EDUCATION Comments turned off

Trump Calls Education Department a ‘Con Job,’ Wants It Closed ‘Immediately’ “If we’re ranked No. 40, that means something’s really wrong.” by Robert Spencer

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trump-calls-education-department-a-con-job-wants-it-closed-immediately/

Could the Department of Education (DOE), a massive boondoggle that has done nothing but oversee a decline in the quality of American education and the substitution of wokeism for readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic, really go away? If Donald Trump wins yet another victory, it will.

Fox News reported Wednesday that reporters asked Trump how soon he wanted the department closed. “Oh, I’d like it to be closed immediately,” the president replied. “Look at the Department of Education. It’s a big con job. They ranked the top countries in the world. We’re ranked No. 40, but we’re ranked No. 1 in one department: cost per pupil. So, we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, but we’re ranked No. 40.” Trump also “said the last time he looked at where the U.S. ranked in education, it was 38th, but then he looked two days ago, and the country had fallen to No. 40.”

Trump also noted that China’s educational system appears to be in fine condition: “As big as it is, it’s ranked in the top five, and that’s our… primary competitor. So, if we’re ranked No. 40, that means something’s really wrong.”

Yes. And it has been wrong for a very long time. Jimmy Carter established the Department of Education, and one of Ronald Reagan’s campaign promises was that he would close it, as it was an unnecessary centralization and bureaucratization of an educational system that had been getting along fine without a Cabinet-level federal agency. When Reagan took office, he appointed Terrel Bell to be his secretary of education, with the explicit task of dismantling the department. In this case, however, the swamp beat the Gipper, and the Education department stayed open.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Is There a Democrat Blueprint to Regain Power? Democrats seem stuck in a cycle of rage and resistance, recycling failed anti-Trump tactics while losing ground with voters and donors alike. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/17/is-there-a-democrat-blueprint-to-regain-power/

“The voters’ problem with the new Democratic Party is not just that they are old and unhinged, but that they are so wearily and predictably boring.”

What is the long-term Democratic Party’s strategy to return to power?

Americans may ask that only because so far, the Democrat agenda seems to entail polarizing and alienating as many voters as possible.

They gleefully double down on their 2024 defeat. And they seem almost to grow ecstatic at ensuring that Donald Trump and his record poll at unprecedented highs.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) rants on national TV that Trump is a d—k and promises to go to “war” against him.

Democratic representatives chant “f—k Trump” on national television.

Senator “Spartacus” Booker (D-NJ) almost daily shouts to high heaven and barks out promises of massive resistance, proving he is far crazier than his allegedly crazy Trump.

During the recent cabinet confirmations, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Tim Kaine lost their minds in impotent rage at the nominees and played the fools—furious at a few timid Democrat suggestions to tone it down.

Democrats bark that Elon Musk is even more Satanic than Trump.

They swarm and try to break into the Department of Education. They shut down the LA freeways. And in the case of illegal aliens, they wave the flag of the nation they fled from, while burning the flag of the nation in which they demand to remain.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Trump Gets Broad Backing On Illegal Immigration Crackdown: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

Posted By on February 17th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/02/17/trump-gets-broad-backing-on-illegal-immigration-crackdown-ii-tipp-poll/

President Donald Trump’s actions since reclaiming the Oval Office to secure America’s borders, remove criminals and keep other illegal immigrants out are proving to be highly popular among American voters, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows. Even a significant share of Democrats support Trump’s policies.

If you’re looking for a reason why Trump won so handily against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, illegal immigration looms large. The online national I&I/TIPP Poll, taken from Jan. 29-31, asked 1,478 adults around the country four questions about Trump’s immigration policies and the actions he has taken so far. The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points.

The first question: “Do you support or oppose Trump’s promise of large-scale deportations of illegal migrants?” By a roughly 3-to-2 majority, voters back this idea. The actual numbers: 57% say they support it either “strongly” (35%) or “somewhat” (22%), while just 35% oppose it “strongly” (22%) or “somewhat” (13%). Another 8% aren’t sure.

