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November 2024

If Harris couldn’t win, maybe Democrats should have nominated someone else By W. James Antle III

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/presidential/3239705/democrats-should-have-nominated-someone-else-not-kamala-harris/

The leaders of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign are starting to acknowledge that the fundamentals of the 2024 race for the White House favored President-elect Donald Trump all along.

Joy and hope were no match for dissatisfaction with the economy, the direction of the country, and incumbent parties across the globe, dooming the Democrats earlier this month and paving the way for Trump’s return to the Oval Office.

“The headwinds were just too great for us to overcome, especially in 107 days,” Harris campaign Chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon told the Washington Post in a representative postmortem. “But we came very close to what we anticipated, both in terms of turnout and in terms of support.”

What they were unable to do, however, was win a single battleground state or the popular vote even after replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee.

Harris was undoubtedly dealt a bad hand. She was also an incredibly risk-averse candidate, while her opponent, who faced the prospect of incarceration if defeated, aggressively sought out new media opportunities to target infrequent voters. She had no compelling answer to how she would be different from Biden, despite that being the central question of the campaign, even though she was serving as vice president under an octogenarian who, from 2019 to 2023, had seriously considered only serving a single term.

Many explanations of the election outcome that seek to absolve Harris of responsibility for her defeat subtly make the case against her candidacy in the first place. As Biden’s vice president, she would have to do more than other Democrats to distance herself from the incumbent administration, if it could be done at all.

Khamenei: Arrest warrant not enough for Netanyahu, he ‘must be sentenced to death’ Robert Spencer

https://jihadwatch.org/2024/11/khamenei-arrest-warrant-not-enough-for-netanyahu-he-must-be-sentenced-to-death?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=khamenei-arrest-warrant-not-enough-for-netanyahu-he-must-be-sentenced-to-death

The feeling is mutual.

“Iran’s Supreme Leader Demands Death Sentence for Netanyahu,” by Michael D. Carroll, Newsweek, November 25, 2024:

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has called for death sentences for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, in response to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) recent arrest warrants.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made his remarks on Monday during an event addressing members of the Basij, the volunteer force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

In his speech, Khamenei referred to the ICC’s recent decision to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israel’s former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

“What the Zionist regime did in Gaza and Lebanon is not a victory, it is a war crime. Now they have issued a warrant for their arrest. This is not enough!” Khamenei said, according to remarks published by the state-run IRNA news agency. “Netanyahu and the criminal leaders of this regime must be sentenced to death.”

The ICC in The Hague does not issue death sentences….

Neetu Arnold DEI Corrupts Education Research The Department of Education directed money to research projects that promised to recruit minorities.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/dei-corrupts-education-research

Government agencies should choose which research projects to fund based on merit, not ideology. But my investigation into U.S. Department of Education grants reveals that administrators prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) when evaluating grant applications. In some cases, reviewers considered the racial make-up of research personnel when assessing applicants’ qualifications.

These applications were directed to the Education Innovation and Research (EIR) program, through which the department allocates research funds to schools and other nonprofits to develop inventive solutions to educational problems. The EIR program had a $284 million budget for new awards in fiscal year 2023.

The federal government’s diversity obsession has distorted EIR’s priorities. As a result, American taxpayers are funding projects that promote equity in AP Computer Science, so-called “restorative justice” initiatives for misbehaving students, and “culturally responsive” teaching. EIR has embedded racial considerations into the grant-evaluation process. It does so by assessing applicants’ “Quality of Project Personnel” (QPP), a 10-point evaluation category that accounts for almost 10 percent of an applicant’s total score. The department uses this category, which first appeared in grant evaluation documents in 2022, to measure whether prospective grant recipients would “encourage[] applications for employment from persons who are members of groups that have traditionally been underrepresented based on race, color, national origin, gender, age, or disability.” The department notes, almost as an afterthought, that “the Secretary [also] considers the qualifications, including relevant training and experience, of key project personnel.”

The Reality of Racial Balancing and the Fight for Equal Protection By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/11/the_reality_of_racial_balancing_and_the_fight_for_equal_protection.html

In Don Lemon’s edgy interview with Elon Musk that ended his talk-show deal with X, Lemon baits the billionaire entrepreneur, asking: “Do you believe women and minority pilots are inherently less intelligent and less skilled than white male pilots?”

Without blinking, Musk hits home with: “No. I’m just saying we should not lower the standards for them.”

When Lemon pursues the point, claiming no evidence of standards being lowered, Musk retorts that there is cited evidence of “significant cases where standards are lowered.”  

