EDUCATION, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Coming Election’s Effect on Education We know what Harris will do, but what about Trump? By Larry Sand

Posted By on September 25th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/25/the-coming-elections-effect-on-education/

At the recent Donald Trump-Kamala Harris debate, the subject of education was nonexistent. Despite its hot button nature, the moderators did not broach the subject, and some parents are angry.

Michele Exner, a senior advisor at Parents Defending Education, commented that despite student literacy having “hit a crisis point,” those who were already struggling before the COVID-19 pandemic are being failed now. Yet, the moderators did not ask one single question about education. “They completely ignored one of the top issues parents are worried about.”

Interestingly, Trump, who has been known to wander off script, never brought it up. While he managed to insist that people in Springfield, OH, are eating cats and dogs, the subject of education never crossed his lips. (Thankfully, at least he didn’t erroneously claim, as he did to Moms for Liberty, that schools decide if your child is going to have a gender-changing surgery.)

The debate aside, Harris’s thoughts on education are no mystery. In a nutshell, she is a big government, anti-school choice, teacher union acolyte. She favors the Biden Title IX rewrite, which requires that schools treat students who suffer or think they suffer from gender dysphoria as though they were the opposite sex. The revision also stipulates that male students who identify as female must be allowed access to facilities designated for females, such as bathrooms and locker rooms, and be allowed to participate in women’s sports and organizations.

Harris also wants to expand child tax credits, increase Title I funding, and abolish (essentially nonexistent) book bans, asserting, “We want to ban assault weapons. They want to ban books.”

She also wants to spend taxpayer dollars on electric school buses, is against any effort that weakens public schools (meaning she opposes parental freedom), and ensures the maintenance of the Department of Education. She nonsensically claims that the DOE “funds our public schools.”

Lest there be any doubt about her leanings, Harris gave a speech to the American Federation of Teachers on the last day of the union’s yearly convention in July. She thanked AFT president Randi Weingarten for her “long-standing friendship” and boasted about how she “led [the Biden-Harris Administration’s effort] to eliminate barriers to (labor) organizing in both public and private sectors.”

HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Biden-Harris Admin to Waive Visas for Terror State That Harbored 9/11 Mastermind If there’s any country that should require visas, full body scans and bomb-sniffing dogs to enter, it’s Qatar. by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on September 25th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/biden-harris-admin-to-waive-visas-for-terror-state-that-harbored-9-11-mastermind/

Qatar harbored 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and tipped him off when we came to get him.

According to the intelligence community, Abdullah bin Khalid al-Thani, a member of the Qatari royal family, its former interior minister and minister of Islamic affairs, was an Al Qaeda sympathizer who had harbored Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. When the FBI arrived in Qatar to arrest him, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks was transported away on a special Qatari government jet with blacked out windows.

Qatar currently harbors Hamas, is an ally of Iran, and enabled the Taliban. It’s a major backer of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Al Jazeera network was a Jihadist video dump for everyone including Osama bin Laden. And then there are the funds that were going to Al-Nusra, an Al Qaeda ally in Syria, out of Qatar.

If there’s any country on the planet where entry to the United States should require visas, full body scans and bomb-sniffing dogs, it’s Qatar.

But instead, the Biden-Harris administration decided to waive visas for one of the worst Islamic terror states in the world.

The United States said Tuesday it will waive visa requirements for citizens of Qatar, making the close Gulf partner the first Arab country to clear the hurdle.

The energy-rich Gulf monarchy cleared the “stringent security requirements” to become the 42nd member of the visa waiver program, the Department of Homeland Security announced.

What did the “stringent security requirements” consist of for a state that is actively harboring Islamic terrorists?

Million dollar checks to the right people?

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Education for Freedom, Not DEI The dire urgency for access to alternative ideas. by Bruce Thornton

Posted By on September 25th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/education-for-freedom-not-dei/

Two Supreme Court decisions in 2023 struck down the use of race-based admission to colleges and universities, and proscribed various proxies for race like admission essays. But just a year out, the Wall Street Journal reports, “The group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA),” who represented the Asian-American applicants before the court, “suspects this [violation of the rules] about Yale, Princeton and Duke universities, and on Tuesday it asked the schools for information on how they chose the current freshmen who will graduate in the class of 2028.”

Having spent more than 50 years of my life in universities, I’ve had a front-row seat for observing how universities over the years have juked their admission criteria to make sure they admitted enough “protected classes,” which means anybody except white males. In my university, for example, even after California in 1996 passed Proposition 209, which forbade the explicit use of race, the admissions and hiring process still comprised numerous opportunities for evaluators to discern the applicant’s race.

