by Chester E. Finn Jr. via Hoover Education Success Initiative | The PapersAs required by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states should resume school-level accountability as soon as the pandemic is substantially under control, most students are regularly attending school or can be assessed remotely, and reliable data are available, including achievement and growth data. The target should be the end of school year 2021–22. +++ | The One Good Line Of Attack Caitlyn Jenner And Others Have Against Gavin Newsom | by Lanhee J. Chen via CNNCalifornia Republican gubernatorial candidate Caitlyn Jenner this week gave an interview to CNN's Dana Bash in which she was criticized for saying that she's "kind of" a Republican (when she is registered as one) and that she didn't vote in the 2020 election (when official records show she voted by mail). +++++++++++++ Thank you mass media for your bias and anticipatory reporting . Will your reporter's be attending the funerals, shovels in hand?
450 bombs in 35 minutes: This is how the IDF tricked HamasIDF publishes unclear notice - causing Hamas to panic, escape into terror tunnels.
Just after midnight on Friday morning, Israel announced that "air and ground forces from the IDF are now attacking in Gaza. More details to follow." The military columnists in Israel understood that this meant the armored corps and artillery deployed near Gaza will attack, but the unclear notice led foreign reporters to report the beginning of a ground operation in Gaza. Now it has been clarified that the unclear announcement was a planned trick by the IDF to eliminate a large number of Hamas terrorists within a short time. Infantry, artillery, and tanks were moved towards the IDF border, and Hamas believed that Israel was about to begin a ground invasion. As a result, Hamas sent its fighters into its underground tunnel system beneath Gaza City. On Thursday night, the IDF brought in 160 aircraft and dropped 450 bombs containing over 80 tons of explosives, hitting 150 terror targets in 35 minutes. Hamas' underground city was hit with enormous force, and the IDF collapsed the terror tunnel system, on the heads of the terrorists hiding in the tunnels. During the attack, many kilometres of terror tunnels were destroyed. As of now, neither Israel nor Hamas is clear on the exact scope of the damage, but according to estimates, a large number of terrorists were buried in the sands beneath Gaza. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ What's new?
The Justice Department’s Resident ConspiracistSusan Hennessey’s appointment suggests the department will be politicized again.House Democrats in February stripped Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments, punishment for promoting conspiracy theories. Democrats this week rewarded their own conspiracy theorist with a powerful position at the Justice Department. Anyone miss William Barr yet? Lawfare Executive Editor Susan Hennessey announced this week she’s taking a job at the department’s National Security Division, reportedly as senior counsel. Lawfare began in 2010 as a national-security blog, though by the Trump era it had become an unabashed mouthpiece for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency, and partisan enough to marinate in the anti-Trump fever swamps. Before QAnon, there was that tinfoil-hat document called the Steele dossier. It read like the world’s worst spy novel—secret meetings, perverted sexual acts, bribes, blackmail, cutouts—but Ms. Hennessey and her fellow Lawfare contributors lapped it up and played a central role in building and promoting the Russia-collusion fiction. Ms. Hennessey’s history as a National Security Agency lawyer gave credibility to the craziness. “The allegations are being taken quite seriously,” she assured readers in a post in January 2017, when news of the dossier first broke. Dossier author Christopher Steele is “a person whose work intelligence professionals take seriously,” she added. She also promised that this was not a case of Obama officials “leaking sensitive information” out of “revenge,” since intelligence officials treat sensitive information “with the utmost care.” Within days Lawfare was weaving madcap webs involving Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, Russian banks and Carter Page. Like all good conspiracists, she also worked hard to cast doubt on facts that disproved her theories. She excoriated a 2018 memo by former House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes about FBI surveillance abuses, suggesting it was a “lie.” She wrote this before she’d even read the memo, which proved accurate. When the Justice Department inspector general released a 2019 report lambasting the FBI’s conduct in the Russia probe (including that Mr. Steele had cobbled together gossip), she tweeted that she didn’t “think the findings are significant enough” to “justify the work of a podcast.” (In the runup to her job offer, thousands of her prior tweets disappeared.) To understand conspiracy theorists, the question isn’t usually so much the subject of their delusions, but what drives them to believe them. On the right, recent conspiracies have been driven by the need to believe Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election. In the Hennessey case it is driven not only by partisanship but by a desire for the Justice Department to use its power to take out political opponents. Ms. Hennessey cheered on every Mueller prosecution, no matter how political or misguided. That’s what makes her recent appointment so worrisome. Especially because we are already seeing signs Justice is flexing its power again for political purposes. There’s the recent raid against former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, an aggressive move. Equally concerning are stories suggesting Justice and other federal agencies are moving to use the events of Jan. 6 as an excuse to surveil and crack down on “domestic extremists.” While we can all be concerned about terrorism or violence, Democrats have already made clear that they believe “domestic extremists” and “conservatives” are one and the same. CNN reported recently that the Department of Homeland Security was debating ways to get around laws by working with outside groups to sneak into private messaging apps and monitor “extremist chatter.” The New York Times last month said President Biden had recruited employees of Justice and the FBI for a National Security Council team focused on “domestic extremism,” and the White House is debating “executive orders to update the criteria of terrorism watch lists to potentially include more homegrown extremists.” The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court last month released a November opinion blasting the FBI for abusing its surveillance authority by evading safeguards designed to prevent spying on U.S. citizens. The court noted that the FBI accessed information involving “health-care fraud, transnational organized crime, violent gangs, domestic terrorism involving racially motivated violent extremists, as well as investigations relating to public corruption and bribery.” Imagine this FBI power in a repoliticized Justice Department. Senior management is supposed to be the check on FBI and prosecutorial overreach, but the Obama Justice Department threw that over, and the hiring of Ms. Hennessey suggests the Biden administration is doing so too. As attorney general, Mr. Barr worked to restore accountability, but signs are growing that his successor, Merrick Garland, was chosen mostly as a figurehead—to provide the patina of respectability while the partisans get to work. The days of Justice Department politics aren’t over. They look to be beginning again. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ No but, in the land of Bidenites it is at least it is "EQUITABLE"
