EDUCATION Comments turned off

Unlike Their Membership, Teacher Union Leaders Are Far Left Ignoring the rank and file. by Larry Sand

Posted By on November 18th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/unlike-its-membership-teacher-union-leaders-are-far-left/

The teacher union leadership is in a collective snit after it became clear that Donald Trump would be reelected as U.S. president. American Federation of Teachers boss Randi Weingarten stated in a press release on Nov. 9, “At this moment, the country is more divided than ever, and our democracy is in jeopardy. Last night, we saw fear and anger win.”

National Education Association boss Becky Pringle was somber, posting on Facebook, “We woke up today to a world that feels darker than it did yesterday. I hear the fear about the safety of our families and communities. I feel the profound anxiety for the future of our country. I see the worry, anger, and heartbreak. But despair is not the answer.”

Pringle’s post was widely contested in the comments section, however. Typifying the pushback, educator Laurie Speed posted, “I wish that you would not assume that all of your members are liberals. Many voted for Trump, and they are feeling optimistic. I wish NEA were bipartisan. The education of our children is important to both parties. As educators, we can set the example for our students to follow regarding how to collaborate with others whose opinions differ from ours.”

Speed nails it! Ignoring its rank and file, teacher union leadership is far left, and has been for years. When NEA president Reg Weaver spoke at the Democratic Convention in 2008, his opening words were, “I am here today on behalf of 3.2 million NEA members to tell you why we support Barack Obama for president of the United States.”

It sounded as if every member of the NEA was backing Obama. Then, in his last sentence, he left no doubt. “That, my friends, is why the 3.2 million members of the National Education Association are organized, energized, and mobilized to help elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States of America.”

Yet, the same Reg Weaver stated a few years before that one-third of NEA membership is Republican, one-third Democrat, and one-third “other.”

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Global Intifada Heats Up A war on Jews is a war on civilization. by Mark Tapson

Posted By on November 18th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-global-intifada-heats-up/

On the night of November 7, curiously only two days shy of the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Europe was the scene of a fresh pogrom in which hundreds of antisemites targeted Jews for pre-meditated, coordinated violence in the streets of Amsterdam.

Groups of attackers – many of them masked, carrying Palestinian flags, and shouting pro-Palestinian slogans – emerged from hiding in alleys and train stations and hotels to ambush Israelis who were leaving a soccer match between the local Ajax team and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Shocking video footage – some taken by the perpetrators themselves – shows Israeli and Dutch Jews being chased and assaulted with knives, bats, boots, and in at least one instance, an automobile committing hit-and-run.

This was no garden-variety soccer hooliganism, as it was initially described by some disingenuous media outlets. The attacks reportedly were orchestrated in advance and carried out by members of the Dutch Moroccan and Dutch Turkish community. De Telegraaf reported that perpetrators used the messaging app Telegram to announce a “Jew hunt” ahead of the attacks, prompting some to travel from far outside Amsterdam to take part. Muslim cab drivers throughout the city reportedly helped coordinate the assaults.

“They knew everything,” said 30-year-old Shachar Bitton, a Maccabi fan. “They knew exactly where we stayed. They knew exactly which hotels, which street we were going to take. It was all well-organized, well-prepared.”

The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) subsequently published an exposé highlighting the involvement of an organization called the Palestinian Community in the Netherlands (PGNL in Dutch). PGNL, which uses instant messaging apps to organize activism in the country, is connected to the Palestinian terror group Hamas. It is led by Syrian-born activist Ayman Nejmeh, a self-described former teacher with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). UNRWA members in Gaza have been exposed for aiding and abetting Hamas terrorists.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Tren De Aragua Gang Terrorizes American Cities By Wendi Strauch Mahoney

Posted By on November 18th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/11/tren_de_aragua_gang_terrorizes_american_cities.html

Joe Biden’s border policies are disastrous for communities nationwide, including cities that are nowhere near United States borders.  There have been at least 10.8 million encounters with illegal aliens nationwide since the start of Fiscal Year 2021 (FY2021), according to Rep. Mark Green’s September “Startling Stats” report on the border crisis.  The same report indicates that 2 million more aliens have entered as “known gotaways.”  According to former chief of Border Patrol Raul Ortiz, the total number of gotaways “could be underreported by as much as 20 percent.”  

