ISRAEL Comments turned off

WHAT BIBI SHOULD SAY TO TRUMP BY JANET LEVY ROSS

Posted By on February 2nd, 2025

What Bibi Should Say to Trump:  “Get rid of Steve Witcoff, Michael DiMino and Massad Boulos as a start.  Then, we’ll be able to have a sensible chat about our neighborhood in the Middle East.”  

“Also, get American troops out of Israel.  We’ve proven that we can handle the situation quite well.  Former CIA officials should not be at checkpoints into Israel and we don’t want to see American lives sacrificed for the Jewish State.  Not only would it be a terrible tragedy for the U.S. but the negative press could kill our defensive war and make Israelis sitting ducks for another genocide. 

“Have you looked at the massacres in the Sudan, the organ harvesting in Communist China, the beheadings in Nigeria and the new law in South Africa to expropriate farms owned by Whites after decades of mass killings? Why are people in your administration singling out Israel for special treatment?”

“When U.S. officials talk about so-called “aid” to Israel, Americans need to understand that it is an investment with an unmatched ROI.  Israelis build, test, modify and improve American weapons systems and supply some of the best intel in the world.  We are NOT a drain on the U.S. budget as our value-added is nonpareil.  There is NO comparison between the situation vis a vis Israel and the corruption and drain on American resources in Ukraine.  THAT situation is NOT a win-win.  

Remember:  Former Secretary of State and U.S. Army General Alexander Haig  observed 35 years ago and it still resonates today: “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.”

Janet Levy,
NYC

P.S. Note:  The Haig quote that I mentioned at the end is no longer available on Google or Brave. When I entered, “Who said Israel is an aircraft carrier for the U.S.,” nothing registered.  I had forgotten the origin of the quote – Haig.  I finally tried Firefox and voilå.  Therefore, it may be useful to keep this quote handy or memorize it for future use.  

EDUCATION Comments turned off

‘Woke’ Education—Then and Now György Lukács’ Marxist education agenda failed in Hungary but thrives in the West, shaping elite institutions through ideological conformity and cultural deconstruction. By Stephen Soukup

Posted By on February 2nd, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/01/woke-education-then-and-now/

Of all the Communist thinkers and advocates to have played a role in the reworking of Marx’s crackpot theories in the aftermath of World War I, perhaps none played a greater role yet has received less popular attention than György Lukács.

By all rights, World War I should have been the end of Marx and his utopian fantasy. The workers of the world refused to unite. They decided that they had a great deal more to lose than their chains. And contra Marx and Engels’ expectations, the workers went to war—happily, joyfully, willingly, for country, for family, and for GOD.

The working classes’ willing participation in the Great War essentially disproved Marx and thoroughly undermined his entire worldview. His conception of class consciousness and his belief in the inevitable Hegelian rise of the working class were shattered. But that was merely the prelude to the greater indignity, that which should have ended the Marxist fantasy forever.

The war itself was a deep and practically fatal wound to the Marxist weltanschauung, but the aftermath was perhaps even uglier and more painful for true believers. It was the salt that the Fates rubbed into that wound. For starters, only the backward and largely unindustrialized misfit nation on the continent’s eastern frontier could sustain a people’s “revolution.” And if that wasn’t humiliating enough, the heart of industrial Europe emerged from the war shattered and broken, not just physically but psychologically, emotionally, and most especially, spiritually. The new Europe was exhausted and scarred, increasingly frustrated with the old gods but far from enamored with the new ones. It rejected Marx openly, just as it rejected every theological ethos.

