POLITICS Comments turned off

Kamala Harris is as cringey and vapid as ever Her rambling, Trump-bashing speech exposed a Democratic Party in disarray. Jenny Holland

Posted By on May 5th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/05/04/kamala-harris-is-as-cringey-and-vapid-as-ever/

Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ favourite wine aunt, has made a surprise return to the spotlight. In a speech to an audience of Democrats last week, in her hometown of San Francisco, she attacked President Trump on what was his 100th day in office.

Judging by the speech, it seems Harris has learned nothing from her epic defeat to Trump in last year’s presidential race. She seemed as incapable as ever of offering a cogent, unifying message for a party that is now in disarray.

Instead, she went heavy on meaningless platitudes – ‘the one power that must not fail’, she said, before a long dramatic pause, ‘is the voice of the people’. And she continued to indulge progressives’ fantasy that they are the good guys, the people who fight for truth, justice and the American way. In truth, we all know they are the lunatics who support things like tax-payer-funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal migrants.

None of this should be a surprise. Harris perfectly embodies the Democratic Party’s derangement, and its abandonment of the American working and lower-middle classes. She is a deeply unserious figure incapable of offering much beyond the ‘progressive’ pieties of the day.

The highlight of her otherwise banal speech was a bizarre ramble about how elephants – ironically, the symbol of the Republican Party – stick together and protect their own. Other than that, Harris dutifully spewed predictable right-on criticisms of the first 100 days of the Trump administration. She slammed the tariff policy, the deportations of illegal migrants and gang members, and the showdowns with Ivy League universities.

If you live in a blue bubble, which her audience almost certainly does, you would no doubt agree with her dystopian portrait of life under Trump. But if you live in the reality-based community, which many Americans clearly do, you would be far more understanding of what the new president is trying to do.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Education Battles Get National Attention SCOTUS will soon rule on cases involving sex and religion in the nation’s schools. Larry Sand

Posted By on May 5th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/education-battles-get-national-attention/

Two critical education issues have reached the U.S. Supreme Court. One involves Montgomery County Public Schools, one of the nation’s largest school districts. A group of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim parents is arguing that the Maryland school district violated their First Amendment right to religious freedom when it refused to allow them to opt their children out of LGBTQ-themed lessons.

The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, illustrates the growing tension between sex-obsessed schools and the rights of religious parents, who are  challenging the Montgomery County School Board’s decision in 2022 to approve more than 22 LGBTQ+ books for classroom use, including works like “Pride Puppy,” “Intersection Allies,” and “What Are Your Words.”

According to court documents, one of the books, Pride Puppy, is a “picture book directed to three and four-year-olds that describes a Pride parade and what a child might find there.” The book invites students to search for various images, including “underwear, leather, lip ring, drag king, and drag queen.”

Other books adopted by the Montgomery County School Board promote pride parades and gender transitioning while advocating for a “child-knows-best” approach to social transitioning. The books tell students that their decision to transition to another gender doesn’t have to “make sense,” and unbelievably, that physicians in the delivery room guess newborn babies’ sexual identity.

Montgomery County argues that if families choose to attend public schools, they “are not cognizably coerced by their children’s exposure there to religiously objectionable ideas.” If the First Amendment gives parents a right to pick and choose from the curriculum, the county says there’s “no discernible limit,” and it would work the same in science or history classes. Public schools “simply cannot accommodate” these exceptions.

Ultimately, the case is really about parental rights, as it also applies to nonreligious parents. As Melissa Moschella, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame, writes, “When I told my father, who is secular and a staunch Democrat, about this case, he said that you don’t have to be religious to object to telling 3-year-olds that doctors only ‘guess’ a baby’s sex at birth or giving them a ‘Pride Puppy’ storybook instructing them to search for images of things they would find at a pride parade, such as a drag queen, leather and an intersex flag. He thinks that parents having the right to opt their children out of such indoctrination is just common sense.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Trump Administration Wants Colleges to Reveal Foreign Donors And what’s wrong with that? by Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on May 5th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trump-administration-wants-colleges-to-reveal-foreign-donors/

The Trump administration is not letting up in its determination to make American colleges and universities shape up and fly right. First, it has asked the universities to supply the administration with information on what they have been doing to record, punish, and prevent antisemitic acts on their campuses. Second, the administration has asked them to furnish the government with information on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs that are enforced at the schools, so that their observance of the law, or failure to do so — the law as set out in the 2023 Supreme Court decision that struck down Affirmative Action programs for college admissions — can be judged. And now the Trump administration wants colleges and universities to reveal what foreign money they have accepted, with particular attention to moneys coming from China and Qatar, two countries that do not share our values, and are, indeed, hostile to us.