How does that split with regard to political affiliation? Republicans (85% support, 11% oppose) and independents (54% support, 37% oppose) both gave strong backing.

What about the Democrats? A solid majority oppose it, at 59%, but 31% (nearly one in three) support it. And that support likely comes from two pillars of the Democratic Party: black voters (43% support, 45% oppose) and Hispanic voters (46% support, 44% oppose).

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Pakistan: Christian Girls Abducted, Raped, Forcibly Converted to Islam

Posted By on February 16th, 2025

https://jihadwatch.org/2025/02/pakistan-christian-girls-abducted-raped-forcibly-converted-to-islam?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pakistan-christian-girls-abducted-raped-forcibly-converted-to-islam

The number of Pakistani Christian girls abducted, abused, and forcefully converted to Islam with the law’s consent is growing.

In January, the Christian Daily International-Morning Star News reported the following cases:

On January 5, a married, 35-year-old Muslim neighbor of a 12-year-old Christian girl, Saba Shafique, abducted her in Punjab Province. He took her to another province, where he forcibly converted her to Islam and married her, her father said.
On January 9, five Muslims abducted a 14-year-old Christian girl, Saneha Sharif, from outside her home in Punjab. Sharif Masih said he fears the kidnappers may try to forcibly convert his daughter to Islam and force her to marry one of the Muslim suspects.
On January 20, three Muslims abducted a 12-year-old Christian girl, Ariha Gulzar, at gunpoint from her home in Punjab. They have threatened to sell her into sexual slavery, her parents said.

These are not isolated cases. Many Christian girls as young as 7 — primarily from poor families and those with physical disabilities — are kidnapped, forcibly married, sexually assaulted and forced to convert to Islam on the pain of death. Some are trafficked into slave labor and the sex trade. Christian and Hindu parents are getting increasingly fearful of allowing their daughters to walk alone outside. Perpetrators are increasingly supported by Islamic religious leaders and enjoy de facto impunity for their actions.

Many Christian families never see their girls again, the state authorities rarely take meaningful action to bring perpetrators to justice, and police are often biased, refusing to file reports from Christian families.

According to the 2024 Pakistan country report by Open Doors, a human rights organization, Christian persecution in the country comes from government officials, Islamic religious leaders, violent Islamic groups and revolutionaries or paramilitary groups, political parties, ideological pressure groups and normal citizens – in other words, almost the entire country.

Discrimination and challenges for Christians are prevalent at every government tier and even in secular environments, notes Open Doors. This is true for the army, the judicial and the administrative services as well (especially at the local level) although Christians continue to serve in these areas.

The Movement for Solidarity and Peace calculates that in Pakistan up to 1,000 young Christian and Hindu girls and young women aged between 12 and 25 are abducted by Muslim men every year. The research, which suggests that Christians make up 70 percent of these cases, found that the scale of the problem “is likely to be much greater as a number of the cases are never reported and do not progress through law enforcement and the legal systems”. Many of the girls suffer rape, forced prostitution, human trafficking and domestic abuse.

HISTORY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

“Mt. Belvedere – 80 Years On” Sydney Williams

Posted By on February 16th, 2025

With the 80th anniversary marking the end of World War II fast approaching, the number of combatants still alive is shrinking. The Bureau of Veteran Affairs estimated last year that, out of over 16 million Americans who served in the War, approximately 66,000 men and women are still with us, with an estimated 55 dying each day. As well, we are rapidly losing even those with memories of the War.

