NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Our Fake, Fake, Fake World By J.B. Shurk

Posted By on March 14th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/03/our_fake_fake_fake_world.html

Will our historical era be remembered as the “Age of Fakes”?  We have fake news, fake meat, fake elections, fake genders, fake vaccines, fake budgets, fake democracy, fake truths, fake hate, fake Russian collusion, fake insurrections, fake climate emergencies, fake freedoms, fake outrage, fake speech crimes, fake money, fake justice, fake intellects, fake women, fake borders, fake wars, and even a fake president.  In some ways, it is a very silly time to be alive.  

So much of our fake world has been built on two monstrously fake foundations: fake progress and fake liberalism.  Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson redefined progress as something that only Big Government can provide.  Instead of celebrating human innovation, artistic achievement, work ethic, and private entrepreneurship as the essential ingredients for any prosperous future, progressivism insists that nothing of value can be achieved without a strong centralized government and a bloated administrative Deep State.  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt then picked up the Big Government cudgel by redefining liberalism as a collection of freedoms that only government can provide.  Instead of recognizing human liberty as diametrically opposed to coercive State power, FDR’s “New Deal” style of liberalism insists that only new laws, new social programs, new regulatory agencies, and newly discovered rights can ever make people free.  In the last century of perverse word games, progressivism and liberalism promised progress and liberty and instead burdened Americans with the heavy weight of the government’s chains.  

America’s commitment to individual liberty, private property, and free speech once distinguished it from all other countries in the world.  When it began betraying those commitments and exporting a brand of “rules-based international order” scarcely different from those devised under monarchical empires of the past, it became a global ambassador for fake freedom.  And in a world where freedom is fake everywhere, happiness appears to be fake, too.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Teacher Pay: Half-truths and Reality Much is written about teacher pay, but what do educators really earn, and what are the impediments to higher salaries? By Larry Sand

Posted By on March 14th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/14/teacher-pay-half-truths-and-reality/

Benjamin Franklin once famously quipped, “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” Today, however, we can alter that to “death, taxes, and a slew of myths about teacher pay.”

Leading the half-truth brigade, on March 4, a headline in My eLearning World read, “New Teachers Are Earning 20% Less Than They Were 20 Years Ago.” The piece informs us that if starting salaries for new teachers had kept pace with inflation over the last 20 years, a teacher just starting out would currently be making $53,303 per year. Instead, using data from the National Education Association, the website asserts that the average annual income for a new teacher is $42,844.

The California School Boards Association laments that California teachers make more than the national average but less than a living wage.

A National Center for Educational Statistics table shows that, using constant dollars, the average teacher salary in 2022 was $66,397, compared to $72,050 in 2010.

However, the above assertions are essentially meaningless when assessing what teachers really make. As Just Facts notes, in the 2021–22 school year, the average school teacher in the U.S. made $66,397 in salary but received another $34,090 in benefits (such as health insurance, paid leave, and pensions) for a total compensation of $100,487.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Elite Heaven or Real Hell on Earth? Anytime ideology and dogma trump merit, logic, and safety, the result is predictably dangerous. America needs to recalibrate its priorities to protect the lives and aspirations of its citizens. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on March 14th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/14/elite-heaven-or-real-hell-on-earth/

he horrific murder of Laken Riley by a repeated felony offender and illegal alien Jose Ibarra, 26, a Venezuelan citizen, was preventable—had federal immigration laws simply been enforced by the Biden administration.

When called out in his recent State of the Union address, President Biden referenced the deceased Ms. Riley. But Biden misidentified her as “Lincoln Riley”—the USC football coach!

Biden only accurately noted that she “was killed by an “illegal.””

True—but almost immediately the left was infuriated over Biden’s accurate use of the supposedly insensitive “illegal” for the murderer Ibarra.

Biden soon apologized for correctly identifying her killer as an illegal alien—but not for misidentifying the victim.

He left the callous impression that he was more upset about offending his open-borders base than about the savage beating of a young 22-year-old American nursing student.

Biden’s woke open-borders agenda supersedes any worry over the subsequent mounting number of Americans who have fallen victim to foreign gangs and criminals. He seems oblivious to the nearly 100,000 Americans who die from fentanyl imported across open borders.

The same idea of abstract humanity juxtaposed with concrete callousness towards humans characterizes much of the current leftist agenda.

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Rutgers University Professors Bash ‘Privileged’ Jews A webinar of hate. Andrew Harrod

Posted By on March 14th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/rutgers-university-professors-bash-privileged-jews/

American Jews enjoy and suffer from, respectively, “white privileging and white fragility,” stated Sahar Aziz, director of Rutgers University Center for Security, Race, and Rights (CSRR), during its February 21 webinar. While Jews in America and beyond face a global surge in antisemitism following Hamas’ brutal October 7, 2023, attack upon Israel, CSRR and its factually-challenged director have once again displayed anti-Jewish, jihadist apologetics.