More on this request for more information on foreign “influencers” of American universities can be found here: “Trump order will prevent Qatari, Chinese influence at schools, ed. sec. says,” by Michael Starr, Jerusalem Post, April 24, 2025:

A Wednesday executive order from US President Donald Trump will require transparency in foreign university funding, with Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon emphasizing that the order would address the problem of Chinese and Qatari influence in American academic institutions.

Trump’s order called for McMahon to take all appropriate action to enforce preexisting laws on foreign funding to universities and to demand the disclosure of more details about the donations, their sources, and purposes.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Antisemitism: The Modern Forces Fueling an Ancient Scourge By David Swindle

Posted By on May 5th, 2025

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/04/29/antisemitism_the_modern_forces_fueling_an_ancient_scourge_1106612.html

The Anti-Defamation League recently asked people in 103 countries whether they agreed with 11 antisemitic statements including: “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars,” “Jews have a lot of irritating faults,” “Jews have too much control over the media,” and “Jews’ loyalty is only to Israel.” 

The ADL Global 100 survey for 2024 classified almost half of respondents as “possessing antisemitic attitudes” because they agreed with at least six of the 11 statements.

Of course, an average that high means that in some places, the percentage stands considerably higher: 92% in Saudi Arabia, 62% in Russia, 58% in China, and the highest level, at 97%, in the West Bank and Gaza. 

Another ADL survey polled 4,143 Americans in January 2024, finding that 24% embraced at least six antisemitic sentiments..

Not surprisingly, some of these findings are connected to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s ongoing military response. A January report from the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel found a 340% increase in total antisemitic incidents at a global level in 2024 compared to 2022. This included a 562% rise in Canada, 450% in the United Kingdom, 350% in France, and 288% in the United States.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

China underestimates Trump and his trade war — America is ready for battle Liz Peek

Posted By on May 5th, 2025

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5277881-trump-china-tariffs/

President Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, are engaged in a monumental struggle over tariffs and trade — will Barbie determine the outcome?  

Xi is betting that Americans are too spoiled to abandon the cheap imported goods — like the iconic Barbie doll — that have filled the shelves of Walmart and Costco for decades. Trump is betting that China’s economy will swoon under the burden of tariffs and that U.S. companies will prove more agile than expected in shifting output to other countries. 

Trump acknowledged the risk of his tariff war at a recent town hall. “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally.”  

Though almost 80 percent of the toys sold in the U.S. are made in China, some makers, like Barbie producer Mattel, have been quietly moving production out of China. Mattel said earlier this year that only 40 percent of its products will be made in China this year, down from 50 percent last year. And Mattel is not alone.

Nonetheless, if tariffs on Chinese goods remain at 145 percent, many toy prices will almost certainly head higher. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Republican Lawmakers Fiddle As Economy Starts To Burn

Posted By on May 5th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/05/05/republican-lawmakers-fiddle-as-economy-starts-to-burn/

In the time that President Donald Trump has issued more than 140 executive orders, what has Congress been doing?

Anyone?… Anyone?

Next to nothing. So far, it has managed to send just five bills to Trump’s desk for signature, a slower pace than any Congress in modern times.

Five. And none of them delivered on Trump’s agenda.

One was the non-controversial Laken Riley Act, which passed by large margins in both chambers.

Another was a continuing resolution to keep the government from shutting down, which was needed only because Congress failed to do its job of passing appropriations bills, like it’s supposed to.

The other three were bills blocking last-minute Biden regulations from going into effect, one of which would have required oil and natural gas producers to map the ocean floor in search of shipwrecks before they start drilling. Not exactly “Golden Age” stuff.

But that big, beautiful bill that Trump has been calling for? Well, here’s now NBC News described it last week:

Republicans are already hitting some snags as they begin the work of crafting a bill for President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda. And they haven’t even made some of their hardest decisions yet.

Begin the work? It’s May, and they are just beginning the work of crafting this bill? And Republicans in the House say getting a reconciliation bill to the Senate is unlikely to happen before Memorial Day?

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Commons foreign affairs hanging tribunal Parliament should be investigating its own deafness to facts about Israel Melanie Phillips

Posted By on May 5th, 2025

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-commons-foreign-affairs-hanging

A recent hearing of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee demonstrated that Israel’s defenders and its critics appear to inhabit entirely different planets.

The committee, which was taking evidence on “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, had invited two of Israel’s doughtiest champions, the lawyer Natasha Hausdorff and the writer Jonathan Sacerdoti, to address it.

