BOOKS, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Joshua Lawson 8 Back-to-School Books To Protect Students Against Leftist Brainwashing

Posted By on August 13th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/13/8-back-school-books-protect-students-leftist-brainwashing/

As high school and college students prepare to head back to school, they’re set to enter a lion’s den of anti-American, leftist indoctrination. Here are eight books conservative students need to balance the fight.

Leftist bias in our education system has grown to alarming proportions. According to a large 2017 study of college professors, registered Democrats now outnumber registered Republicans by a margin of 10 to 1. Of the top 61 liberal arts colleges surveyed in the study, 39 percent had no Republicans on staff. Zero.

Although it often begins as early as preschool, leftist indoctrination finally becomes very apparent by high school and happens right under our noses. For those who don’t have a good alternative to a public high school or whose field necessitates a university degree, the situation may seem hopeless.

Learning more information from robust sources, however, can raise students’ chances of not getting sucked into false portrayals of American history, economics, and more. So, whether you’re a student heading back into hostile territory, or a parent or friend worried about the bias in our schools and looking for a send-off gift or two, here are eight books conservatives should have in their arsenal.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Intemperate Spirits Economic Adaptation during Prohibition Author: Alice Louise Kassens

Posted By on August 13th, 2019

https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030253271

Using the basic economic principle of making decisions using a cost-benefit framework—and how changes in one or the other can result in a different decision—this book uncovers how various groups responded to incentives provided by the Prohibition legislation.

Using this calculus, it is clear that even criminals are rational characters, responding to incentives and opportunities provided by the 18thAmendment and the Volstead Act. 

The book begins with a broad look at the adaptations of the law’s targets: the wine, beer, and liquor industries.  It then turns to specific people (Violators, Line Tip-Toers, Enablers, and Hypocrites), sharing their stories of economic adaptation to bring economic lessons to life.  Due to its structure, the book can be read in parts or as a whole and is suitable for short classroom reading assignments or individual pleasure reading. 

Alice Louise Kassens is the John S. Shannon Professor of Economics at Roanoke College, USA. She is a Senior Analyst with the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research, a Past-President of the Virginia Association of Economists, and a member of the Governor of Virginia’s Joint Advisory Board of Economists. She produces the quarterly reports on consumer sentiment, inflation expectations, and real estate indexes for Virginia and is the founder and director of the Center for Economic Freedom.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestine is a Geographical Area, Not a Nationality Eli Hertz

Posted By on August 13th, 2019

http://www.mythsandfacts.org/

Palestine is a name coined by the Romans around 135 CE from the name of a seagoing Aegean people who settled on the coast of Canaan in antiquity – the Philistines. The name was chosen to replace Judea, as a sign that Jewish sovereignty had been eradicated following the Jewish Revolts against Rome. 

 

In the course of time, the Latin name Philistia was further bastardized into Palistina or Palestine. During the next 2,000 years Palestine was never an independent state belonging to any people, nor did a Palestinian people distinct from other Arabs appear during 1,300 years of Muslim hegemony in Palestine under Arab and Ottoman rule. During that rule, local Arabs were actually considered part of, and subject to, the authority of Greater Syria (Suriyya al-Kubra).

Historically, before the Arabs fabricated the concept of Palestinian peoplehood as an exclusively Arab phenomenon, no such group existed. This is substantiated in countless official British Mandate-vintage documents that speak of the Jews and the Arabs of Palestine – not Jews and Palestinians.

 

In fact, before local Jews began calling themselves Israelis in 1948 (when the name “Israel” was chosen for the newly-established Jewish State), the term “Palestine” applied almost exclusively to Jews and the institutions founded by new Jewish immigrants in the first half of the 20th century, before the state’s independence. 

 

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Palestinian war of attrition A perspective on the Israel-Arab-Palestinian conflict By Moshe Dann

Posted By on August 13th, 2019

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-Palestinian-war-of-attrition-598436

Before treating the symptoms of a disease, one must understand what caused it.

Writing in The Jerusalem Post on July 12, in an article titled “Lessons from Israel’s most forgotten war,” Amotz Asa-El offers an insightful explanation.

“Wars of attrition are not decided by their parties’ balance of troops, arms or resources, but by their balance of spirit,” the article said. “The winner will not be the one left with more land, population or treasure, but the one whose spirit will last longer.”

This explains why Arabs and Palestinians continue to reject Israel’s legitimacy, regardless of the negative consequences and contrary to attempts to “make a deal” to resolve the conflict. The conflict itself defines their raison d’etre, their attempts to destroy Zionism and the State of Israel.

Seen as a “Palestinian war of attrition,” therefore, the conflict is not simply over land or people; it’s about essence – and spirit. For Arabs and Palestinians, any concession is an admission of defeat, humiliation and surrender. It means that all of their sacrifices were in vain, and that the ideal of being a “martyr” (shahid) was false. It means that the Palestinian narrative – “Free Palestine” and “End the occupation” – is a fraud, and that all the resources that were poured into supporting that ideology by the international community – e.g. UNRWA and the “two-state-solution” – were a waste.