Unfortunately, Marx’s few remaining fans in Europe did not give up so easily, and they spent the next several years rehabilitating his image by revising his predictions and explaining away his failures. In Italy, Antonio Gramsci outlined the need for a “cultural revolution,” one in which anti-Christian Marxists would make what the German Marxist student leader Rudi Dutschke would later call “the long march through the institutions.” In Hungary, Lukács re-interpreted Marx’s notions of reification (a special case of alienation) and commodity fetishism (a special case of reification) and, in so doing, developed, in much greater detail, the idea that man’s consciousness is dissociated at a fundamental level from society. In Germany, Felix Weil funded the think tank that would become the Frankfurt School (the Institute for Research at Goethe University Frankfurt), which would, under the leadership of Max Horkheimer, become the spark for Cultural Marxism.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Schumer Under Investigation While Trump Reshapes Washington Schumer faces scrutiny over past threats to justices, while Trump dismantles DEI, deports migrants, and strikes ISIS, signaling a shift in Washington’s priorities. By Roger Kimball

Posted By on February 2nd, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/02/schumer-under-investigation-while-trump-reshapes-washington/

Senator Chuck Schumer is a lawyer, so presumably he is familiar with the provisions of 18 U.S. Code § 115. In case he has forgotten—after all, there are a lot of statutes to keep track of—Edward R. Martin, Jr., the Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney, is in the process of reminding him.

Among other things, that statute holds that anyone who threatens a federal government official or their family with the “intent to impede, intimidate, or interfere with such official, judge, or law enforcement officer while engaged in the performance of official duties, or with intent to retaliate against such official, judge, or law enforcement officer on account of the performance of official duties,” shall be punished with a term in the slammer, the length of the sentence being dependent on the actual harm caused.

When the Supreme Court was hearing an abortion case in March 2020, Schumer showed up at a protest rally in front of the Court and shouted, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”

Perhaps Nicholas John Roske had that speech in mind in June 2022. It was then that he traveled from California to Maryland to pay the Kavanaughs a visit. It was not intended to be a friendly visit. In the dead of night, he took a taxi to their home. According to the court filing, he carried a suitcase in which was a “black tactical chest rig and tactical knife, a Glock 17 pistol with two magazines and ammunition, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crowbar, pistol light, duct tape, hiking boots with padding on the outside of the soles, and other items.”

When apprehended, Roske admitted that he had come to kill Brett Kavanaugh. I wonder what Chuck Schumer thought of that. It looks like Edward Martin is going to find out. On Friday, Martin announced not only that he was firing more than two dozen federal prosecutors; he also announced that he was opening an investigation into Schumer for his threats against two U.S. Supreme Court justices. For most mortals, issuing such threats would earn one a visit from the authorities. As a paid-up member of the Washington elite, Senator Schumer doubtless thought he was exempt from all such rules. Until January 20, he probably was.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s assault on DEI will bring us closer to a post-racial America The biggest winners from an end to racial identity politics will be ethnic minorities themselves Joel Kotkin

Posted By on February 2nd, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/01/30/trumps-assault-on-dei-will-bring-us-closer-to-a-post-racial-america/

It’s hard to picture Donald Trump as a civil-rights hero in the mould of Abraham Lincoln or even Lyndon Johnson. Yet through his orders to dismantle the ubiquitous regime of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), he may have accelerated America’s evolution into a post-racial society.

DEI ideology has been around for years, but it was given a significant boost after the police killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. In response, many government and business leaders chose to embrace DEI as means to placate those calling for a new American regime in which people would be divided and advantaged according to race.

But DEI initiatives have been flailing recently – even before Trump’s election. Indeed, think-tank research from last year showed that over half of company executives were already anticipating pushback against DEI initiatives. Among the firms to have recently stepped back from DEI are Boeing, John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Black + Decker, Target and, the biggest of all, Walmart. Over the past two years, corporate DEI departments have been slashed, with one third of DEI professionals losing their jobs in 2022 alone.

Trump’s dismantling of DEI in the federal government no doubt thrills the various factions who support him, from the libertarians to the traditionalist conservatives to the white-nationalist fringe. Yet over time, perhaps the biggest winner from the dethroning DEI may be ethnic minorities themselves.

Drawing in part on critical race theory, DEI advocates maintain that racial characteristics largely determine people’s lives in America. These new racialists claim that any shortfalls in income, status or professional credentials stem from racial discrimination. In response, they call for ‘people of colour’ to work together to relentlessly undermine so-called white privilege.

