MEDIA Comments turned off

Matt Taibbi, Douglas Murray Dominate Trust-in-Media Debate Ari Blaff

Posted By on December 2nd, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/matt-taibbi-douglas-murray-dominate-trust-in-media-debate/
The 39 point swing in favor of Murray and Taibbi’s position is the largest ever recorded in a Munk debate.

Conservative commentator Douglas Murray and veteran reporter Matt Taibbi soundly defeated their opponents in a Wednesday evening debate on the question of whether to trust the mainstream media, convincing a significant segment of the audience to abandon their faith in an institution they say is hopelessly compromised by bias.

The debate, held at Roy Thomson Hall in downtown Toronto and sponsored by the Canadian cultural non-profit Munk Debates, featured Taibbi and Murray squaring off against the tremendously popular non-fiction author Malcolm Gladwell and New York Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg, who made the case for continued trust in major American and Canadian outlets.

Pre-debate polling showed the audience virtually split 48 to 52 percent on the question of whether to trust the mainstream media.

However, over the course of nearly two hours, Taibbi and Murray compellingly persuaded over one-third of audience members (39 percent) to abandon their prior allegiance to the position championed by Gladwell and Goldberg.

To date, Taibbi and Murray won by the largest margin ever recorded at a Munk Debate. The result stunned the sold-out crowd of 2,630 viewers normally accustomed to smaller swings.

“I grew up in the press. My father was a reporter. My stepmother was a reporter. My godparents were reporters. Every adult I knew growing up seemed to be in media,” Taibbi said during his opening remarks to start the debate. “I love the news business. It’s in my bones. But I mourn for it. It’s destroyed itself.”

Taibbi’s opening remarks echoed those raised in his most recent book Hate Inc., in which he explores how the mainstream American media abandoned its commitment to neutrality in favor of fan service. Taibbi argues the change was driven by an effort to retain a niche audience of like-minded readers and viewers who remained after the industry was gutted by tech-driven changes in the advertising market.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Belgium’s World Cup Football Riots: A Symbol of the Failure of the Migration Policy by Alain Destexhe

Posted By on December 1st, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19178/belgium-world-cup-riots

In Brussels, Moroccans outnumber people of Belgian origin in the under-18 age group; many schools are attended exclusively by children of non-European origin. In those public schools where parents have the choice of religion classes, Islam is now followed by a majority of pupils. Whether one describes these changes as “diversity” or as a “great replacement” is of little importance; over a few decades the evolution has been considerable and has modified the social fabric of Belgium’s cities.

The hijab (Islamic veil) is increasingly present and is worn by a majority of women in some municipalities. During the month of Ramadan, almost all shops and restaurants are closed during the day in some areas. The number of mosques is exploding and all currents of Islam are represented in Brussels, where tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, or even between Moroccans and Turks, are sometimes high, especially within the Muslim Executive of Belgium, a structure that the federal government set up in order to have a single interlocutor for the Muslim community, but which has been going from crisis to crisis.

During trials or elections, it is common to see women arriving with their husbands, and explaining that they cannot be retained as jurors or assessors because they do not speak any of Belgium’s official languages, thus attesting to a completely failed policy of integration. The “vivre ensemble” (“live together”) praised by the Belgian political world is a myth, with communities living side by side but not mixing with each other. Moroccans marry Moroccan women and Turks marry Turkish women…

In France, the country’s colonial past is regularly evoked to justify the anger of young North Africans. It is an explanation that does not hold: similar incidents take place in Belgium, a country that has no historical link with North Africa.

What is most distressing is the denial and the total absence of debate on the issues of immigration and integration, mainly on the French-speaking side of the country. Neither the media nor the political parties talk about it. Sunday’s riots were attributed by the mayor of Brussels to “thugs and scoundrels”, a discourse that was widely repeated without any precision or analysis.

While in France and elsewhere in Europe there is a lively debate around this theme, it is as if Belgium has given up, accepting its destiny as a multicultural country with a Muslim majority in its capital and from time to time a “new normal” made up of urban riots, shootings and terrorist attacks.