So it is fitting to mark battles in which members of our families participated. By early January 1945, the ultimate outcome of the War was obvious, yet an estimated 49,000 American GIs were yet to die in combat. Okinawa, Iwo Jima and the Battle of Berlin were yet to be fought. Among the lesser well-known battles was one that took place in Italy, where an estimated 100,000 German troops under General Albert Kesselring were embedded along what was called the Gothic Line, a roughly 200-mile defensive line running along the Apennines from Spezia on the Ligurian Sea to Pesaro and Ravenna on the Adriatic. Following the fall of Rome in early June 1944, Germans retreated north to this mountainous defensive position that protected the farm-rich Po Valley and the cities of Bologna and Verona. The key was Mount Belvedere, the highest peak, which overlooked Highway 65, the main road between Florence and Bologna.  

In March 1944 my father, then thirty-three, married and father of three (with a fourth on the way), was drafted. After basic training at Fort McClellan in Alabama, he transferred to the 10th Mountain Division – the “Ski Troops,” who had trained in Colorado, but were then stationed at Camp Swift, about 40 miles east of Austin. In December, the 10th was sent to Fort Patrick Henry in Virginia, prior to being shipped to Italy later that month. A full complement of 14,000 men, under Major General George P. Hays, were sent to rout Kesselring’s troops from their mountainous redoubts. In Mountain Troopers, Curtis Casewit quoted General Hayes: “Mt. Belvedere must be captured before we can advance.”

In November 1944, elements of the British 8th Army and the U.S. 5th Army had attacked Germans entrenched on Belvedere. German counter-attacks caused them to retreat. Three months later, on February 19th, the 10th Mountain Division (now part of the 5th Army) made its ascent, beginning at 0030 hours. The night before the 1st Battalion of the 86th Regiment captured Riva Ridge, which overlooked slopes on Belvedere. Along with others, C Company (my father’s unit) of the 87th Regiment were ordered to move silently forward, with Division artillery supporting the attack. They walked single-file, ten feet apart. “The way up,” Peter Shelton wrote in Climb to Conquer, “was long and folded, riddled with streams and ditches, with sharp ravines and bombed-out wagon roads.” They had to avoid mined fields and went past “ghostly remains of U.S. tanks,” abandoned on that earlier attempt. Because of walking past German sentries, the GIs, with fixed bayonets, carried grenades but no live ammunition – at least until daylight. Unfortunately, several soldiers were killed by mines. By 0430 Company C had attained its objective atop Belvedere, but with three of its men killed. Hays was again quoted by Curtis Casewit: “Mt. Belvedere and the occupied ground will be held at all costs.”

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

JD Vance has signed the death warrant of the status quo His intellectual waterboarding of Europe’s elites was a joy to watch. Brendan O’Neill

Posted By on February 16th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/15/jd-vance-has-signed-the-death-warrant-of-the-status-quo/

Well, that was a delicious spectacle. America’s self-made VP gloriously roasting the wizened technocrats of Europe. A Yank from dirt-poor origins sticking it to Europe’s turbo-smug ruling class. How they squirmed as the boy from Ohio who somehow made it to the top of US politics chastised them for their indecent desertion of the ideals of liberty, democracy and security. It was like an intellectual waterboarding, and I loved every minute of it.

This is JD Vance’s stirring speech at the Munich Security Conference yesterday. But you already knew, given it’s gone wildly viral. For 20 minutes, the millennial vice-president upbraided the assembled grey-faced dignitaries over their backsliding from the virtues of the Enlightenment. He lamented ‘the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values’. He invited us to rediscover ‘the blessings of liberty’. Judging by the fits of pique in certain quarters – Vance ‘shocked delegates’ with his ‘blast at Europe’, wailed the babies at the BBC – many an ear is still deaf to his cry for freedom. But some of us are listening.

It was on the liberty to utter, the bedrock virtue of every civilised society, that he issued his most stinging rebukes. ‘Free speech, I fear, is in retreat’, he said. He recounted Europe’s recent acts of nutty censorship. He reminded his audience that German cops raided the homes of citizens ‘suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online’. The old Stasi felt your collar if you criticised your Stalinist betters – the new one comes a’knocking if you mock PC ideologies.