Rather than seek greater integration, as was the cause of the old civil-rights movement, these racialist radicals embrace a kind of re-segregation. This can be seen from their involvement in schools. There they advocate indoctrinating young children in DEI ideology. On occasions, they have been known to get third-graders (eight- to nine-year-olds) to separate themselves by race and ask them to rank their ‘privilege’.

In attacking DEI, Trump is taking a widely popular position. The idea that, say, President Obama’s children should be given an edge against someone from a poor Appalachian hollow seems unjust to the vast majority of Americans of all races.

In thrall to the racial identitarianism of the DEI crowd, Democrats hoped that working-class voters would turn their way as more became increasingly non-white. After all, minorities currently make up over 40 per cent of America’s working class and will likely constitute the majority by the next decade.

But many minorities, including the young, seem more concerned with their immediate economic prospects than gaining unearned advantages through DEI programmes. Indeed, minority and poor white Americans are mainly concerned about inflation, rising crime, poor schools and the threats to their livelihoods posed by draconian green policies. Little wonder nearly half of all Latinos voted for Trump, as did growing numbers of Muslims and black males. Asian voters’ support for Trump rose from 27 per cent in 2016 to roughly 40 per cent this year.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Any Deal with Iran’s Regime Is a Grave Mistake by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on February 2nd, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21367/iran-deal-grave-mistake

The Iranian regime’s motivations are rooted in its desperation to ensure its survival and to advance its expansionist agenda, not in any willingness to abide by international norms or foster peace.

By re-entering the global financial system and emerging from international isolation, Iran would gain the political and economic breathing room it needs to consolidate power and suppress dissent in the full knowledge that it had bought itself time and reduced the likelihood of coordinated international action against it.

A deal would also provide Iran with political legitimacy and be seen as a victory for the regime, allowing it to portray itself as a credible and lawful actor on the global stage when in truth it is anything but that.

The Iranian regime has recently demonstrated an unusual eagerness to negotiate with the Trump administration to reach a deal with the West. This sudden shift should not deceive the West, particularly the United States, into believing that Tehran’s intentions are either genuine or benign. The Iranian regime’s motivations are rooted in its desperation to ensure its survival and to advance its expansionist agenda, not in any willingness to abide by international norms or foster peace. Recognizing this is critical to preventing what could become a fatal mistake.

The Iranian regime’s eagerness for a deal is driven by several factors, starting with its current unprecedented vulnerability. Since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979, it has never been as fragile as now. Thanks to Israel’s actions, Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran’s key proxies, have been severely weakened, and in December, Iran was forced out of Syria. Hezbollah’s inability to defend Bashar al-Assad’s regime ultimately contributed to its collapse, depriving Iran of its most critical ally in the region and representing a monumental blow to Iran. Assad’s Syria had long served as a crucial conduit for supplying Hezbollah in Lebanon and maintaining Iran’s foothold in the Levant.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Hamas Deal Puts U.S. Boots on the Ground by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on January 31st, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21366/gaza-boots-on-the-ground

Reprinted by kind permission of  Front Page Magazine.

The Biden administration rolled Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s envoy, into signing off on their deal to save Hamas…

Witkoff admitted to Fox News that he had done nothing but agree to the Biden administration’s May 27 protocol… and all he had done was to “speed up the process” by pressuring Israel into making every possible concession to Hamas. By getting Trump to accept the Biden deal, Witkoff and his allies in the Trump transition team, some of whom are associated with the pro-Iran Koch network, had also bound President Trump to a comprehensive nation-building project…

Trump is right to be skeptical. And he was right when he said: “You certainly can’t have the people that were there. Most of them are dead. But they didn’t exactly run it well. They run viciously and badly. You can’t have that.”

But the deal foisted on him by Biden, Qatar, Witkoff and his Koch network allies does just that. It saves Hamas and puts the terrorists back in power.

The Trump administration can exit the Biden deal and the sooner we do it, the easier it will be.