Lemon then changes tack. He says Boeing had admitted that a faulty door panel was responsible for the incident being discussed. Musk, matter-of-factly, points out that a recently introduced DEI-related incentive structure at Boeing should have focused on passenger safety.

DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion.  As American institutions intensify their push for “DEI hires and appointments,” the three words threaten – and, in many cases, have become an excuse to violate — the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which states: “No state can deny equal protection under the law to any person within its jurisdiction.”  

The reality of DEI is that diversity is being used to justify racial discrimination against majority whites and high-achieving minorities, equity is being used to achieve equal outcomes instead of providing equal opportunities, and inclusion is being used to exclude people who oppose the ideology du jour.  Merit, hard work, initiative, and innovation be damned.

The Reality of Racial Balancing and the Fight for Equal Protection By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/11/the_reality_of_racial_balancing_and_the_fight_for_equal_protection.html

In Don Lemon’s edgy interview with Elon Musk that ended his talk-show deal with X, Lemon baits the billionaire entrepreneur, asking: “Do you believe women and minority pilots are inherently less intelligent and less skilled than white male pilots?”

Without blinking, Musk hits home with: “No. I’m just saying we should not lower the standards for them.”

When Lemon pursues the point, claiming no evidence of standards being lowered, Musk retorts that there is cited evidence of “significant cases where standards are lowered.”  

Lemon then changes tack. He says Boeing had admitted that a faulty door panel was responsible for the incident being discussed. Musk, matter-of-factly, points out that a recently introduced DEI-related incentive structure at Boeing should have focused on passenger safety.

DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion.  As American institutions intensify their push for “DEI hires and appointments,” the three words threaten – and, in many cases, have become an excuse to violate — the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which states: “No state can deny equal protection under the law to any person within its jurisdiction.”  

The reality of DEI is that diversity is being used to justify racial discrimination against majority whites and high-achieving minorities, equity is being used to achieve equal outcomes instead of providing equal opportunities, and inclusion is being used to exclude people who oppose the ideology du jour.  Merit, hard work, initiative, and innovation be damned.

A survey of one thousand hiring managers by Resume Builder found a shocking preponderance of “reverse discrimination” in the workplace: 52% of the respondents believe the practice is in place; one in six have been asked to deprioritize hiring white men; and 48% have been asked to prioritize diversity over qualifications.

How identitarian dogma captured Scientific American The departing editor’s diatribe against Trump voters encapsulates the rotten state of modern science. Candace Holdsworth

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/11/26/how-identitarian-dogma-captured-scientific-american/

The re-election of Donald Trump earlier this month provoked predictable outrage from the usual Chicken Little celebrities, politicians and activists. Mainstream-media outlets, which long ago abandoned any objectivity in their reporting of Trump, have reacted with unbridled hysteria. What might have been more surprising to some, however, was the meltdown experienced by Laura Helmuth, who was, until recently, the editor of the once sober and august Scientific American magazine.

Shortly after Trump’s re-election, Helmuth, in a now-deleted post on Bluesky, took aim at the ‘racists’ and ‘sexists’ she grew up with in her Trump-voting state. She wrote:

‘Every four years I remember why I left Indiana (where I grew up) and remember why I respect the people who stayed and are trying to make it less racist and sexist. The moral arc of the universe isn’t going to bend itself… Solidarity to everybody whose meanest, dumbest, most bigoted high-school classmates are celebrating early results because fuck them to the moon and back… I apologise to younger voters that my Gen X is so full of fucking fascists.’

You might think Helmuth’s diatribe hardly fitting for the editor of an internationally recognised science journal. The post gained widespread attention and within days, it led to her stepping down as editor after four-and-a-half years in post. Strikingly, Helmuth’s parting shot was not a one-off. In recent years, the widely respected and nearly 200-year-old publication embraced a number of woke shibboleths, often jettisoning science in the process. Notably, Scientific American became a cheerleader for gender ideology, the Black Lives Matter movement and the establishment narrative around Covid-19. This trend even predates Helmuth’s arrival in the editor’s chair.

Jack Smith Files to Drop Both Felony Cases Against Trump By Debra Heine

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/25/jack-smith-files-to-drop-both-felony-cases-against-trump/

Special counsel Jack Smith filed motions Monday to drop all of his federal charges against President-elect Donald Trump, saying Justice Department policy prevents him from continuing the prosecutions after Trump’s inauguration.

“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” Smith’s office wrote in Monday’s filing.

The cases regarded Trump’s handling of classified documents and his actions following the rigged 2020 presidential election in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S Capitol.

Trump said in a statement Monday that the cases against him represented a “political hijacking, and a low point in the History of our Country that such a thing could have happened.” The president-elect added that he “persevered, against all odds, and WON.”