For the committee’s chair, the Labour MP Emily Thornberry, this appeared to be not so much a fact-finding exercise as a tribunal in which Hausdorff and Sacerdoti were in the dock.

Thornberry asked Sacerdoti: “How do you see ideally Gaza in ten years’ time? What would be a good outcome?” Sacerdoti replied that this would be a de-radicalised Gaza whose inhabitants were no longer committed to genocidal acts.

But as Thornberry’s subsequent challenges to him demonstrated, the only good outcome for her seemed to be a Palestinian state.

When it was Hausdorff’s turn, sparks really flew. “What’s the optimistic future for a Palestinian mother in Gaza, what’s the best thing that could happen?” asked Thornberry.

In any moral universe, the best thing that could happen to such a mother would be for her to stop telling her children that their duty was to murder Jews and martyr themselves in the process, as so many Palestinian Arab women boast of doing.

MEDIA Comments turned off

BBC to investigate Arabic channel over Gaza coverage By David Isaac

Posted By on May 5th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/bbc-to-investigate-arabic-channel-over-gaza-coverage/

Samir Shah, chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), told Times Radio on May 3 that the broadcaster is investigating anti-Israel bias in its coverage of the Gaza War and will commission an independent investigation of BBC Arabic.

BBC Arabic broadcasts 24 hours a day from London and Cairo to the Middle East via TV, radio and internet.

In conversation with Times Radio host Rod Liddle, Shah, who was appointed BBC chairman in March 2024, said, “I think this whole business of how we’ve covered Israel-Gaza is a proper thing to examine thoroughly, which is why we’re … going to get hold of an independent figure to look at our corporation.”

Liddle said: “You’re still reporting from Israel with a whole bunch of BBC Arabic correspondents, some … who have been found to say the most appalling things about Jewish people, such as, ‘We’re going to burn them until none are left.’ You know, isn’t it time to stop using them?”

Liddle was referring to comments by Samer Elzaenen, a regular contributor to BBC Arabic, who posted antisemitic and anti-Israel comment since 2011, The Telegraph reported.

In one post he wrote: “My message to the Zionist Jews: We are going to take our land back, we love death for Allah’s sake the same way you love life. We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.”

Elzaenen is one of several BBC Arabic contributors who have been discovered to have posted antisemitic content.

Ahmed Alagha, who has reported for the British public broadcaster since early 2023, described the Israeli army as “the embodiment of filth” and referred to Jews as “the devils of the hypocrites,” according to a Telegraph report last month.

“The Arabic service, we are looking at it. We’ve been examining it,” said Shah.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on May 4th, 2025

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

There is a cliché often applied to individuals who are held responsible for the circumstances or harm they experienced, rather than the actions or responsibility of others. Israel’s detractors are a prime example. In spite of the chilling and murderous rhetoric and action of its enemies, Israel is libeled and blamed. Michael Ordman details how, in spite of war, Israel’s researchers work 24/7 to develop technologies that bring hope and succor to billions of global citizens. Read it all.rsk

 

See the remarkable resilience of war-wounded Israelis.

Israeli fraud detection techniques exposed the proteins responsible for many diseases.

Israeli neonatologists are saving the lives of babies in Ghana.

Israel is the first country to provide an AI tutor to every 16-year-old student.

An Israeli physical security system will be protecting the Netherlands.

Israelis won multiple gold medals in four different sports.

Israelis celebrated Independence Day despite massive (arson) fires.

 

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
Wounded doctor returns to work. Seven months after being severely injured in a Gaza helicopter crash and undergoing intense rehab, senior pediatrician Dr. Eyal Hayman has returned to work at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/406627             https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/396323
 
After 16 years, wounded soldier returns to IDF.  Aharon Karov, the most critically-injured soldier in Operation Cast Lead 16 years ago, has re-enlisted in the IDF as part of a team creating the Disabled Soldiers Department. Following Oct 7 2023 he helped create the “Continuing Life” initiative, to support the injured.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/407428
 
Overcoming the odds at his wedding. Ziv, a 30-year-old Israeli engineer, overcame a Hezbollah missile attack that cost him his arm and spinal cord damage, defying odds to walk down the aisle and marry his bride Nitzan after intensive rehab.
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-severely-wounded-idf-soldier-beats-the-odds-and-walks-down-the-aisle/
 