Any rebuilding will be to the benefit of Hamas. And will put billions into the pockets of Islamic terrorists, just the way that our reconstruction projects in Afghanistan financed the Taliban.

And having US veterans risking their lives to inspect terrorists moving around Gaza is senseless.

American soldiers are headed to Gaza.

They’re not there to fight Islamic terrorists, but to secure the disastrous Biden deal that saved Hamas by monitoring and inspecting the Gazans traveling across the “Netzarim corridor.”

One of the companies is UG Solutions, founded by a former Special Forces veteran, which hires US military vets to provide security. Hiring veterans as contractors became a common practice during the War on Terror because it allowed politicians to avoid accountability for US casualties.

Hundreds of Americans were killed working as contractors in Iraq, including, in one of the most infamous incidents in the war, when four ex-Special Forces contractors working for Blackwater had their bodies dragged through the streets, were beaten, hacked and hanged from a bridge while the Arab Muslim mobs of men, women and children cheered. The scene played out again in Benghazi, when two former Navy SEALS working as CIA contractors were murdered.

How soon until it plays out in Gaza?

Bringing in veterans as contractors has been a longtime way to disguise “boots on the ground.” But the men in those boots are still veterans who believe they’re serving their country. And when they die, it’s Americans dying to carry out the policies of their Commander in Chief.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

We Need a Reckoning on the 1619 Project By Peter Wood

Posted By on January 31st, 2025

https://tomklingenstein.com/we-need-a-reckoning-on-the-1619-project/

The New York Times launched its torpedo at American history on August 18, 2019. I speak, of course, of “The 1619 Project,” which first emerged as a special edition of the newspaper’s Sunday magazine. In the ensuing five years and five months, the 1619 Project outgrew its original 100 pages of newsprint. It became a somber 50 second television commercial on February 9, 2020, that aired during the Academy Awards and featured the singer, song-writer, and actress Janelle Monáe. In 2021, it ballooned into a 590-page hardback book, supertitled “A New Origin Story.” In 2023, Hulu turned it into a six-part “docu-series” with Oprah Winfrey as executive producer.  

During those five-plus years, the New York Times ran thousands of print advertisements for the “project.” It substantively revised the magazine text without any public acknowledgment, which means unless you saved the original copy, you can’t know exactly what it said. 

One thing it said, on the inside back cover, was that the 1619 Project was on its way to the nation’s schools as a curriculum, including “a lesson plan that introduces this issue [of the magazine], summaries of the articles, an index of historical terms used, suggested activities that engage students creatively and intellectually and opportunities to connect with New York Times journalists featured in this issue.” 

That declaration came from the Pulitzer Center, a nonprofit founded in 2006 that attempts to amplify journalism that it judges to have broad public importance. It describes itself as “the venue for the world’s most innovative and consequential reporting, with journalism as the key element for mobilizing society through audience engagement strategies.” In other words, the Pulitzer Center is an activist organization that eschews the old journalistic ideal of providing the information people need to decide for themselves. It instead seeks to “mobilize” the public. And, as it happens, the reporting it selects for this mobilization is entirely of a progressive character.

Before the New York Times unleashed the 1619 Project, it entered into an agreement with the Pulitzer Center, in which the center became the Times’ “educational partner” for the project.  The center assumed the task of translating the 1619 Project into “programs for K-12 Classrooms, out-of-school time programs, and higher education programs.” 

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Frights of Climate Catastrophe in the Disco Era In the 1970s, the looming ice age was the climate crisis du jour—proof that today’s “settled science” may not be so settled after all. By Anthony J. Sadar

Posted By on January 31st, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/31/the-frights-of-climate-catastrophe-in-the-disco-era/

Y.M.C.A. is back and badder than ever. The Trump team helped to resurrect this 1978 disco icon. Yet some in the media are not hitting the dance floor and the sphere of “settled science” is trying to bury the cultural climate of the 1970s.

