FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Congress – Israel’s Most Systematic and Challenging Ally Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on March 6th, 2021

https://bit.ly/3bRukYB

The Israeli challenge

Since 1948, the US Legislature has systematically supported the US-Israel relationship, and pro-actively promoted enhanced US-Israel cooperation: militarily, industrially, technologically, scientifically, agriculturally, irrigation, space, etc. This Congressional position has been consistent with the worldview of most voters; and, sometimes inconsistent with the Executive Branch.

Congressional affinity toward Israel was demonstrated in February 2020, when the Senate voted 97:3 to fund and maintain the US Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel.

Moreover, in July 2019, the House of Representatives voted 398:17 to condemn the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement.

However, the 17 House Representatives, who supported the anti-Israel BDS, included Congresswomen Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Betty McCollum (D-MN). The former is the new chairperson of the most critical Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, which overseas foreign aid and international commercial cooperation. The latter is the chairperson of the equally critical Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which oversees the defense budget, including global defense cooperation.  These two prominent Congresswomen have been among Israel’s roughest critics on Capitol Hill. 

In 2021, they represent an expanding minority among American voters, in general, and on Capitol Hill, in particular, constituting a major challenge for American and Israeli allies of the highly productive US-Israel collaboration.

They represent a growing segment of the US population, as well as legislators and staffers, who are estranged from the 400-year-old historical, cultural, moral and civic foundations of the US-Israel kinship; unfamiliar with Israel’s role as a unique force-multiplier for the US, and its contribution to the US defense industries, high tech sector, armed forces, counterterrorism and intelligence. They overlook the US-Israel mutual threats and challenges, which transcend the Palestinian issue; inattentive of the adverse effect on US interests of the proposed Palestinian state, and are oblivious to the Arab view of the Palestinians as a role model for intra-Arab terrorism, subversion and treachery. They are indifferent to Palestinian hate-education, which mirrors the Palestinian vision and breeds terrorists. They are uninformed about the enhancement of US interests by Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the Golan Heights. And, they are unaware of the deep incompatibility between Western values and norms, on the one hand, and the unpredictable, violent, treacherous Middle East reality, on the other hand.   

American and Israeli supporters of US-Israel cooperation, should present their case on Capitol Hill and throughout the US, by focusing on “What’s in it for the USA in its ties with Israel?!” rather than on “What’s in it for Israel?”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Family Life Under UK’s Lockdown What really happens when we’re all stuck indoors. Katie Hopkins

Posted By on March 6th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/family-life-uks-lockdown-katie-hopkins/

It’s fair to say people don’t necessarily see me as the homely type. I am built like a stick insect with biceps. I never talk about my husband or kids in public. And through a recent short-haired phase of mine, I managed to convince most God-loving Americans I was a full-blown lesbian.

It is true in part. I have been a catastrophic failure at much of what mothering is supposed to be. My first marriage lasted less than a year, leaving me as a single mother with two children under the age of two and a job that spanned both sides of the Atlantic.

(The beady-eyed amongst you will have spotted that any notion of saving myself for the wedding night went out the window around the same time I learned to drive. According to my mother, you aren’t supposed to have a two-year-old when you have been married for less than a year).

I have never been asked to be a godmother, ever. None of my friends have thought me worthy or capable enough of being the person to care for their child if the worst should befall them. When you are looking for a safe, capable, and secure pair of hands, my name is not the first name on the list.

I tell you all this not out of self-pity (though the failure to be a godmother to any living thing is quite the indictment) but because lockdown has not impacted us all equally at all. And I recognize that cancer sufferers, COPD patients, and the very elderly have had a bit of a rough time with this flu.

But spare a thought for ball-breaking bitches like me. We were not designed to be at home. At no point did I gain 350lbs after my wedding and start home-baking meringue pie and wearing aprons with frills on. And I have zero interest in life hacks for cleaning the slats in my window blinds. If they see a vacuum cleaner once a year, they can consider themselves blessed.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Rep. Swalwell sues Trump over alleged role in Capitol assault !!!!????

Posted By on March 6th, 2021

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rep-swalwell-sues-trump-over-alleged-role-in-capitol-assault/ar-BB1ehpJX?ocid=Peregrine

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., Friday, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell has sued former President Donald Trump and some of his allies, including his son Donald Trump Jr., personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and GOP Rep. Mo Brooks, over their alleged roles in the events leading up to and surrounding the Capitol assault on Jan. 6.

In the 65-page suit, Swalwell, who was a House impeachment manager during Trump’s second Senate trial, alleges that they all directly incited the violence at the U.S. Capitol by putting out “a clear call to action” that some in the crowd responded to.