Violent clashes took place in Belgium after the Morocco-Belgium football match during the World Cup in Qatar.

Riots took place in Brussels, Antwerp and Liege, where a police station was attacked by about 50 “youths”, and also in several cities in the Netherlands. Beyond these incidents, the popular jubilation in the predominantly Moroccan neighborhoods of Brussels, especially in Molenbeek, revealed that in these areas, the Moroccan identity has remained much stronger than the Belgian one, even though most of the inhabitants have dual nationality.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

If You Really Wanted to Destroy the United States, Then . . . It would be hard to imagine any planned agenda to destroy America that would have been as injurious as what we already suffered the last two years.  By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on December 1st, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/30/if-you-really-wanted-to-destroy-the-united-states-then/

First, you would surrender our prior energy independence. 

Reduce new gas and oil leases on federal lands to the lowest levels of any president in history. Cut back production at precisely the time the world is emerging from a two-year lockdown with pent-up consumer demand. 

Make war on coal and nuclear power. Drain the strategic petroleum reserve to make the pain for consumers more bearable for midterm election advantage.

Cancel the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil and gas field. Block pipelines like the Keystone oil pipeline and the Constitution natural gas line.

Overregulate and demonize frackers and horizontal drillers. Ensure there is less investment for their exploration and production. 

Make use of internal combustible engines or fossil fuel power generation prohibitively expensive. Achieve a green oil-dependency along the lines of contemporary Europe.

Second, print trillions of dollars in new currency as the lockdowns end, demand rises, and consumers are already saturated with COVID-19 subsidies. Keep interest rates low, well below the rate of inflation, as you print more money. Ensure that passbook holders earn no interest at the very time prices skyrocket to the highest per annum level in 40 years. 

“Spread the wealth” by sending money to those who already have enough, while making it less valuable for those deemed to have too much. Ensure runaway high prices to wean the middle class off its consumerism and supposedly to inspire them to buy less junk they don’t need. Damn the rich in the open and in the abstract, court them in the concrete and secret of darkness.

Third, end America’s physical boundaries. Render it an amorphous people and anywhere space. End any vestigial difference between a citizen and resident. Up the current nearly 50 million who were not born in the United States —27 percent of California’s population—to 100 million and more by allowing 3 million illegal aliens to enter per year. 

Fourth, destroy the public trust in its elections. Render Election Day irrelevant. Make proper auditing of 110 million mail-in/early ballots impossible. Normalize ballot harvesting and curing. 

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

The New York Times – Mouthpiece for the Palestinians How a Times correspondent parrots the Palestinian victimhood narrative. by Joseph Klein

Posted By on December 1st, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-new-york-times-mouthpiece-for-the-palestinians/

Last February, the New York Times hired Palestinian terrorist apologist Raja Abdulrahim to serve as its correspondent in Jerusalem, focusing on Palestinian affairs. In that capacity, she has written a series of pro-Palestinian screeds that the New York Times has published as purported “news” articles.

On November 27th, for example, the Times published an article by Ms. Abdulrahim, which claimed that Israel’s so-called “blockade” on the entry of dual-use materials into Gaza “has devastated Gaza’s economy,” including its fishing industry. Ms. Abdulrahim lamented that the so-called “blockade,” in her words, has prevented Gazan fishermen “from buying motors, propellers, fiberglass and many other items needed to repair the boats and maintain a functioning fishing fleet.”

First of all, Ms. Abdulrahim needs to bring her “reporting” up to date. If she had checked with reliable sources on the ground in Gaza, she would have learned that Israel has already approved the entry of more dual-use materials recently, including fiberglass and other materials for Gazan fishing boats. Ms. Abdulrahim also conveniently ignored the fact that Israel has increased the number of permits allowing Palestinians from Gaza to work in Israel to their highest level since 2007, the year that the Hamas terrorists threw the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza and took control.

