAT TAKE US FOR FOOLS.

NO TO FOREIGN FUNDING IN HIGHER EDUCATION.

NO TO OPEN BORDERS AND UNFETTERED IMMIGRATION.

NO TO SURVEILLANCE AND DICTATS FROM CAPITOL HILL.

NO TO FOREIGN OIL FOR ENERGY- DRILL, BABY, DRILL.

THEY HOISTED A BANNER FOR ALL TO SEE.

SPORTING THE WORDS ‘DON’T TREAD ON ME.”

OFF THEY MARCHED INTO THE NIGHT

THEIR GPS PATH FROM LEFT TO RIGHT.

SO, WITH A DOLLOP OF OPTIMISM AND A TAD OF CHEER

I WISH YOU ALL HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

RUTH KING

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MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Leftists’ Civil War Fantasies They’re not going to work out the way they think. by Kurt Schlichter

By on December 21st, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/leftists-civil-war-fantasies/

I’m really confused about the new movie trailer for the leftist insurgency fantasy flick “Civil War” because it seems to think that the military guy who is hassling journalists with his M4 is the bad guy. I must have got that wrong. Clearly, whoever is opposed to the regime media is the hero, right? Maybe his weird, red Elton John glasses are supposed to signal to me that he’s evil, but I’m just not seeing it. At one point, one of the reporters tells him they are Americans and he asks, “What kind of American?” Frankly, that seems like a pretty good question.

After all, I was told by the desiccated, corrupt, old pervert who Alex Garland – the guy who made this piece of crap movie – a undoubtedly supported, there are a two kinds of Americans. There are good, upstanding, woke Americans who buy into all the communist garbage, and there are normal people who he calls “MAGA extremists” who are bad and scary insurrectionists and hate our democracy and are also racist and transphobic and everything else that is bad. They also cause inflation and climate change. These people should be shamed, persecuted and hounded from society, disenfranchised, disarmed, and, according to this movie, shot. So, the “What kind of American are you?” thing is not going to shock us because it is already happening, and here’s the punchline – if you’re reading this, you’re probably the bad kind of American, according to the Hollywood jerks and our senile, evil president.

The movie doesn’t really make clear what’s going on in its scenario, and to the extent it does, the scenario is pretty stupid. Apparently, there’s a president who likes God, so that your subtle hint that he’s the bad kind of American. He’s on his third term in office, which it meant to be an issue, which is weird because I was informed that the Constitution that bars three terms is an evil document of oppression designed by dead white male slaveholders, but apparently it’s a good thing today. Maybe I just haven’t got my daily Constitution status memo. There was nothing in the trailer about prosecuting your political enemies on trumped–up charges, but I’m assuming that’s a good thing until it stops being a good thing when applied to Democrats.

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Biden Administration, Palestinians and Inconvenient Truths by Bassam Tawil

By on December 21st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20240/palestinians-inconvenient-truths

The results of the poll also showed that, unlike the Biden administration, most Palestinians do not trust the Palestinian Authority and prefer Hamas’s terrorism to a peaceful settlement with Israel.

The PA might say that it is ready to change, but this will be in order to deceive the Biden administration and the rest of the international community into continuing to pour billions of dollars on Abbas and his cohorts…

Despite whatever commitments might be signed in blood, in the eyes of Palestinian leaders, they are just Western fantasies. After the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995 , then PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat assured his people — in Arabic — that Oslo was no more binding than the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya, when the Islamic prophet Mohammad agreed not to attack for ten years, then, with his opponents safely neutralized, he assembled an army and attacked after two years.

[S]upport for Abbas and his ruling Fatah faction has dropped significantly. The same is true for trust in the Palestinian Authority as a whole, as demand for its dissolution has risen to nearly 60%, the highest percentage ever recorded in PSR polls. Demand for Abbas’s resignation has increased to around 90%… 63% are now in favor of “armed struggle”.

According to the poll, most Palestinians justify Hamas’s October 7 massacre, including murder, decapitation, rape and burning people alive. These are the same people that the Biden administration wants to give a state next to Israel.

If new presidential elections were held today with only two candidates, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would receive 78% of the vote as opposed to 16% for Abbas. The poll also showed that 54% of Palestinians think that Hamas is the most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people today….

It is enough for Biden administration officials to look at the results of the poll of PSR and talk to ordinary Palestinians to understand that the White House’s policies, such as promoting the creation of an Iran-sponsored Palestinian terror state, are not wanted by anyone but Iran and them.