He spoke, with righteous alarm, about how Sweden recently convicted a Christian activist for the blasphemy of burning a Koran, shortly after his friend was murdered for doing the same. He seemed genuinely aghast, as well he might be, that modern Europe would do something as heartless as convict a man for the ‘speechcrime’ his pal had just been killed for. He reserved his greatest concern for ‘our very dear friends, the United Kingdom’. The ‘basic liberties of religious Britons’ are being sacrificed to PC, he said. He cited the arrest of Christians for the thoughtcrime of ‘silently praying’ close to abortion clinics that have had ‘buffer zones’ erected around them. Prayercrime, if you will.

ANTI-SEMITISM, ISRAEL Comments turned off

A Coloring Book for Future Terrorists  by Rafael Medoff

Posted By on February 16th, 2025

https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/379259/a-coloring-book-for-future-terrorists/

    When is a coloring book not just a coloring book? When its purpose is to incite children to hate Jews and glorify violence.

    The Israeli police this week arrested the proprietors of an Arab bookstore in Jerusalem that was selling books promoting hatred of Jews and glamorizing terrorists. One was a coloring book, a fact that prompted much mockery on social media. Big, strong Israel is afraid of a little children’s book!

    The book is called From the River to the Sea, an old Palestinian Arab slogan calling for replacement of Israel with an Arab state of Palestine. Intended for six to ten year-olds, the book features color-by-number pages that demonize Israel and honor terrorists and terror-supporters.

    There’s Ghassan Kanafani, senior official of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, best known for its airplane hijackings in the 1970s, its murder of an Israeli cabinet minister in 2001, and its massacre of rabbis in a Jerusalem synagogue in 2014.

    There’s Refaat Alareer, the “poet” who called the October 7 attack “legitimate and moral,” denied the Hamas gang-rapes, and joked on social media about whether baking powder was used in burning Israeli babies to death. In the coloring book, Alareer is flanked by a large flaming kite, the kind Hamas has used to torch countless acres of Israeli farmland.

    There’s Ahed Tamimi, the teenager who rose to fame when she was arrested for assaulting Israelis, and then later arrested again for writing on social media following October 7: “Come on settlers, we’ll slaughter you. What Hitler did to you was a joke. We’ll drink your blood and eat your skulls.”

    The coloring book also features a page devoted to the Intifadas, the waves of mass Palestinian Arab violence in which more than one thousand Israelis were murdered and thousands more were injured and maimed.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

J.D. Vance’s Munich Wake-Up Call: Democracy, Censorship, and the Will of the People Vance’s Munich speech slammed European elites for stifling democracy, warned of censorship and mass migration, and urged leaders to respect voters—or risk losing the very system they claim to defend. By Roger Kimball

Posted By on February 16th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/16/j-d-vances-munich-wake-up-call-democracy-censorship-and-the-will-of-the-people/

Everyone agrees that Vice President J. D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday was remarkable.

I do not mean that everyone liked it.

For example, Boris Pistorius, the German Defense Minister, sniffed—or perhaps “smoldered” would be a more accurate term, that Vance’s remarks were “not acceptable.”

And then there is Bill Kristol, a sort of Greta Thunberg of the rancid former right, who thundered that Vance’s speech was “a humiliation for the U.S. and a confirmation that this administration isn’t on the side of the democracies.”

“The democracies.”  What do you suppose Kristol means by that?

While you ponder that question, note that other people thought rather well of Vance’s speech.  I thought it was excellent myself, but forget about my opinion.  Jonathan Turley said that Vance’s speech was “perhaps the greatest single declaration uttered since ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’” It was, Turley wrote elsewhere, “truly Churchillian—no less than the famous Iron Curtain speech in which Churchill dared the West to confront the existential dangers of communism.”