The devastating numbers fail to tell the whole story, however. Embedded in those historic numbers are criminal gangs like Tren de Aragua, whose members have taken root in communities nationwide.  Tren de Aragua is terrorizing communities, forcing the Biden administration’s U.S. Treasury to label the gang as a U.S.-designated transnational criminal organization (TCO).

The Treasury’s announcement states that the gang has “opportunistically infiltrated local criminal economies.”

From its origins as a prison gang in Aragua, Venezuela, Tren de Aragua has quickly expanded throughout the Western Hemisphere in recent years. With a particular focus on human smuggling and other illicit acts that target desperate migrants, the organization has developed additional revenue sources through a range of criminal activities, such as illegal mining, kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion, and the trafficking of illicit drugs such as cocaine and MDMA.

Tren de Aragua poses a deadly criminal threat across the region. For example, Tren de Aragua leverages its transnational networks to traffic people, especially migrant women and girls, across borders for sex trafficking and debt bondage. When victims seek to escape this exploitation, Tren de Aragua members often kill them and publicize their deaths as a threat to others.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Mad at the Election? Blame Obama Obama had a golden chance in 2008 to lock in Democratic rule for a generation. But Obama chose wealth and respectability over doing the right thing. By Josiah Lippincott

Posted By on November 18th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/18/mad-at-the-election-blame-obama/

Liberals who are in the throes of capitulation and despair after Donald Trump’s crushing electoral and popular vote win can lay blame for their disastrous loss at the feet of one man: Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama built the Trump wave. His failure to live up to the promises of his populist 2008 run has cursed the Democratic Party, probably for a generation. The Washington DC establishment in just two short months is going to get “scholonged” by an angry and vengeful Trump, ready to rain executive hellfire on the bureaucrats and institutions that have spent the last nine years fighting him tooth and nail.

All of this could have been prevented. In 2008, Obama swept into power with a crushing electoral college and popular vote majority. He won Iowa, Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina. He even won Indiana. Democrats swept into power in Congress with a 74-seat lead in the House, nearly 59% of seats, and were gifted with a magical 60-seat filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate.

This was a generational victory, a sign that voters were fed up with politics as usual and the failures of the GOP and the Washington and Wall Street establishment as such. This victory wasn’t just about electing the first Black president, though that was important: The policies and platform at stake appealed deeply to voters.

It is worth remembering what exactly those policies were.

Obama promised to end the war in Iraq, end the Afghanistan war with honor, help the economy by reducing health care costs (prioritizing “Main Street” over Wall Street), and bring about a new era of racial harmony. Moreover, Obama explicitly eschewed radical leftist politics. He explicitly defended traditional marriage. In his DNC nomination speech, he condemned employers who “undercut American wages by hiring illegal workers.”

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Can Trump End Ukraine’s ‘Endless War?’ There are lots of parties who want, and lots of incentives for, an end to our 21st-century Verdun. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on November 18th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/18/can-trump-end-ukraines-endless-war/

Trump was elected in part on promises to avoid “endless wars” of the sort that cost American blood and treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq but without resulting in strategic advantage or civilized calm.

Yet as a Jacksonian, Trump also restored American deterrence through punitive strikes against ISIS and terrorist thugs like Baghdadi and Soleimani—without being bogged down in costly follow-ups. During the last four administrations, Putin stayed within his borders only during the Trump four years.

But upon entering office, Trump will likely still be faced with something far more challenging as he confronts what has become the greatest European killing field since World War II—the cauldron on the Ukrainian border that has likely already cost 1-1.5 million combined dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians.

There is no end in sight after three years of escalating violence. But there are increasing worries that strategically logical and morally defensible—but geopolitically dangerous—Ukrainian strikes on the Russian interior will nonetheless escalate and lead to a wider war among the world’s nuclear powers.

Many on the right wish for Trump to immediately cut off all aid to Ukraine for what they feel is an unwinnable war, even if that abrupt cessation would end any leverage with which to force Putin to negotiate.