BOOKS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Book Review: Shadow Strike by Yaakov Katz By Edwin Black

Posted By on August 13th, 2019

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/shadow-strike-yaakov-katz/

Jerusalem Post editor Yaakov Katz probably had no way of knowing that this would be the perfect time to release a book detailing Israel’s mission to wipe out Syrian nuclear power. Or did he?

The world’s attention is once again riveted to the nuclear threat from Iran, generating kaleidoscopic theories about a potential military strike to disable Tehran’s program. Yaakov Katz’s case study of the run-up to and implementation of the Jewish state’s clandestine destruction in 2007 of Syria’s nuclear program, Shadow Strike – Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power (St. Martin’s Press), is now a must-read.

Katz flexes both his editorial sinews and government connections (he is a former senior policy advisor) to deliver a suspenseful chronicle, bolstered by a precise, rapid-fire delivery and continuous in-the-room details. This volume will certainly be consulted time and time again by military theorists and diplomatic observers who wonder how a mission like this might be accomplished – in case it needs to be done again.

From the “you are there” opening scene, which details Mossad Chief Meir Dagan’s White House presentation on the Syrian threat, the reader is put on notice to pay close attention. Never failing to paint in the details, Katz skillfully surrounds each personality in the story with a rich biography and a functioning profile within the story’s time frame.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Jeffrey Epstein: Let The Conspiracy Theories Begin! Francis Menton

Posted By on August 13th, 2019

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=9887e5bea6

I’m old enough to have been around when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, on November 22, 1963. The suspected assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was caught by Dallas police within about an hour after the shooting. They initially put him in a lock-up at Dallas police headquarters, where Oswald instantly became the highest-profile prisoner in the country. Just two days later, on November 24, the police undertook to transfer Oswald from the police headquarters to the county jail. They allowed a group of reporters into the basement of the police headquarters to observe as they escorted Oswald out to a waiting armored car to take him to the jail. Suddenly, with TV cameras rolling, a guy named Jack Ruby emerged from the group of reporters and shot Oswald dead at point blank range. By the end of the day, pretty much everybody in the country (myself included) had seen the clip of the shooting.

Who was this Ruby? He owned a couple of nightclubs in Dallas, but had a highly sketchy background that included alleged mob ties and involvement in drug dealing. No direct links between him and Oswald were ever revealed. His motive for killing Oswald? Excellent question.

You can easily understand why there has been an endless profusion of alternatives to the official “lone gunman” theory of the Kennedy assassination. If Oswald had been working with or backed by some powerful interests, they would clearly want him disposed of as soon as possible once he was arrested. Now Oswald had been silenced before ever saying a word. Ruby had no obvious personal motive for the shooting, and was just the kind of guy who might be carrying out a “hit.” And the Ruby hit doesn’t gibe very well with the “lone gunman” hypothesis of the Kennedy assassination. Thus we have had half a century of theories — officially going by the name “conspiracy theories” — as to who might have been working with Oswald to kill Kennedy, and why. Multiple official inquiries, most notably the Warren Commission, have tried to put these speculations to rest, but have never fully succeeded.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

JED BABBIN ON BOYCOTT, DIVEST, AND SANCTIONS MOVEMENT AGAINST ISRAEL

Posted By on August 13th, 2019

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/12/bds-war-against-israel/

In July, when Rep. Ilhan Omar unveiled her plan to visit Israel, she also introduced a resolution that supported the so-called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that has, as its first goal, to delegitimize Israel.

Later that month, the House voted 398-17 to oppose the BDS and other efforts to delegitimize Israel. Among the 17 votes opposing condemnation of BDS were three members of “the Squad,” Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. The latter two are the most anti-Israel and anti-Semitic members of Congress.

Since it was founded, the BDS movement hadn’t previously attracted much attention here. Created in 2005 by Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti, BDS demands that every nation and business boycott Israel, divest all Israeli assets and impose economic sanctions on the Jewish state. Mr. Barghouti’s book, “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: The Struggle for Palestinian Rights,” argues falsely that Israel is a fascist, racist and apartheid state and a menace to international peace.

The BDS movement should have as its motto a quote from Mao Zedong — “A lie repeated a hundred times becomes the truth.” 

Mr. Barghouti, the principal spokesman for BDS, often states that the movement’s principal demand is for Israel to give back the land it seized during the 1967 War, including Jerusalem and the West Bank. BDS supporters in Hollywood, the media and academia have based their support on that point alone. 

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Can Palestinians in Gaza Revolt Against Hamas? by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on August 13th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14713/palestinians-gaza-hamas-revolt

“Fifteen years ago, Hamas raised the slogan of ‘Islam is the solution’…. Now, there is rampant corruption [under Hamas]. The corruption is in all institutions, including the judiciary and the police. Today, the corruption is organized and managed by Hamas. The corruption is at the top of the pyramid. It is the corruption of politics, the corruption in the administration, the corruption in employment, the corruption in relief aid.” — Abu Safiyeh, a representative of the PLO’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the Gaza Strip, in a Facebook post that caused his arrest.