Aziz spoke with her likeminded colleague, Noura Erakat, Rutgers University associate professor of Africana studies, in a webinar titled after her 2019 book, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. She concurred with Aziz, stating that Jews have effectively “become white in the United States,” like groups such as Irish Americans, who have entered mainstream society following past prejudice. American Jews should recognize that they “are privileged vis-à-vis their Muslim, their Palestinian, their Arab counterparts and colleagues,” Aziz said of groups increasingly notable for their hatred of Jews and Israel.

“With privilege comes responsibility and not the abuse of that privilege to oppress other people,” Aziz lectured supposedly powerful, oppressive Jews while Muslims worldwide have celebrated jihadists such as Hamas. She contrasted in America “how easily vilified and dehumanized the Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab communities” are while Jewish “voices are centered, their experiences are centered.” “White fragility is all about feelings of the white privileged group and to hell with the bodily autonomy, the liberty, the life, the dignity, and the physical safety of black bodies,” she said without showing concern for Jewish bodies.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Biden’s Respect for the Replacement Killers He won’t treat any illegal with disrespect – even the murderers. by Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on March 14th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/bidens-respect-for-the-replacement-killers/

“I’m not going to treat any, any, any of these people with disrespect. Look, they built the country. The reason our economy is growing.”

That was Joe Biden in a recent interview with MSNBC. One of the people he wasn’t going to disrespect was Antonio Ibarra, the Venezuelan national charged with murdering University of Georgia student Laken Riley, misnamed as “Lincoln Riley.”  Biden failed to name or condemn Ibarra, and apologized for calling him an illegal, contending that “undocumented” was the proper term. None of this should come as a surprise.

“You know, 11 million people live in the shadows. I believe they’re already American citizens,” said vice president Biden in 2014. According to Delaware Democrat, all the 11 million wanted was a chance to contribute, so “let people vote.” Biden is not going to disrespect “any any any” of those he has brought in, even the criminals, because they add to his imported electorate. The illegals are replacements for the legitimate citizens Biden hates, as he confirmed in his September 1, 2022 speech. So when criminal illegals murder Americans, the Delaware Democrat looks the other way.

In 2014, false-documented Mexican national Luis Bracamontes murdered Sacramento deputies officers Danny Oliver and Michael Davis. During his trial, Bracamontes said he wished he killed more cops, and yelled “black lives don’t matter,” at Danny Oliver’s wife, at Anthony Holmes, whom he shot five times, and at members of the jury. Vice president Biden never mentioned the case, not even to denounce “gun violence.”

In late 2018, a criminal illegal calling himself Paulo Virgen Mendoza shot dead Newman, California, police officer Ronil “Ron” Singh, a legal immigrant who came to the United States to work in law enforcement. Seven other illegals aided the killer’s flight before the fugitive murderer was apprehended. Joe Biden ignored the case. He is not going to disrespect “any any any” member of his imported electorate, even the criminals who murder innocent Americans.

FOREIGN POLICY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Munich Redux Why, exactly, would the Mullahs change their behavior? by Bruce Thornton

Posted By on March 14th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/munich-redux/

Lost in the spectacle of the high decibel State of the Union speech, and the quadrennial carnival of a presidential election, there was some dangerous news last week that was mostly ignored. Iran, for 46 years a sworn enemy of the U.S. whose citizens it has murdered and interests thwarted with impunity, now possesses all the components for quickly assembling several nuclear bombs.

This development could mark the return of the 1939 diplomatic disaster of England’s and France’s abandonment of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany, which lit the fuse of the most destructive war in history.

Often considered a mere foreign policy cliché for feckless diplomacy, Munich’s lessons are much more complex, widespread, and consequential than a parable about “a timorous, bumbling, and naïve old gentleman, waving an umbrella as a signal of cringing subservience to a bully,” as historian Telford Taylor described the caricature of England’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Rather, Munich is the premier historical paradigm for illusory ideals about foreign policy and diplomatic engagement that rationalize ideological prejudices, partisan interests, and received institutional wisdom––in our times, all at the cost of the exorbitant risk of a global conflict with nuclear-armed autocratic enemies.

And that threat has just intensified with the news about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The Wall Street Journal last week reported “troubling news” from Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency: “The Agency has lost continuity of knowledge in relation to [Iran’s] production and inventory of centrifuges, rotors and bellows, heavy water and uranium ore concentrate.”

Moreover, the Journal continues, the “Institute for Science and International Security, which has followed Iran’s program for years, says Iran can enrich enough uranium for 13 nuclear weapons, seven in the first month of a breakout. ‘Iran is able to produce more weapon-grade uranium (WGU) and at a faster rate since the IAEA’s last report in November 2023,’ it finds.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

TikTok: China’s Instrument of War by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on March 14th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20484/tiktok-china-war

If you have TikTok on a device, you are getting what the Communist Party of China (CCP) wants you to see. The Chinese regime has used its algorithm to disseminate pro-Hamas disinformation, Russian narratives about the Ukraine war, and other pro-CCP propaganda. The Party also uses the app to try to destroy America’s young, by flooding them with messages promoting illegal drug use, self-harm, and even suicide.

The TikTok bill… does not violate the First Amendment…. Congress is not trying to regulate what appears on the app…. it does not regulate the content of what is posted.