They claim the war was instigated by a globalist left, serving as a proxy conflict waged to ruin Russia at the cost of Ukrainian soldiers. They see it orchestrated by a now non-democratic Ukrainian government, lacking elections, a free press, or opposition parties, led by an ungracious and corrupt Zelensky cadre that has allied with the American left in an election year.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Is California Turning Purple?

Posted By on November 18th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/11/18/is-california-turning-purple/

Two days after Donald Trump won the election, Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a special legislative session to “safeguard California values and fundamental rights in the face of an incoming Trump administration.”

But Newsom could have a fight on his hands with Californians who are clearly tired of Newsom’s and his fellow leftists’ “values.”

Almost across the board, California voters rejected leftist ballot initiatives, often by wide margins. “State voters took a hammer to the most progressive propositions,” noted I&I contributor Thomas Buckley.

Examples:

After watching previous minimum wage increases devastate local businesses and do little to improve the welfare of unskilled workers, a ballot initiative to hike the state’s minimum wage to $18 lost by a 51% to 49% margin.
Even after Bidenflation drove up housing costs, voters rejected an initiative that would have let cities and counties impose strict rent control laws. Back in 1995, the state approved the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which blocked cities and counties from imposing rent control on certain types of housing or when units become vacant. By a whopping 60%-40% margin, Californians voted to keep that 1995 law in place.
A proposal to lower the threshold for local bond measures from a two-thirds supermajorty to a 55% majority went down in flames, with 55% of Californians voting against it.
By a 69% to 31% margin, voters who’ve watched their cities get ripped apart by crime said “enough,” and approved a tough-on-crime measure that would “increase penalties for certain drug crimes and theft convictions and allow a new class of crime to be called treatment-mandated felony.”

Even in bluer-than-blue Los Angeles, voters overwhelmingly ousted soft-on-crime Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, replacing him with Nathan Hochman, who got widespread backing from law enforcement. In other local elections, voters in crime-infested Oakland recalled Oakland’s mayor and Alameda County’s district attorney, and San Francisco voters elected a moderate-ish mayor.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Elise Stefanik’s UN debut can’t come soon enough Ruthie Blum

Posted By on November 18th, 2024

https://www.jns.org/elise-stefaniks-un-debut-cant-come-soon-enough/

Whether the Biden administration is planning a last hurrah for the Jewish state at the United Nations—a lame-duck good riddance, à la Barack Obama, in the form of an abstention in a hostile Security Council vote—remains to be seen. The updated draft of a resolution relating to the war in Gaza and Lebanon is no better, if not worse, than its first anti-Israel version.

No surprise there. The only question is how Washington’s current dubious “ironclad commitment” to its key Mideast ally will stand up to scrutiny where the international vipers’ nest in Midtown Manhattan is concerned.

What’s certain is that President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to replace U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield can’t come soon enough.

To grasp the difference between Thomas-Greenfield and her soon-to-be-successor, Elise Stefanik, one need only compare their statements about Israel and the Iran-backed enemies bent on its annihilation.

Thomas-Greenfield opened her address last week to the UNSC by issuing a harsh rebuke. Not to Hamas, of course. No, instead, she began her Nov. 12 tirade by citing remarks by acting U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and relief coordinator Joyce Msuya.

 “There is no need to mince words here,” Thomas-Greenfield stated at the outset. “As we heard from our briefers, the situation in northern Gaza is dire. Catastrophic, as we heard from Ms. Msuya. An unconscionable number of Palestinian civilians, many women and children, have been killed.”

She proceeded to invoke a false Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report, according to which “nearly every civilian in Gaza is without adequate food, medication, clean drinking water or housing,” adding, “They simply cannot be left to suffer indefinitely.”

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

UNRWA Hires Palestinian Terrorists, Glorifies Violence And Terrorism by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on November 18th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21121/unrwa-hires-terrorists

According to Israeli intelligence, more than 450 terrorists belonging to terrorist organizations in Gaza, mainly Hamas, are also employed by UNRWA.