Secondly, Ms. Abdulrahim has failed to report how Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups themselves have brought misery upon the Gazan civilian population as a result of their relentless build-up of military capabilities to attack Israelis. For example, Palestinian terrorist groups have been caught trying to smuggle fiberglass into Gaza for the suspected purpose of building rockets, not to replace or repair damaged fiberglass in Gazan fishing boats. But Ms. Abdulrahim has neglected to provide such factual context for Israeli restrictions on the entry of dual-use materials and equipment into Gaza, which, despite continuing Palestinian terrorist attacks, Israel has actually loosened.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Ron DeSantis signals 2024 bid with new book by Paul Bedard

Posted By on December 1st, 2022

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/ron-desantis-signals-2024-bid-with-new-book

Following a well-worn path into presidential politics, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signaled his bid Wednesday by announcing the publication of his autobiography and political blueprint.

HarperCollins Publishers said its imprint, Broadside, will publish The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival in late February.

“In The Courage to Be Free, Governor Ron DeSantis chronicles the most consequential decisions of his life and public service, including turning the Sunshine State into the promised land for millions of Americans. He has become one of America’s most closely watched officeholders, having delivered a historic, record-setting 2022 gubernatorial victory, winning by nearly 20 points and more than 1.5 million votes,” said the publishing giant.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ukraine: Only Bad and Worse Choices We can no longer afford to ignore the lessons of history. by Bruce Thornton

Posted By on December 1st, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/ukraine-only-bad-and-worse-choices/

The war in Ukraine has seemingly devolved into a vicious stalemate. Ukrainian counter-attacks have pushed Russia back, but a definitive ejection of Russia from all its territorial gains at this point doesn’t seem likely. Commentary has settled on two choices for resolving the crisis: a diplomatic resolution that requires Ukraine to sacrifice territory; or a larger Ukrainian offensive to push Russia back to its pre-2014 borders, supported by more aid and materiel from NATO countries, which in practice really means the U.S. Each choice is fraught with difficulty and danger.

This predicament of only bad and worse choices is one endemic to foreign policy, as military violence always exacts the price of  “exorbitant risk,” as Henry Kissinger put it, of unforeseen and costly consequences. In the case of the Russo-Ukrainian war, that risk includes the possibility of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons, and triggering a wider nuclear engagement that could escalate into an apocalypse.

On the other hand, allowing Russia to keep territories acquired by force creates the moral hazard of endangering global supplies of energy, and encouraging Russia and other aggressive irredentist and revanchist powers like China and Iran to make the same wager that the West does not have morale or even resources to punish their aggression.

The difficult solution for avoiding such dilemmas is to anticipate and forcefully deter an enemy’s ambitions, and all the means he has for realizing them, before they become kinetic. Yet the West for a century has done a poor job at such long-range planning and instituting preemptive policies. Too often we have been like Demosthenes’ Athenians in the early 4th century B.C., who failed to preempt King Phillip II of Macedon’s advance against the southern Greek politically free city-states. Demosthenes chastised the Athenians, saying they “carry on the war with Phillip, exactly as a barbarian boxes . . . when struck, [he] always clutches the place; hit him on the other side and there go his hands. He neither knows nor cares how to parry a blow or how to watch his adversary.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Americans Are Losing Trust in the Military The rise of woke politics has undermined public confidence in the brass.

Posted By on December 1st, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-are-losing-trust-in-the-military-reagan-institute-survey-11669848047?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

The current era is marked by fading trust in U.S. institutions, but confidence in one pillar has held up: the military. But now even that is eroding, and the question is whether the brass will get the message.

The Reagan Institute releases an annual survey of public attitudes on national defense, and this year only 48% reported having “a great deal of confidence” in the U.S. military in results first detailed here. That’s down from 70% in 2018, and within the margin error of last year’s 45%.

This is consistent with other surveys. Pew Research this year noted a 14-point drop since 2020 in Americans who said they had a great deal of confidence in the military to act in the public’s interest.

The Reagan poll asked Americans what is driving the decline. It isn’t the ability to carry out missions or win in a fight. It is “things going on outside the core competencies of the military,” says Reagan’s Roger Zakheim. “Call it politicization, call it wokeness,” but that’s where “you can connect the dots.”