As US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was in the Middle East last week trying to restrain Israel in its war against the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group and to “revamp” the Palestinian Authority (PA), a public opinion poll again illustrated how the Biden administration continues to intentionally ignore the reality of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The results of the poll also showed that, unlike the Biden administration, most Palestinians do not trust the PA and prefer Hamas’s terrorism to a peaceful settlement with Israel.

Sullivan was reportedly in the Middle East for two reasons: to pressure Israel to scale down its military operations against Hamas, and to discuss the possibility of having the Palestinian Authority govern the Gaza Strip the day after the current war ends.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Will Partisan Lawfare Destroy Trump? We have never seen anything like this before in American history By Victor Davis Hanson

By on December 21st, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/21/will-partisan-lawfare-destroy-trump/

Trump Derangement Syndrome became Orwellian with the recent ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court.

It approved the erasure of Trump from the Republican primary ballot in Colorado, by invoking Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

That ossified clause was intended to bar any ante-bellum federal officials who joined the Confederacy from again holding federal offices after 1865.

In no way is Trump’s conduct on January 6 comparable to calling for secession, much less prompting a Civil War that cost the country 700,000 lives.

An “insurrectionist” president does not address unarmed protestors with qualifiers like, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

How also can one be guilty of insurrection without ever being indicted for such a supposed crime, much less convicted of it? 

And the more we learn about January 6, all the more it appears to have been a spontaneous riot, more buffoonish in nature than conspiratorial.

No one has explained the mysterious, politicized January 6 refusal of the Speaker of the House to order a reinforcement of the Capitol police.

Or the FBI stonewalling about its informants in the crowd.

Or the revealing admissions of New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg (“a ton of FBI informants among the people who attacked the Capitol”).

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Christmases Ago? Probably Not

By on December 21st, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/12/21/are-you-better-off-than-you-were-four-christmases-ago/

Jill Biden’s creepy video, featuring a troupe of tap dancers showing off the garish Christmas decorations in the White House, prompted one journalist to comment that they are “really going for the Hunger Games as this year’s Christmas theme.”

While they’re prancing around in the capital, out in the districts everyone else is struggling to pay the sky-high cost of this festive season.

Haven’t bought a Christmas tree yet? It will cost you about 10% more than last year, which is on top of the 10% increase the year before, and 10% the year before that.

The American Christmas Tree Association found that 78% of consumers are concerned about inflation this year.

Want to serve ham for family and friends this holiday? Ham prices are up 16% compared with Christmas 2020.

If you’re traveling, you’ll pay 18% more for airfare and 45% more for gasoline than you did in 2020.

Those Christmas lights decorating the house? Your electric bill will be 24% higher. If you’re sending Christmas cards, stationery costs are up 27% under Biden.

At least drowning your sorrows in alcohol is getting less expensive.

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Biden Admin is Pushing for an Israel-Hezbollah Deal by Daniel Greenfield

By on December 21st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20239/israel-hezbollah-deal

If there was one lesson to be learned from Oct 7, it’s don’t negotiate with terrorists. But that’s the one lesson no one seems to be willing to learn, as David Wurmser notes at the Center for Security Policy:

“A U.S. plan, spearheaded by the diplomatic efforts of the U.S., and led by Amos Hochstein (who negotiated the Lebanon Maritime Agreement) and the French government, is emerging to diffuse tension along Israel’s northern border. The U.S. and France appear to propose a plan with three elements. Hizballah withdraws its forces northward. Israel concedes all the disputed areas along the border. And finally, the area between Israel and Hizballah will be filled by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).”

The LAF, despite the money we spend on them, just does whatever Hezbollah tells them.

A deal in which Israel concedes more territory to Lebanon in exchange for a proposed Hezbollah withdrawal is less than worthless. Hezbollah can move back whenever it chooses and Israel will be denied the ability to reclaim the territory. The same brilliant minds that thought Hamas could be moderated with money also promised that Hezbollah could be moderated with money by ceding maritime territory to be used for energy harvesting to Lebanon. The insane thing is that these same people are now pushing this.

Islamic terror groups don’t moderate. They take whatever you give them and use it to go ahead and kill you.

And yet here we are. Israel is trying to pressure Lebanon to push back Hezbollah so that tens of thousands of Israelis who have been displaced by Hezbollah attacks can go home. (Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been displaced in total. The media is obviously not covering this.)

Israel is proposing a military solution. The Biden administration and France are proposing a land-for-truce deal that would weaken Israel’s ability to respond to future attacks from Hezbollah.

It’s as if Oct 7 never happened.

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