The former “Affirmative Action Officer,” for example, required the hiring committee to document each member’s sex and race, as well as the applicants’. After Prop 209, the university didn’t observe the law, but merely changed the title to the “EEOC Officer,” who still gathered the same data that were inappropriate if the process was truly merit-based, while reminding everybody that the federal agency Big Brother was watching.

So those experiences made me skeptical when “Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority that students must be admitted ‘based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race’ and that ‘what cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly.’”

But the really damaging idea connected to affirmative action came from an earlier Supreme Court decision and still remains today. Despite the blatant violation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act, these race-based policies were given the Supreme Court’s imprimatur in its 1978 Bakke decision. The court didn’t, as it should have, proscribe preferences based on race, but just numerical quotas, which were easily circumvented to reach the same end––choosing by race rather than merit.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s Righteous War on Hezbollah Rich Lowry

Posted By on September 25th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/09/israels-righteous-war-on-hezbollah/

The Jewish state is under no obligation to tolerate the intolerable.

Israel is supposed to tolerate the intolerable.

A terror group has launched thousands of missiles into the Jewish state over the last year — catalyzed by a hideous pogrom against Israel carried out by another terror group — and we are told that it is Israel, finally hitting back in earnest, that is dangerously escalating the situation.

Since the Hamas atrocities on October 7, Lebanon-based Hezbollah has fired roughly 8,000 rockets at Israel. These indiscriminate attacks have forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee the north of the country. In July, a missile killed twelve children and teenagers who were playing soccer in the Golan Heights, a random massacre with no military purpose whatsoever.

Israel retaliated for the horror in the Golan Heights but has generally absorbed Hezbollah’s attacks, since it’s been focused on the war against Hamas to its south while the Biden administration has been working to stay its hand in the north.

The theme, as ever, is that the Jewish state is expected to accept as background noise unprovoked attacks on its sovereign territory that no other state would ever abide.

What other country is asked to bear the rocketing of its civilian population as the price for faux regional comity?

Israel won’t abide by these rules, and nor should it. It began turning up the heat against Hezbollah with its Mission Impossible–worthy attacks on Hezbollah operatives via their pagers and other electronic devices.

The pager attack was an experiment in whether Israel could carry out perhaps the most carefully calibrated counterterrorist operation in the modern age and still get accused of committing war crimes. Sure enough, AOC and others have condemned the Jewish state.

Israel hits terrorist targets from the air — and it’s accused of war crimes.

Israel goes in on the ground — and it’s accused of war crimes.

Israel does neither, opting instead to target terrorists by using their own devices against them — and it’s accused of war crimes.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Zelensky’s Inexplicable and Inexcusable Partisanship By Michael Brendan Dougherty

Posted By on September 25th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/zelenskys-partisanship/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=first

Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to campaign with Kamala Harris and to specifically attack the Republican vice-presidential nominee — preemptively blaming J. D. Vance for a global war — is unwise for many reasons. By appearing at what was in effect a campaign event for Democrats, the Ukrainian president himself is now deliberately and knowingly contributing to the political polarization of this issue in a way that can only work to his country’s detriment. 

There are two possible explanations for this bizarre stunt: One, Zelensky has concluded that Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is correct in saying that a Trump victory means that U.S. aid to Ukraine will immediately be zeroed to nothing. Or two, the Harris campaign is using its own leverage over Zelensky to make him a campaign surrogate, hoping to complete its pitch to Nikki Haley–style Republican voters who overwhelmingly support Ukraine, even if this stunt does more damage to Ukraine’s cause among Republicans generally.

To the first point, there is little evidence Donald Trump will simply cut off U.S. support for Ukraine. Trump has been cagey about his views on supporting Ukraine, but there are some clues about his wanting to keep his options open. First, he backed Republican Mike Johnson in the House as Johnson signed onto a Ukraine aid package. Second, Vance, as his running mate, has stuck to the script set by Trump. Even though Vance went out of his way to debate and cajole his own party on this issue when he was in the Senate, he did not mention Ukraine once in his own convention speech, and on the stump he repeats Trump’s views, not his own. Trump has said only that the war wouldn’t have happened if he were in office, and that it will end shortly after he is elected. He has also implied that he could, if he wanted to, make worse problems for Vladimir Putin.

To the second point, the deployment of Zelensky on the American political front amounts to a tacit admission that perhaps Ukraine isn’t vital to America’s interests. If it were, Democrats would not make it an acceptable sacrifice in a presidential campaign.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Women, Children, Disabled Pay The Price For Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion Sally C. Pipes

Posted By on September 25th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/25/women-children-disabled-pay-the-price-for-obamacares-medicaid-expansion/

Obamacare greatly expanded Medicaid eligibility. As a result, about 20 million able-bodied, working-age adults who were previously ineligible are now enrolled in the program. 