China’s Communist Party this month mobilized TikTok’s American users, with deceptive messages, to contact their elected representatives to block the House legislation. Users did so in droves. Imagine if TikTok, in different circumstances, were to push China’s other political messages, such as urging the abandonment of, say, Taiwan.

China has even weaponized TikTok, turning it into an instrument of war. The CCP wages what it calls “unrestricted warfare” against America.

The Communist Party of China has no constitutional right to attack America.

Yesterday, March 13, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” by a vote of 352 to 65, with one member voting present.

It was a victory for the United States.

The bill, H.R. 7521, requires the “qualified divestiture” — as determined by the president — of any company controlled by a foreign adversary, within 180 days. The proposed act specifically mentions TikTok, a wildly popular video-sharing app, and its Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd. as such companies.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

NATO’s ‘Welfare’ States: Treating the U.S. As ‘Room Service’ by Pete Hoekstra

Posted By on March 14th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20485/nato-welfare-states

The NATO alliance today, however, more closely resembles an international welfare program than a true alliance, with most countries failing to meet their defense commitments and instead relying on the generosity of the United States.

As the eminent journalist Amir Taheri put it: “others… treat the US as a ‘room service’ reachable by pressing a button…”

All of America’s leaders also need to embrace the reality that if our allies are unwilling to do more to keep the world safe and secure, we may need to reassess the relationship we have with them, and cease being “room service.” Alliances are only alliances when the costs and benefits run both ways. Anything less, especially from the richest countries in Europe, is not only disrespectful, but an unacceptable breach of contract.

Last month, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg conceded what former US President Donald Trump has been warning about for nearly a decade: America’s allies are not paying their fair share — as they had agreed — for national defense. After four years in which Trump held our NATO allies accountable for funding their share of NATO’s collective defense, US President Joe Biden has once again allowed many of them to pass significant burdens of NATO spending on to American taxpayers – threatening the security of the NATO alliance in the process.

The very nature of alliances is that they are a two-way street. Americans should rightly expect to realize benefits from U.S. participation in NATO, just as the citizens of other NATO nations can expect to benefit from their country’s relationship with the United States.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

In Prosecuting Trump, Democrats Have Exonerated Him Their actions now are elevating the former president. J.T. Young

Posted By on March 14th, 2024

https://spectator.org/in-prosecuting-trump-democrats-have-exonerated-him/

Despite their best efforts, have Democrats begun an inexorable elevation of former President Donald Trump? For the better part of a decade, Democrats and the Left have thrown everything they could think of against the man they live to loathe. In the process, they have created a quasi-caricature that appears to be decreasingly believable to an increasing proportion of Americans. The question is whether these attacks have come full circle, accomplishing what Democrats most sought to avoid. Have they vilified Trump to victimhood and prosecuted him back into the presidency?

Since Trump burst on the political scene in 2016, Democrats and the Left have busted their guts laughing at him. When that didn’t work and he won, they burst all boundaries going after him. Their efforts have ranged from slights to a Russian dossier to two impeachments. Even after Trump left office, they refused to stop. Unquestionably, these efforts have had an effect — and equally unquestionably, Trump has given ample fodder to use against him: the result being that with Trump poised to win an unprecedented third successive major party presidential nomination (a feat last accomplished by Franklin D. Roosevelt 84 years ago), he has become a highly polarizing figure.

Yet amid their attacks, Democrats and the Left must confront a nagging reality. Trump is not simply continuing to win political contests; his popularity is growing. In 2016, Trump won the presidency with 45.9 percent of the popular vote. In 2020, he lost the presidency with 46.9 percent of the popular vote. Today, in the RealClearPolitics average of national polling, he stands at 47.4 percent in a two-way contest with President Joe Biden. The gains are not dramatic, but neither can they be ignored. For a politician so relentlessly attacked — in the establishment media, throughout entertainment, and across America’s elite — this is nothing short of astounding.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Voters See Double Standard In Trump Charges For Mishandling Classified Documents: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

Posted By on March 14th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/03/13/voters-see-double-standard-in-trump-charges-for-mishandling-classified-documents-ii-tipp-poll/

Special Counsel Robert Hur found that President Joe Biden for decades broke laws by hoarding classified records, but refused to bring charges against him. Yet, former President Donald Trump faces charges for keeping classified items at his Mar-a-Lago home. The I&I/TIPP Poll asked voters: Is this a double standard? Their answer? “Yes.”

To start with, I&I/TIPP asked the poll’s 1,419 respondents whether they were following the Hur investigation “very closely,” “somewhat closely,” “not very closely,” “not at all closely,” and “not sure.”

Only those responding with the first two answers, “very closely” or “somewhat closely,” were counted. That totaled 568 people, or roughly 40% of all those who took the poll.

From there, the poll was broken into multiple questions. The first:

“Special Counsel Robert Hur concluded that no charges should be brought against President Biden for mishandling classified documents, citing his well-meaning nature and failing memory. Considering these factors, do you agree or disagree that Hur’s decision not to bring charges against President Biden was lenient?”