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan granted Smith’s motion to dismiss the Jan. 6-related indictment hours later, formally bringing the contentious case an end.

Smith first indicted Trump in June 2023 in a federal court in Miami on 37 felony counts related to his handling of classified documents. The case marked the first time in U.S. history a former president had faced criminal charges.   A Florida judge already dismissed the case, but Smith’s office had sought an appeal.

Destructive Environmentalists “Society can’t exist without mines.” by John Stossel

https://www.frontpagemag.com/destructive-environmentalists/

People eagerly give money to rich environmental groups. The Natural Resources Defense Council has $463 million in assets.

It claims it uses law “to confront the climate crisis.”

What it really does is pay lawyers to torture people who try to do useful things.

Example: America needs minerals like copper and silver to make things. Even President Joe Biden made a speech saying America will need 400-600% more such minerals to make “solar panels, wind turbines and so much more!”

An iPhone alone requires aluminum, iron, lithium, gold, copper …

But when investors dare try to dig up such minerals in America, the NRDC objects and uses political connections to stop them.

Twenty years ago, entrepreneurs tried to open a mine in Alaska. Before they even got the application in, the EPA vetoed it.

Why? Because groups like the NRDC say the mine “would be a catastrophic threat to the wildlife and … fragile ecosystem.”

They get their way because when Democrats run the EPA, they not only support NRDC’s positions, they even hire NRDC employees.

Norway’s Foreign Minister Targets Israel – and Trump Things have gone completely haywire under Espen Barth Eide. by Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/norways-foreign-minister-targets-israel-and-trump/

Weird thing about Norway: on the one hand, the people, by Western European standards, are unusually patriotic and fiercely protective of their sovereignty, waving flags every year on Constitution Day (May 17) and voting twice (in 1972 and 1994) to keep their country out of the EU. On the other hand, these same people’s government is, decades in and decades out, more slavishly devoted to international institutions than that of any other country on earth. Hence Norway, a member of the European Economic Area, is quicker to obey EU directives than are actual EU members. This is true when the “bourgeois” or “conservative” (i.e. socialist) parties are in charge, and it’s even truer when the “socialist” (i.e., really, really socialist) parties are in charge. But since the current Labor Party government took power three years ago, and especially since an absurdly self-regarding mediocrity named Espen Barth Eide was named Foreign Minister a year ago, things have gone utterly haywire.

So last Thursday, when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, on the premise that they’ve been guilty of genocide in Gaza, Eide’s ministry was quick to announce that if Netanyahu and Gallant set foot in Norway, they’ll be arrested at once. Andreas Kravik, Eide’s #2 man, explained that as a member of the ICC, Norway has no other choice than to take this drastic action. “The ICC plays a crucial role in ensuring accountability for serious crimes,” professed Eide in a fatuous press release. “It is important that the ICC carries out its mandate in a judicious manner. I have confidence that the Court will proceed with the case based on the highest fair trial standards.” Little tyrants! At the same time, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. This is not quite equal treatment, given that Deif, having been killed in an airstrike in July, is no longer with us.

That’s not Eide’s only recent outrage. Earlier this month, after Turkey wrote a letter to the UN calling for an arms embargo of Israel, Norway, which is to say Eide, signed on – along with 52 other countries, including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Indonesia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Venezuela, and Lula’s Brazil, plus the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Norway, note well, was the only Western country to lend its support to this reprehensible document.

MR. SAMMLER’S PRESCIENCE MELANIE PHILLIPS

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

In 1970 the novelist Saul Bellow, a titan of American letters, published his masterpiece Mr Sammler’s Planet.

Its eponymous hero is a Holocaust survivor who, in a decaying New York City, sees into the heart of things. A calculated attack on a range of liberal pieties, the novel caused intense controversy. Sammler, and thus Bellow himself, was accused of being misanthropic, racist, sexist, and reactionary.

Not surprisingly, liberal literary America was outraged and affronted. Equally unsurprisingly, the book was brandished as proof that Bellow had “moved to the right”. This is, of course, the standard denunciation of irredeemable evil that has sunk countless reputations and careers on the jagged rocks of elite disgust — but is so often instead proof positive of the denounced individual’s clarity of vision and moral purpose.

So it was with Saul Bellow. Sammler is a latter-day prophet, seeing with his one functioning eye straight through liberal hypocrisy to call out civilisational decay.

What now seems all too familiar was all there in the novel — racial prejudice, sexual violence, civil disobedience and a no-holds-barred capacity to give offence, it seemed, to as many hyper-sensitive groups as possible. The premonition of today’s culture wars is striking.