But as a new report from the Paragon Health Institute makes clear, their gains have come at the expense of the pregnant women, children, and people with disabilities that Medicaid was established for. 

The harm to these legacy beneficiaries, and to taxpayers, will only mount unless Congress fixes the perverse incentives that Obamacare created for the nation’s flagship health program for the poor.

Obamacare directed states to expand Medicaid eligibility to able-bodied adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty line. Forty states and the District of Columbia have complied.

Previously, eligibility had been restricted to vulnerable people — like nursing home residents with virtually no assets, or minor children, or pregnant women who lacked other health coverage. 

Obamacare incentivized states to enroll able-bodied adults by having the federal government cover most of the cost. 

For the legacy Medicaid population, the feds normally pick up between half and three-quarters of enrollees’ health care costs; states foot the rest of the bill. For the expansion population, Washington initially picked up 100% of the cost. Now the federal government covers 90%. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Should Biden Stay? 42% Say He Should Leave Office Before His Term Ends: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

Posted By on September 25th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/25/should-biden-stay-42-say-he-should-leave-office-before-his-term-ends-ii-tipp-poll/

Does the United States of America have a functioning president right now? That question isn’t meant to be provocative. Members of both major parties have noted that President Joe Biden seems to have gone AWOL from his official duties as the nation’s executive in chief. A large chunk of voters agree, saying they want Biden to leave office right away. 

In August’s I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,488 registered voters, taken from  July 31-Aug. 2, shortly after the Democratic Party forced Biden to step down as his party’s candidate, we asked voters the following question: “Which of the following do you believe is in the best interest of the country?” 

As we wrote then:

“Respondents were given four possible responses: ‘Biden should finish his term,’ ‘Biden should step down and hand over the presidency to Harris,’ ‘Biden should be removed from office using the 25th Amendment,’ and ‘not sure.’ “

“The answer? A small plurality of 48% said they wanted Biden to ‘finish his term,’ while 41% said they wanted him either to ‘step down’ (21%) or “be removed” through the 25th Amendment (20%). Another 12% weren’t sure.”

A month later, for our September poll of 1,582 adults (taken from Aug. 28-30), we asked the same question. There was virtually no change in the overall numbers.

A hefty 42% of voters still agree either that “Biden should step down and hand over the presidency to Harris” (21%) or “should be removed from office using the 25th Amendment” (20%). Another 11% say they’re “not sure” in the poll, which has a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

‘He Targeted My Child for Sexual Exploitation’: The Persecution of Christians, August 2024 by Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on September 24th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20966/persecution-of-christians-august

Muslim militants slit the throats of about 26 people inside a church: “All non-Muslim men over the age of 12 were separated out before being killed.” — acnuk.org, August 30, 2024, Burkina Faso.

“So let everyone know that the role of Christians in Lebanon has ended! You have become a minority in this country, and yet you still hold high positions… Nobody would accept this issue. The coming generations will… not accept that the president must be Christian; he must be a Sunni Muslim or Shi’ite.” — Reda Saad, pro-Hezbollah commentator, x.com, August 18, 2024.

“We informed the police about the accused, but they still did not take any action, giving sufficient time to Asad to convert the minor child and contract an Islamic marriage with her…. Fairy is just 12 years old. She had no access to a cell phone and rarely went out of the home by herself….” — Parveen Shaukat, mother of Fairy Shaukat,12, abducted, converted and married by Muhammad Assad; morningstarnews.org, August 28, 2024, Pakistan.

“The accused not only kidnapped the child, he converted her and contracted an Islamic marriage to save himself from prosecution [a common practice by kidnappers to sexually exploit underage non-Muslim girls].” — Sumera Shafique, Christian attorney; morningstarnews.org, August 28, 2024, Pakistan.

“Women who disappear and are never recovered must live an unimaginable nightmare. The large majority of these women are never reunited with their families or friends because police response in Egypt is dismissive and corrupt.” — Coptic Solidary report, “‘Jihad of the Womb’: Trafficking of Coptic Women & Girls in Egypt”, copticsolidarity.org, September 10, 2020, Egypt.

On August 5, a Muslim migrant from North Africa was arrested for robbing a church in Turin. There were many other acts of arson, desecration (including of a Christian cemetery), statue breaking, and thefts targeting churches in Italy throughout the month of August — torinotoday.it, August 6, 2024, Italy.