“By not firing them, the UN Secretary-General and UNRWA’s Commissioner General are brazenly demonstrating their determination to continue employing members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad even after having been presented with incriminating evidence to this effect. It is time for donor governments to wake up and stop funneling their taxpayers’ money to members of designated terrorist organizations.” – www.idf.il, August 5, 2024

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini recently told the UN General Assembly that his agency provides tolerant, respectful and anti-extremist education in Gaza. However, IMPACT-se’s new report unveils institutional teaching material taught in five UNRWA schools in Gaza, where Hamas commanders have been exposed masquerading as school principals.

A poem taught to seventh-graders… calls on knights, symbolizing Arab leaders, to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem “from the fist of unbelief, from Satan’s aides – revenge to the Jews.”

What is disturbing is that the UN chief and other donor countries refuse to see what many Palestinians already see, namely that UNRWA has long been playing a significant role in inciting hatred against Israel and raising another generation of Palestinian children on the glorification of violence and terrorism. It is time for this agency, as well as the entire UN, to be dismantled and removed, or at least, as suggested years ago, to have nations pay only for what they want and to get what they pay for.

It is also time for the Palestinian “refugees” to move on with their lives and stop relying on Western taxpayers’ money.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on November 17th, 2024

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

This week’s newsletter sees Israel valiantly advancing in its war to topple Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and its terror proxies. Meanwhile, Israel’s citizens have been awarded top national and international honors including as “Lions of Zion”, rocket scientists, sports champions, and religious leaders. These achievements are just some of the highlights of Israel’s continuing efforts to produce top innovations that benefit humanity. Michael Ordman

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
What to do with captured weapons? The IDF is examining the possibility of establishing anti-tank units using the huge number of weapons and missiles seized from the Hezbollah terrorist organization, including tens of thousands of Russian Kornet and Iranian Almas anti-tank missiles.
https://www.jns.org/idf-may-form-anti-tank-units-using-captured-hezbollah-materiel/  
 
IDF’s veteran unit. The IDF’s Har Zion 0710 Unit represents a unique phenomenon in modern military history: hundreds of Israelis aged over 45 years old, many decades past their military service, have voluntarily returned to uniform to defend their nation. The unit was spontaneously established overnight after Oct 7 2023.
https://www.jns.org/how-israels-veteran-civilians-returned-to-the-front-with-the-har-zion-unit/
 
Doing good on the Gaza border. For the past year, volunteers from all over the world have been running a 24×7 refreshment station for IDF soldiers entering and leaving the Gaza strip. The Shuva brothers’ refreshment stand has served half a million IDF soldiers. It also stocks all the supplies that soldiers need.
https://video.i24news.tv/en/9e44d596-82e6-4c4c-8a1c-96f84ae49bd5/content/6364563050112
 
Jewish Federations help Israeli nonprofits. (TY Nevet / ADL) Amitim is a pro bono mentoring program, which links former Jewish federation CEOs to the needs of the leadership of nonprofits in Israel and kibbutzim affected by Oct 7. It recognizes that US Jewish retired executives have skills and experience to benefit Israelis.
https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/new-initiative-amitim-looks-to-bring-former-federation-ceos-experience-to-israeli-nonprofits/
 
28 Lions of Zion. 28 altruistic individuals and partnering organizations were honored in Gush Etzion at the Ari Fuld Project’s annual “Lion of Zion” awards ceremony, for their tireless support of Israeli soldiers during Israel’s current multifront military campaign. The awards are in memory of Ari Fuld z”l (see here previously).
https://www.jns.org/ari-fuld-project-awards-lion-of-zion-prizes/
 
Another amazing escape. One of many near misses, as a Hezbollah rocket landed between cars on an Israeli highway.  https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-rocket-miraculously-lands-in-between-drivers-on-highway/
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Alpha radiation to treat lung cancer. (TY OurCrowd) Israel’s Alpha Tau Medical (see here previously) has treated its first patient with recurrent lung cancer using its innovative Alpha DaRT® alpha-radiation cancer therapy. The WHO reports 2.5 million new lung cancer cases annually and the most cancer-related deaths.
https://www.ourcrowd.com/startup-news/alpha-tau-treats-first-patient-with-recurrent-lung-cancer
https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05632913
 