How can we explain the discrepancy: the outraged Pistorius/Kristol reaction and what I will call the Kimball/Turley reaction (though many people besides me applauded Vance’s speech)?

I think it comes down to how one understands that overdetermined, familiar yet often only half-understood word “democracy.”

Kristol said that Vance’s speech showed that the Trump administration was not “on the side of the democracies.”

What do you think of that claim?

I think poorly of it because I believe that a democracy is a political arrangement in which the people are sovereign.

I suspect that Kristol and European bureaucrats of all descriptions believe that it is a form of government in which only the right people, i.e, themselves, are sovereign.

Vance’s speech argued for the former. It also contained several admonitions about what he thought were threats to democracy. For the balance of this column, I’ll gather a little chrestomathy of his observations and let you decide who was right.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s defense minister warns as Hamas allies send goods into Gaza David Isaac

Posted By on February 16th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/israels-defense-minister-warns-as-hamas-allies-send-goods-into-gaza/

Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday warned all parties bringing aid into the Gaza Strip that attempts to smuggle unauthorized goods or equipment constitute grounds for the seizure and confiscation of the truck and the sanctioning of the driver.

Katz issued his announcement through the National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing of Israel, saying parties held accountable will include merchants, truck owners, truck drivers, warehouses and packing houses.

The minister’s warning followed an investigative report by HaKol HaYehudi (“The Jewish Voice”), on Feb. 10 revealing Hamas-aligned groups were sending aid to the terrorist group.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, like Katz a member of the Security Cabinet, sent a letter that same day to Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman, military secretary to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, citing the Hebrew news site’s report and calling for action.

Smotrich congratulated Katz for taking immediate steps. “This important exposure prevents unnecessary risk to Israeli citizens and IDF soldiers,” he said.

“As I have warned more than once, in writing and in speech, the State of Israel must take full responsibility for the distribution of humanitarian aid and completely prevent it from reaching Hamas. The absurdity must stop,” Smotrich said.

HaKol HaYehudi revealed that two organizations designated by Israel as terrorist entities in 2008 (mainly for raising money for Hamas) were bringing in goods into Gaza. (The outlet told JNS that it suspects other proscribed groups are also bringing in goods, but it doesn’t yet have definite proof.)

FOREIGN POLICY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s First Big Disastrous Mistake by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on February 16th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21384/trump-iran-disastrous-mistake

The problem, of course, is that after seeing what happened when Libya’s General Muammar Ghaddafi gave up nuclear weapons in 2003 and Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons in 1994, no one with an IQ above single digits would ever agree to give up nuclear weapons again – especially after so many decades of immense investment and just “weeks” from the project’s successful completion.

Regrettably, like Russia, Iran has a long track record of deceit, obstructing investigations, and stalling to buy time. Iran’s regime also has the potential to wait four years until Trump’s term in office is over, then pick up where it left off.

The mullahs seek to lull the United States into a false sense of security. They undoubtedly hope that diplomatic engagement will allow them time to race to nuclear weapons breakout, or, at worst, another weak agreement that will enable them to rebuild their military. Whenever Iran gains financial or political leverage, it uses it against America and its allies. Since October 2023, Iran and its proxies have attacked US troops in the region more than 200 times.

Iran’s nuclear facilities must be taken out, sanctions must be intensified, and the Iranian people’s fight for freedom must be supported. Trump must not waste this opportunity.

“I want Iran to be a great and successful country but one that cannot have nuclear weapons,” US President Donald J, Trump posted on Truth Social last week. “I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement which will successfully let Iran grow and prosper.”

These sentiments, while commendable, especially considering a distasteful alternative for Iran, are unfortunately delusional. The problem, of course, is that after seeing what happened when Libya’s General Muammar Ghaddafi gave up nuclear weapons in 2003 and Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons in 1994, no one with an IQ above single digits would ever agree to give up nuclear weapons again – especially after so many decades of immense investment and just “weeks” from the project’s successful completion.