Today’s popular narrative about climate change contends that the public and scientists in the 1970s were not all that concerned about global cooling during that decade can be categorized as disinformation, or at least misinformation.

I was an undergraduate student of meteorology at Penn State in the mid-70s and even with published papers to the contrary, there was a real concern about the emergence of a new ice age. (Beyond Penn State, some non-science students were warned that soon polar bears might be roaming New York City. That turned out to be true, but thankfully the bears have been confined to the Central Park Zoo.)

Perhaps a majority of scientists weren’t overly worried that the downward global temperature trend since the 1940s would continue; however, I don’t recall much angst over imminent global warming either.

Also, cover stories in Time, Newsweek, and other popular magazines sensitized people to a worldwide cooling trend. And the public was primed for disastrous chilling with books confidently stating, “A handful of scientists denied evidence that the Earth’s climate was cooling until the 1970s, when bizarre weather throughout the world forced them to reconsider their views” (from The Cooling by Lowell Ponte, 1976). The book’s cover pondered, “Has the next ice age already begun? Can we survive it?”

Or, from Our Changing Weather: Forecast of Disaster? by Claude Rose in 1977: “Northern hemisphere temperatures have been falling steadily since the 1940s. Glaciers are advancing once again. Scientists no longer debate the coming of a new ice age: the question now is when?” The front cover of this book teased, “Will our fuel run out? Will our food be destroyed? Will we freeze?”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

John Brennan’s Protests to President Trump Lifting his Security Clearances are Absurd John Brennan’s outrage over losing his security clearance is as hollow as the falsehoods he peddled to shield Biden in 2020. By Fred Fleitz

Posted By on January 31st, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/31/john-brennans-protests-to-president-trump-lifting-his-security-clearances-are-absurd/

Former CIA Director John Brennan is angry that President Trump signed an executive order last week lifting his security clearances. The president took this action because Brennan was one of 51 former intelligence officers who meddled in the 2020 presidential election by signing a letter they knew falsely claimed a damaging press story about a laptop owned by President Biden’s son Hunter was Russian disinformation.

Brennan indignantly asserted in an MSNBC interview that President Trump’s action was “bizarre” and said he misrepresented the laptop letter, claiming that based on their intelligence experience, the signatories were “deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”

Brennan also said he needs to hold security clearances as a former intelligence officer so administration officials can consult with him on national security matters.

Brennan’s objections are absurd and justify the President’s executive order.

Brennan’s claims defending the laptop letter are patently false. The 51 former intelligence officers did not sign the letter as a well-intentioned initiative to warn the American people about a possible Russian attempt to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. They knew this wasn’t true.

We know this because one of the principal organizers of the letter, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, testified during an investigation by the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees about the letter’s purpose:

“There were two intents. One intent was to share our concern with the American people that the Russians were playing on this issue, and two, it was to help Vice President Biden.”

The House investigation also found that the letter signers were informed “of the intent of the statement prior to its publication, writing that the statement was meant to insulate Vice President Biden from serious electoral vulnerabilities created by his family’s influence peddling activities.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

FLASHBACK: Biden’s FAA Focused on Diversity, Hiring Workers With Severe Disabilities Matt Margolis

Posted By on January 31st, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/01/30/flashback-bidens-faa-focused-on-diversity-hired-workers-with-severe-disabilities-n4936514

While we don’t know yet what caused the midair collision between the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and a civilian airliner in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday night, renewed attention is turning to Biden-era DEI initiatives at the FAA and whether they may have played a role.

“The Federal Aviation Administration is actively recruiting workers who suffer ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website,” the New York Post reported a year ago.

“Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring,” the FAA’s website stated. “They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism.”

The FAA’s website also noted that individuals with “severe” mental and physical disabilities are the most underrepresented group within the federal workforce.

“Because diversity is so critical, FAA actively supports and engages in a variety of associations, programs, coalitions, and initiatives to support and accommodate employees from diverse communities and backgrounds. Our people are our strength, and we take great care in investing in and valuing them as such,” the website stated.