US approval for heart repair device. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Pi-Cardia (see here previously) has received US-FDA approval for its ShortCut heart valve decalcification device. ShortCut is used to remove calcium from heart valves, making them more flexible, prior to heart valve replacement (e.g. TAVR or TMVR) procedures.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240928442730/en/Pi-Cardia-Receives-FDA-Market-Clearance-for-ShortCut%E2%84%A2
 
Alternative to heart valve replacement. Israel’s Innoventric has developed Trillium – a device to fix a leak in the tricuspid valve, one of four valves that regulate blood flow through the heart. But instead of replacing the valve, the prosthetic device is inserted into a large vein in a 10-minute procedure under conscious sedation.
https://www.israel21c.org/prosthetic-valve-to-revolutionize-common-heart-condition/ https://innoventric.com/   https://innoventric.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Innoventric-Trillium_01.05.24-1.mp4
https://innoventric.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Echo-video-for-the-website-clinical-evidence-1.mp4
 
HBOT treatment for PTSD. (TY Nevet & UWI) Researchers from Tel Aviv University and Shamir Medical Center in Beer Yaakov found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) can significantly alleviate PTSD symptoms, particularly for patients unresponsive to traditional therapies or medications.
https://tps.co.il/articles/hyperbaric-oxygen-therapy-may-be-game-changing-ptsd-treatment-say-researchers/
 
New target for Parkinson’s treatment. Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered a mutation of the TMEM16F protein secretes α-synuclein to enhance the spread of Parkinson’s pathology through nerve cells in the brain. Blocking or modulating TMEM16F activity may reduce α-synuclein and cure Parkinson’s disease.
https://tps.co.il/articles/researchers-identify-key-protein-in-parkinsons-disease-spread/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.14387
 
Brain stabilizer discovered. The brain’s NMDA receptor (NMDAR) is known to be vital for learning and memory. Now Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered that it also maintains stable brain function during environment and physiological changes. The discovery may lead to new treatments for brain diseases.
https://www.aftau.org/news_item/tau-researchers-identify-key-role-of-nmda-receptors-in-brain-function/
https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(24)00735-9
 
An antibody against aging. (TY UWI) Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have uncovered how aging cells evade the immune system. The protein PD-L1 stops the immune system from recognizing and destroying aging (senescent / “zombie”) cells. Antibodies to PD-L1 reduced inflammation and numbers of senescent cells.
https://tps.co.il/articles/zombie-cells-exposed-new-research-could-transform-age-related-therapies/
 
An Israeli genetic database. Psifas is the Israeli Genome project. With a budget of NIS 250 million, it aims to create a genetic database of 100,000 Israel’s citizens. The information collected from patients of the Clalit health company, already provides information that will make it possible to treat life-threatening diseases.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/8l45gkhby
 

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Saving the Country From the University Academic freedom does not exempt universities from rules that protect public welfare and they should be regulated to prevent potentially harmful externalities from occurring. By Michael S. Kochin

Posted By on November 17th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/16/saving-the-country-from-the-university/

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration are supposed to regulate aviation not only to keep planes safe but also to keep those of us currently grounded safe from planes. When we think about higher education regulation, we usually think about quality regulation of educational credentials. Accreditation is used to make sure that institutions actually teach something and aren’t diploma mill scams.

Regulation through accreditation is supposed to protect the public and protect students. Accreditation is a quality stamp that is supposed to protect students by ensuring they are offered genuine learning and skills in return for their time and tuition money. Accreditation is also supposed to make sure that the would-be teachers, engineers, physicians, oral hygienists, and lawyers that our institutions turn out actually know what they are doing. Since the 1970s there has also sprung up a whole sphere of civil rights and student rights regulations on how institutions must treat students respectfully and equally and ensure their safety.

The FAA regulates the airplanes produced by Boeing, but a whole slew of other agencies regulate Boeing’s production of what we political economists call “potentially harmful externalities”: effects of Boeing’s production and sale of airplanes that go beyond the company and its direct customers. The EPA makes sure that Boeing doesn’t damage the environment, and OSHA that it doesn’t cripple its workers.

Universities also produce externalities, and these go beyond the possibility of poorly prepared students who will botch our defibrillator implantation or our defense to the federal charge of selling raisins without a license.