The voices emerging from the Gaza Strip are anguished and reflect the Palestinians’ growing sense of disillusionment with Hamas. These voices, however, are still small in numbers. Hamas’s brutal methods of suppression and torture have deterred a large number of Palestinians from speaking out. These voices will grow only if the international community heeds them and calls out Hamas for its brutal crackdown on Palestinians.

Hamas is carrying out its current crackdown against Palestinian activists because it knows full well that the world will probably not utter a word. Why would it? Bashing Israel is much more rewarding than identifying Palestinian leaders as the champion violators of human rights that they are.

Hamas leaders are scared. Of what? That Palestinians will return to the streets of the Gaza Strip to demand that their leaders govern rather than tyrannize. The living conditions of Palestinians in Gaza have gone from abysmal to worse.

That is why the leaders of Hamas recently ordered their security forces to detain several Palestinian activists for allegedly planning another wave of protests similar to those that swept the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

Last March, Hamas security forces used excessive force to break up demonstrations held in various parts of the Gaza Strip under the banner “We Want to Live!”

The demonstrations were organized by Palestinians to protest the longstanding economic crisis, including soaring unemployment and increased taxes imposed by Hamas on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Dozens of Palestinians were injured and arrested during the demonstrations, including human rights activists and journalists.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Russia Moves in on Sudan by Debalina Ghoshal

Posted By on August 13th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14714/russia-sudan

Moscow has reportedly signed a “draft military agreement” with Sudan, “to facilitate entry of Russian and Sudanese warships to the ports of the two nations.” According to Maj. Gen. Al-Hadi Adam Musa, head of Sudan’s parliamentary subcommittee on Defense, Security and Public Order, “This deal will pave the way for more agreements and greater cooperation… possibly a Russian base on the Red Sea.”

Russia also “is looking at establishing a logistics base in Eritrea” and has reached a “draft agreement with Egypt for Russian warplanes to use Egyptian military bases.”

It is crucial for the West not only to keep a close watch on Moscow’s moves in Sudan, but to prevent Russia from increasing its influence in the region.

In January, three months before the April 11 military coup in Sudan that ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir after 30 years of iron-fisted rule, Moscow reportedly signed a “draft military agreement” with Sudan, “to facilitate entry of Russian and Sudanese warships to the ports of the two nations.” According to Maj. Gen. Al-Hadi Adam Musa, head of Sudan’s parliamentary subcommittee on Defense, Security and Public Order, “This deal will pave the way for more agreements and greater cooperation… possibly a Russian base on the Red Sea.”

This draft agreement followed other defense discussions between Russian President Vladimir Putin and al-Bashir. According to a recent report in The Arab Weekly:

“Al-Bashir has been talking with Russian President Vladimir Putin about a possible Russian military presence in Sudan since the pair met in November 2017. During their meeting, al-Bashir offered to construct an airbase for Russia on the Red Sea coast and to re-equip the Sudanese Army with Russian weapons, including SU-30 fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles…

More extraordinarily, during an interview with RIA Novosti, al-Bashir requested that Putin protect him from ‘US aggression,’ which intended to divide Sudan into five countries.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Gore Says His Global Warming Predictions Have Come True? Can He Prove It? J. Frank Bullitt

Posted By on August 13th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/08/12/gore

When asked Sunday about his 2006 prediction that we would reach the point of no return in 10 years if we didn’t cut human greenhouse gas emissions, climate alarmist in chief Al Gore implied that his forecast was exactly right.

“Some changes unfortunately have already been locked in place,” he told ABC’s Jonathan Karl.

“Sea level increases are going to continue no matter what we do now. But, we can prevent much larger sea level increases. Much more rapid increases in temperature. The heat wave was in Europe. Now it’s in Arctic. We’re seeing huge melting of the ice there. So, the warnings of the scientists 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, unfortunately were accurate.”

Despite all this gloom, he’s found “good news” in the Democratic presidential field, in which “virtually all of the candidates are agreed that this is either the top issue or one of the top two issues.”

So what has Gore been predicting for the planet? In his horror movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” he claimed:

Sea levels could rise as much as 20 feet. He didn’t provide a timeline, which was shrewd on his part. But even if he had said 20 inches, over 20 years, he’d still have been wrong. Sea level has been growing for about 10,000 years, and, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, continues to rise about one-eighth of an inch per year.

Storms are going to grow stronger. There’s no evidence they are stronger nor more frequent.

Mt. Kilimanjaro was losing its snow cap due to global warming. By April 2018, the mountain glaciers were taking their greatest snowfall in years. Two months later, Kilimanjaro was “covered by snow” for “an unusually long stint. But it’s possible that all the snow and ice will be gone soon. Kilimanjaro is a stratovolcano, with a dormant cone that could erupt.