“Trump directly incited the violence at the Capitol that followed and then watched approvingly as the building was overrun,” the lawsuit alleges.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Over 400,000 ballots have no chain of custody in GA

Posted By on March 6th, 2021

https://rumble.com/veco11-over-400000-ballots-have-no-chain-of-custody-in-ga.htm

Rumble — Michael Patrick Leahy, editor-in-chief of Star News, reports four months later, Georgia has failed to produce chain of custody documents on over 400,000 mail-in ballots.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Dissidents and Doublethinkers in Our Democracy Plus: a new organization picking up the flag the ACLU has put down. Bari Weiss

Posted By on March 6th, 2021

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/dissidents-and-doublethinkers-in?token=e

https://www.deseret.com/indepth/2021/3/2/22309605/the-silenced-majority-bari-weis

I know a lot of people who live in fear of saying what they really think. In red America and in blue America — and, perhaps more so, on the red internet and the blue internet — we are in the grip of an epidemic of self-silencing. What you censor, of course, depends on where you sit.

My liberal friends who live in red America confess to avoiding discussions of masks, Dominion, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, the 2020 election and Donald Trump, to name just a few. When those who disagree with the surrounding majority speak their mind, they suffer the consequences. I think here of my friend, the conservative writer David French, who for four years endured an avalanche of horrific attacks against himself and his family for criticizing the Trump administration that ultimately required the intervention of the FBI.

But there are two illiberal cultures swallowing up the country. I know because I live in blue America, in a world awash in NPR tote bags and front lawn signs proclaiming the social justice bonafides of the family inside.

In my America, the people who keep quiet don’t fear the wrath of Trump supporters. They fear the illiberal left.

They are feminists who believe there are biological differences between men and women. Journalists who believe their job is to tell the truth about the world, even when it’s inconvenient. Doctors whose only creed is science. Lawyers who will not compromise on the principle of equal treatment under the law. Professors who seek the freedom to write and research without fear of being smeared. In short, they are centrists, libertarians, liberals and progressives who do not ascribe to every single aspect of the new far-left orthodoxy.

That’s the opening of an essay I wrote about America’s self-silencing majority for The Deseret News Magazine, published this week. It was my effort to explain the widespread phenomenon — and seeming contradiction — of doublethink in our democracy.

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

Cancel Culture: Its Origins and Implications for America Scott Powell

Posted By on March 6th, 2021

https://www.theepochtimes.com/cancel-culture-its-origins-and-implications-for-america_3713278.html

As Americans, we have had it good for so long that we often take important things for granted until they are about to be taken away.

As recently as five or six years ago, who would have thought that America’s dominant social media platforms, such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, or Twitter would assault its host country’s First Amendment rights by engaging in the silencing of a huge number of its users through censorship, cancellation, and deplatforming?

Of all the impediments to America’s progress on every front, censorship and cancel culture probably rank right at the top. Many of the younger generation accept cancel culture as being part of depersonalized relationships that social media has fostered. It seems many have gotten used to cyberbullying and the flippant cancellation of people, ideas, and relationships—all facilitated with just a few clicks.

The older generations appreciate that protection of free speech, free association, and a presumption of innocence have always been core principles in America not only because of the Constitution’s First, Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendments, but also because of the importance of civility and the wide recognition that tolerance is a necessary virtue in a pluralistic society and that no one has a monopoly on the best ideas. From the beginning of the American constitutional republic, it’s been axiomatic that progress in every field and endeavor is contingent on competition of ideas, policies, and products.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Orisha Land – A New Nation In The State Of Texas by Charles “Sam” Faddis

Posted By on March 5th, 2021

https://andmagazine.com/talk/2021/03/03/orisha-land-a-new-nation-in-the-state-of

“Charles Sam Faddis reports on a new autonomous zone in Austin within an 11-mile perimeter that is opposed to capitalism, imperialism, the police, private property, the nuclear family and Israel.Thus far, according to Faddis, the authorities have failed to step in.” Janet L.

Back in 2020 when Grandmaster Jay of the Not Fuckin’ Around Coalition (NFAC) was talking about a separate Black nation in North America and saying “We’ll take Texas,” most people were skeptical. A group of guys who spend most of their time accidentally discharging their weapons and shooting each other did not seem particularly serious. NFAC’s missteps, however, masked the deadly serious consequences of an ideology that increasingly seeks to Balkanize us and break our nation into pieces, which collectively will be much less than the whole

Welcome to Orisha Land.

Orisha Land is an autonomous zone declared by the group “400 + 1.” It’s eleven mile perimeter is formed by Manor Road, 51st Street, Springdale Road, 7th Street, Interstate-35, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Franklin Street within what was formerly known as the city of Austin, Texas. On February 14, 2021 an eleven-mile car procession around the perimeter of this new nation formally announced that the authority of the State of Texas and of the United States of America would no longer be recognized.