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Critical race theory-related ideas found in mandatory programs at 58 of top 100 US medical schools: report ‘Medical School education is in crisis’

Posted By on December 1st, 2022

https://www.foxnews.com/media/critical-race-theory-related-ideas-found-mandatory-programs-58-top-100-us-medical-schools-report

CriticalRace.org, which monitors critical race theory (CRT) curricula and training in higher education, has expanded its Medical School Database and found that 58 of the nation’s top 100 medical schools have some form of mandatory student training or coursework related to the polarizing idea that racism is systemic in America’s institutions. 

“Medical School education is in crisis, with ‘social justice’ and race-focused activism being imposed on students, faculty, and staff,” William Jacobson told Fox News Digital. 

Jacobson, Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and founder of the Legal Insurrection website, founded CriticalRace.org’s sprawling database that has also examined elite K-12 private schools, 500 of America’s top undergraduate programs and military service academies.

Earlier this year, the group uncovered that 23 of the 25 most prestigious medical colleges and universities have some form of mandatory CRT-related student training or coursework. CriticalRace.org expanded the study and found that 46 of the top 100 medical schools have offered materials by authors Robin DiAngelo or Ibram Kendi, whose books explicitly call for discrimination, according to Jacobson. 

“Approaching the doctor-patient relationship through a Critical Race lens is being implemented under the umbrella of ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ and other euphemisms, such as Ibram Kendi’s ‘anti-racism’ approach. ‘White privilege’ and similar concepts, pushed by Robin DeAngelo and others, are being infused into the medical school culture,” he said. 

The schools examined were based on the rankings by U.S. News’ rankings of America’s top medical schools. The study also found that 38 of the top 100 medical schools have some sort of mandatory CRT-related training for faculty and staff. 

For students, 14 schools were found to have department-specific mandatory training, 31 were found to have school-wide mandatory training and 41 have school-wide mandatory curricula. When it comes to faculty and staff, 18 schools have department-specific mandatory training, 30 have school-wide mandatory training and five have hiring committee-specific training. 

CriticalRace.org details the exact curricula and trainings at each school, along with contact information and an overview of every university. 

“A patient-centric ethos is being drowned out by politics and activism,” Jacobson said, adding that CRT being pushed on medical students is particularly alarming even compared to other areas of higher learning. 

“Because there are only just over 150 accredited medical schools in the U.S., and they are so hard to get into, students really have no options. Unlike universities and colleges, where students may be able to avoid a race-obsessed campus climate, with medical schools students have to submit to race-focused medical education or give up their career hopes,” Jacobson said. 

“We have analyzed CRT-related training in colleges and universities and elite private K-12. As bad as those institutions have become, things are much worse in medical schools because the stakes are so high. Patient care and people’s lives are at risk when doctors and medical providers view patients as proxies for racial or ethnic groups in sociological and political battles,” he continued. “Every person has the right to be treated equally as an individual, based on his or her medical condition, without societal racial politics influencing treatment. Yet increasingly we see the medical establishment, including the American Medical Association, demanding that medical students and physicians become race-focused activists.”

The subjects of mandatory training and coursework are worded and phrased differently at individual schools, but use terms including “anti-racism,” “cultural competency,” “equity,” “implicit bias,” “DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion” and critical race theory, according to CriticalRace.org.

For example, the study found that Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University’s Department of Surgery will “assess and improve upon the current state of surgical trainee evaluation to eliminate the impact of implicit and explicit bias.” 

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Biden Rewards Palestinians for Terrorism, Incitement by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on December 1st, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19172/biden-rewards-palestinian-terrorism

The Biden administration’s recent decision to upgrade its relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) is yet another sign of how the US is rewarding the Palestinians, as they are the Iranian regime, for their ongoing toxic incitement and terrorism against Israel.

It is the first time the US has created a position at the State Department that is solely responsible for Palestinian affairs.

The decision coincided with two bomb attacks in Jerusalem, in which a 16-year-old Jewish boy was killed and 14 other people wounded.