On Sunday, Aug. 18, a mob consisting of local officials forcibly dragged a Christian pastor from his church and sealed off its site on the dubious claim that the place had originally belonged to the government…. “What was disappointing was those people who closed my church were my friends….” — morningstarnews.org, September 3, 2024, Indonesia.

On Aug. 30, a massive fire “broke out” in the Coptic Christian Diocese of Beni Suef in Egypt, consuming all of the five-story Christian building’s contents…. [T]his is only the latest of many churches in Egypt to be torched and immediately attributed to “faulty wires” and other natural causes. In one month alone, August 2022, a full 11 churches reportedly “caught fire.”… Also “interesting” is that “accidental” fires in mosques—which outnumber churches in Egypt by a ratio of 40 to 1—are completely unheard of.” — copticslodarity.org, September 2, 2024, Egypt.

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

News Flash for DC: Diplomacy Gets You Slaughtered by Ruthie Blum

Posted By on September 24th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20967/diplomacy-gets-you-slaughtered

Then there’s Kirby’s delicacy in describing how “it doesn’t appear like Mr. Sinwar is prepared at all to keep negotiating in good faith—especially after he murdered six hostages in a tunnel … execution-style.”

When, one wonders, did he ever negotiate “in good faith?”

Somebody should let [US National Security spokesman John] Kirby know that “all those people”—as well as the majority of Israelis throughout the country—have been urging Netanyahu to eliminate the threat through serious military action beyond tit-for-tat strikes of attrition.

Stephanopoulos pressed him further. “So, what is the U.S. doing exactly to advance a diplomatic initiative?” he asked.

“We have been involved in extensive and quite assertive diplomacy,” Kirby said proudly, clearly referring to pressure on Israel from the White House and State Department.

[Kirby] failed to clarify that Hezbollah attacked Israel, unprovoked, a day after Hamas committed the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust. Nor did he bother to remind Stephanopoulos that both are Iranian proxies. He did stress, however, that “we don’t believe military action is in either side’s best interest.”

Here’s a news flash for him and anyone else who hasn’t been facing a seven-front war of annihilation: Diplomacy gets you slaughtered. Military action, which is the only option in this case, should be welcomed—and victory championed—not hampered, by Israel’s professed allies.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

I grew up in Cuba. Self-censorship in American universities is all too familiar to me. FIRE intern reflects on totalitarian self-censorship on US college campuses. Justo Antonio Triana

Posted By on September 24th, 2024

https://www.thefire.org/news/i-grew-cuba-self-censorship-american-universities-all-too-familiar-me

Justo Antonio Triana is a senior at Syracuse University

Growing up in Cuba, I had to measure with surgical precision each of my words at school, knowing they could possibly be deemed “problematic,” meaning “counterrevolutionary,” meaning I — or worse, my family — could get in serious trouble for what I said.

There is no room for controversy in a totalitarian state. If your thoughts do not align with the only permissible truth, you are an enemy. And no one wants to be the enemy of a repressive apparatus that is bigger and stronger than you. No one likes to feel powerless.

I remember one morning the school administrators summoned all the students to a meeting. They wanted to inform us that some American musicians were going to visit our high school in a few hours as part of a cultural exchange program. A student asked the principal if we could talk to the musicians. The principal replied, “Of course you’re free to talk to them, but beware that everything you say has consequences.” 

It was crystal clear to us what her words meant: If you dare to make us look bad, we will make you regret it.

Arriving in the United States in 2019, I again found myself self-censoring in a classroom.

When the search for truth is sacrificed for the sake of not being canceled, the outcome is a superficial and sterile education.

The difference is that in America it is not primarily administrators who enforce ideological homogeneity, but other students. Unlike in Cuba, the censorial administrator’s role in the U.S. is a surrogate one. They do not threaten ideological dissenters directly, but rather simply construct speech-chilling policies and enable the illiberal majority to silence students with dissenting views. Aware of the potential reputational and financial cost of publicly expressing a sincere rejection of free speech, university officials opt to quietly draft speech codes whose definition of “hate” is wider than the Pacific Ocean and encourage students to denounce each other or their professors over the slightest disagreement. 

In America, they let students do the dirty work of pressuring their peers into silence.

The result is a campus culture in which students and faculty know that everything they say “has consequences” and the accused are guilty until proven innocent. In this culture, self-censorship is the norm. While we might all agree that we should be empathetic to our peers, and that a bigot shouldn’t feel comfortable making others miserable, the current obsession with political correctness on campus is not fostering a culture of mutual understanding and respect. It’s fostering one of distrust and fear — a climate that is all too familiar to me.