The capital of Orisha Land is “Jordan’s Place” previously known as Rosewood Park. The Park was renamed by the inhabitants of Orisha Land in honor of Jordan Walton who reportedly died in an officer-involved shooting on February 10, 2021.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Woke Math Is Coming to a Classroom Near You By Cameron Hilditch

Posted By on March 5th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/woke-math-is-coming-to-a-classroom-near-you/?itm_

Not even algebra is safe from the social-justice warriors.

T he British author Douglas Murray has lately argued that intersectional social justice represents the most serious ideological threat to the liberal order since the end of the Cold War. Even a few years ago, his thesis would have sounded overblown, but no longer. Events have conspired to vindicate him.

Take the phenomenon of woke math, for instance. As Catherine Gewertz laid out in a piece for Education Week late last year, more and more teachers in K–12 classrooms are introducing left-wing intersectional agitprop into math lessons. Progressive talking points on subjects like policing patterns and campaign-finance reform are being used to supply students with numerical data that is then used to teach multiplication, division, algebra, and the like. Gewertz describes one such initiative, developed in Seattle, as attempting to supply “a framework . . . that weaves questions of power and oppression into math instruction, along with explorations of ethnic identity.”

This infiltration of leftist dogma into education is troubling for several reasons. First of all, it shows just how seriously intersectional social justice takes itself as a comprehensive agenda for social change. Totalitarian ideologies work by supplying an intellectual filter through which all of life is sanitized and presented to people as something uncomplicated and easily understood. This is why the force and momentum of political ideologies is always centripetal, drafting every extraneous facet of social life into the service of the party agenda. The notion that something might be intelligible or worthwhile independent of how it fits into this agenda — that there might be metrics of measuring truth or beauty other than those prescribed by the regnant ideology — is therefore threatening. To combat the threat, ideologues tend to make war on everything that could be construed as apolitical or politically neutral. For example, this is how the Stalinist commissar N. V. Krylenko responded to chess players in the Soviet Union who wanted to keep politics out of the game:

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Audacious Deplatforming: Some New Examples Francis Menton

Posted By on March 5th, 2021

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&

My February 22 post noted that the “deplatforming” of seemingly mainstream conservative voices by the Big Tech oligarchs was reaching ever greater levels of audacity. That post covered some truly extreme instances of the phenomenon, including the total blocking by Twitter on January 8 of all accounts associated with then-sitting President Trump, and the removal on January 11 of Twitter’s biggest competitor Parler from its Amazon servers and then from the Google and Apple app stores. Those examples are rather hard to top.

But those apparent successes have only inspired the deplatformers on to new gambits. Clearly, this phenomenon is not going away any time soon. Even since that post less than two weeks ago, there has been a continuing series of strikes by the big tech censors, each time aimed at someone who has transgressed the current boundaries of political correctness.

On the other hand, from observing each new strike of the censors as it occurs, it’s hard to perceive exactly what the grand plan may be. Maybe there isn’t one. This is much more like the Cambodian genocide than its Nazi predecessor: rather than the enemies all getting rounded up and hauled off at once to the extermination camps, we instead have, every few days, another one or a few seemingly randomly-selected enemies suddenly disappearing without explanation, never to be seen again. One imagines at each Big Tech company a group a several twenty-somethings, just out of college, sitting around the conference room filled with open pizza boxes, rubbing their hands together and giggling and saying things like “Let’s see who we can get away with canceling next!” OK, today this is probably happening on Zoom meetings rather than in actual conference rooms, but it’s the same idea.

I have compiled below some of the more recent deplatformings, all of which are certainly well up there on the audacity scale. Here goes:

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Nolte: Arizona Department of Education Teaches that White Babies and Toddlers Are Racist John Nolte

Posted By on March 5th, 2021

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/03/04/arizona-department-education-teaches-white-babies-toddlers-racist/

The Arizona Department of Education wants its teachers to promote racial “equity and diversity” through an “anti-racist” program that promotes the idea that white babies and toddlers are racist.

Provided for teachers is an “equity and diversity” toolkit. Included in this toolkit, is the wild-eyed insanity that your white baby is racist.

Look at this garbage…

And this naked racism is aimed directly at white parents.

For example, one recommended piece of reading linked in the toolkit is titled “How White Parents Can Talk to Their Kids About Race.” It says, “White parents should begin addressing issues of race and racism early, even before their children can speak. Studies have indicated that infants as young as 3 months old can recognize racial differences.”