The Palestinian Authority, in fact, offers stipends to the terrorists and their families as part of its “Pay-for-Slay” program — which serves as an incentive, especially in an area that is not wealthy, for its citizens to continue their violence.

Several Palestinian groups issued separate statements lauding the Jerusalem bombings as “heroic operations” and calling for the murder of more Jews.

Abbas has never called on the terror groups to halt their attacks.

One would have expected the Biden administration to demand that the Palestinian leadership dismantle the terror groups operating under its auspices in the West Bank.

One would have expected the Biden administration to demand that the Palestinian Authority halt the monthly payments for terrorism to the terrorists and their families.

One would have expected the Biden administration to pressure the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table with Israel and abandon their long-time policy of rejecting all offers without even proposing a counteroffer.

The Biden administration, which resumed financial aid to the Palestinians — without any conditions attached — has chosen to ignore the Palestinian leadership’s role in encouraging violence, hate and efforts to eliminate Israel, and to erect, in its place, yet another Islamic state.

The payments to the terrorists and their families successfully encourage many Palestinians to carry out attacks against Israelis: they know that they or their families will be added to the Palestinian Authority’s payroll.

The Biden administration is dead wrong if it thinks that upgrading its relations with the Palestinian Authority will have a moderating effect on the Palestinians or prompt them to improve their policies toward Israel. On the contrary, the move is likely to increase the Palestinian leaders’ intransigence because now they feel that the US is on their side, notwithstanding their incitement and support for terrorism.

By upgrading US-Palestinian relations, the Biden administration is also sending a message to these Arab countries that it stands behind the Palestinians’ rejection of normalization and peace between the Arabs and Israel.

The Biden administration has anyway done nothing to support the Abraham Accords or try to get more Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, on board. Instead, the Biden administration has done everything in its power to antagonize America’s traditional allies in the Arab world, first and foremost Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration’s policy of appeasement of the mullahs in Iran has already alienated some Arabs, especially the Gulf states.

The Biden administration’s recent decision to upgrade its relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) is yet another sign of how the US is rewarding the Palestinians, as they are the Iranian regime, for their ongoing toxic incitement and terrorism against Israel.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Presidential Trojan Horse: The Inflation Reduction Act by Lawrence Kadish

Posted By on December 1st, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19177/presidential-trojan-horse

U.S Senator Joseph Manchin has been playing both sides against the middle for the past year and it appears that game is about to end.

This year Manchin offered his vote to pass the so called “Inflation Reduction Act” in return for Senate leadership support of legislation that would loosen regulations now impacting energy pipeline construction in his home state of West Virginia. In some earlier era in Washington, that kind of Capitol Hill give-and-get would have gone unnoticed, just another deal being cut with taxpayers’ money before lunch in the Senate dining room.

That was then. This is now.

Manchin’s vote essentially gave the Biden Administration a blank check, spending hundreds of billions of dollars wherever and whenever they want as the White House ramps up their reelection bid. If one is permitted to say so, a citizen would have to be beyond naïve to believe that this blizzard of federal cash will all be accounted for on behalf of projects that actually strengthen the republic. No one knows that better than Manchin, as he cut his deal with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer in a scene from “Advice and Consent.”

Now, Manchin’s side deal is in trouble. Political observers say his Republican colleagues spotted his political expediency some time ago and have little reason to support his proposal even if less regulation is a shared ideology

Manchin should not be surprised that his side deal is in serious trouble: he has wobbled across the political spectrum during 2022. It became obvious that he had no north star that guides his political goals. Rather, he seeks to cut deals with whomever he can for the purpose of advancing his own immediate agenda or, as he should, what he perceives as that of his state and constituents. Perhaps that worked in another era but not when, due to justifiable widespread skepticism over election integrity, the future of our democracy is at risk.

One wonders if Manchin wanted a Senate legacy: at 75, he will face a spirited challenger in 2024, whomever the Republicans select. If permitting reform was approved by the Senate he would use it as the cloak needed to ward off voter anger over an “Inflation Reduction Act” that could well be a Presidential Trojan Horse filled with dollars for states that are important when counting electoral votes.