“Operation Hug” resumes. Operation Hug (see here previously) has restarted thanks to Nefesh b’Nefesh, JNF-USA and Friends of the IDF. It brings to Israel parents of lone IDF soldiers, to be reunited with their loved ones. The initiative aims to offer soldiers the unmatched strength and comfort of a long-awaited embrace.
https://www.jns.org/operation-hug-resumes-reuniting-lone-soldiers-with-their-parents/  https://hug.nbn.org.il/
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-851890
 
Young resilience awards. 26 children and teens, age 6 – 18) have received “Resilience Award for Children and Youth” for their actions promoting strength, persistence and determination during the Swords of Iron war. Half will also receive a personal scholarship. Three youth groups were also recognized.
https://www.jns.org/wire/resilience-award-bestowed-to-young-people-for-contributions-during-the-war/
 
Robotic bulldozers deployed in Gaza. The IDF has begun limited deployment in Gaza of the Robdozer – the robotic version of Caterpillar’s D9 bulldozer. These are used to clear roads and buildings of Hamas booby traps, plus to build defensive barriers around temporary IDF camps.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-new-unmanned-bulldozers-changing-the-paradigm-of-war-in-gaza/
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Identifying key proteins. Ben-Gurion University researchers have developed WGAND – an AI algorithm that can detect “anomalous” proteins that are associated with tissue-specific diseases. It involves “anomalous” behavior analysis, similar to methods that identify fraudulent financial transactions or suspicious user activity.
https://www.bgu.ac.il/en/news-and-articles/ai-algorithm-spots-hidden-disease-clues-in-protein-networks/
https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/article/doi/10.1093/gigascience/giaf034/8106436
 
Defibrillators installed on 150 trains. Magen David Adom and Israel Railways are installing defibrillators, for the first time, on more than 150 Israeli passenger trains to save lives in the event of cardiac issues. They have already equipped defibrillators at all 67 active Israeli train stations.
https://www.jns.org/magen-david-adom-and-israel-railways-install-defibrillators-on-150-trains/
 
Eye doctor saves heart patient on flight from Tbilisi. Dr Eyal Aloni, head of ophthalmology at Israel’s Barzilai Medical Center, saved a young man with a medical history of heart disease, who collapsed during a flight from Tbilisi, Georgia to Israel. He used medications that he carried, plus oxygen supplied by the crew.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/407449
 
Ex-supermodel is now a paramedic. Israeli ex-supermodel Michaela Bercu featured here previously when she founded the app Tribu, which connects volunteering needs with those who wish to help. She recently completed the Magen David Adom paramedic course, and works two 8-hour shifts a week as a medical orderly.
https://www.israel21c.org/ex-supermodel-reinvents-herself-as-volunteer-paramedic/
 
Chewable gummy synbiotics. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s TopGum (see here previously) has launched no-added sugar, synbiotic” Gummiotics” in two natural flavors: orange and strawberry.  They comprise probiotics and postbiotics, bound together in a natural, prebiotic fiber-based matrix, to provide gut-health benefits.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/topgum-unveils-its-latest-gummy-creation-fruity-chewable-synbiotics-302404255.html

ISRAEL Comments turned off

77 imperatives for an Israeli victory Ruthie Blum

Posted By on May 4th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/77-imperatives-for-an-israeli-victory/

This year, Israel marked Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut with an additional reminder of its enemies’ genocidal intentions. Before Memorial Day mourning made way for Independence Day celebrations, multiple wildfires spread across a large area between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Though an investigation into the initial blaze was inconclusive, with the conflagration being attributed to a combination of climate conditions and hikers’ negligence, there’s no question that arsonists stepped in to heighten the crisis. For one thing, some perpetrators were caught on video, and three suspects were arrested for questioning.

For another, Arab social media was abuzz with calls to go out and “burn Israel to the ground.” With jihad in the air, even the slightest desert breeze—certainly a dry heat wave with high winds—can wreak major havoc.   

And as the country’s firefighters, with the help of police and soldiers, battled the flames, the Houthis spent the days launching missiles at Israel from Yemen. Thankfully, neither led to a loss of life.

The same can’t be said about 19-year-old Israel Defense Forces Sgt. Niv Dayag from Ramat Hasharon, however. He was killed on Thursday in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the IDF was striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon; tackling hostile activities in Syria; preparing for a confrontation with Iran; taking out terrorists in Judea and Samaria; and amassing troops to step up military pressure on Hamas.

This is how Israel marked its 77th birthday. Not with quiet reflection followed by cheerful fanfare, but under attack on all fronts, including that involving civil strife.

The latter, as usual, was characterized by a media chorus, echoed by a certain vociferous sector of the public, demanding an end to the war and ridiculing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for reiterating the goal of “victory.”