Blame Is Not Always Equal
I have been engaging on social media with a number of people who see things very differently from me in civil back-and-forths about what’s going on in Israel. It is time consuming, but I think it’s very important to say something when you believe people are not getting the full story. It needs to be done in a respectful way of course, and it’s clear pretty quickly who can dialogue amicably and who can’t. I don’t engage with people who only want to spread hate — there’s little use. But lots of people are genuinely interested in peace, and they are simply forming their opinions based on the information and perspectives that they have been exposed to. Sadly, there is far more anti-Israel propaganda out there than facts. I believe that the vast majority of Palestinians are good and honest people just like the rest of us, but unfortunately, there are also those who have been so blinded by hate that they will say or do anything, regardless of facts or truth. The most obvious example I’ve seen of this in the past couple days is the “funeral procession” where a group of Palestinians is carrying a child who has been “killed” by “Israeli aggression”. Suddenly, a siren goes off and they drop the kid and run off. Miraculously, the kid is “resurrected” and he jumps up and runs after them. In one of the conversations I’ve been having, a very nice guy had commented on the senselessness of the Israeli aggression. I provided some context of the weeks of Palestinian violence and incitement that led up to Israel’s actions, and we have had a very rational discussion. I suggested that the Palestinian people are the victims of their corrupt and murderous leadership, and he agreed. He then countered that the same could be said of the Israelis, implying that Netanyahu and Likkud are also guilty of intentionally exploiting and exacerbating the conflict for political gain. This is a common refrain I’ve seen in the US and European press, but this type of equation just doesn’t stand up. The desire to see both perspectives does not mean that we have to find equal blame on each side. Of course there are “bad guys” in every group. Tragically, there have been ultra-nationalist Israelis who have reacted to the violence against Jews in recent days by responding in kind. Innocent Arabs were attacked by these groups of young Jews, and this is absolutely horrific! The difference is that this has received vehement censure from 99.9% of Israelis, and the perpetrators have been arrested. To equate Likud with Hamas is not tenable. However one feels about Netanyahu, there is no way to suggest that he is a colonist or imperialist. If Israel wanted all of the land, they could have had it and could take it any time. Netanyahu, like almost all Israelis, is willing to co-exist and simply wants defensible borders. Hamas, on the other hand, makes it very clear that coexistence is out of the question. So yes, we can recognize that there are complicated forces swirling in politics always, but no, we cannot ascribe the same vitriol and perversion to the Israeli leadership as we can to the Palestinian leadership. Throughout the history of the state of Israel, Israel has proven time and again its willingness to negotiate for peace (returning the Sinai to Egypt, and pulling its people out of Gaza are just two blatant examples). Unfortunately, there is no one for them to make peace with because any Palestinians who advocate compromise are labeled collaborators and they are either killed or marginalized. What’s happening now in Israel is complicated, but there is a clear right and wrong. Israel is defending itself against a self-proclaimed enemy who is, and always has been, dedicated to the annihilation of every Jew “between the (Jordan) river and the (Mediterranean) sea.” Palestinians in general are not the bad guys, but their terrorist leadership that is lobbing thousands of missiles into civilian centers are. Israel is defending itself by surgically targeting those bad guys — unfortunately, they launch their rockets from schools and hospitals and use their children and civilians as human shields so that Israel will inevitably kill innocents when it tries to protect itself. This is tragic, as Golda Meir once said, “we can forgive you for killing our sons, but we will never forgive you for making us kill yours.” It is admirable to try to find the good in everything and everyone and to seek our common humanity. However, sometimes people have been raised and indoctrinated with so much hate that they are not “just like us.” They don’t want to merely live and let live. They want to kill and/or dominate any who do not share their beliefs. We can certainly feel sorry for them that they have become so jaded and vicious. We can even try to empathize with them and try to elicit the humanity that is hidden deep within them. However, there is a point at which we must defend ourselves from them if they are not open to dialogue or negotiation. We needn’t blame both sides for every conflict. We must do our best to stretch and sacrifice for reconciliation, but sadly, there are sometimes those who are just unwilling to make peace. +++++++++++++++++++++++ West Virginia's Shelley Moore Capito explains why real infrastructure is important By Salena Zito
One of the complexities of Biden’s plan is that while he promises lots of rebuilding projects, he also promises everything be done with strident climate justice compliances, compliances that could depend on local health departments or governments that could withhold or delay permitting under pressure from climate activists. One of the things the president says is ‘build back better,’ but you have to be able to build it, to build back better,” Capito emphasized. Click here for the full story +++++++++++++++++++ A positive thought? You decide.
How did we get here? - opinion Despite the political instability and multiple elections, things were looking up By FLEUR HASSAN-NAHOUM/THE MEDIA LINE
“One It was all looking so positive, like we had turned the corner. The Abraham Accords and normalization with the Gulf were game-changing events. For the first time, Israel was accepted as a complete partner, as equal stakeholders in the fate of the region.
Palestinian intransigence was not going to rule the Middle East agenda. Additionally, there was a mini-Abraham Accords happening internally: In an unprecedented move, most of Israel's political parties, following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's lead, were inviting Arab parties to be part of the government. It seemed like the dawn of a new era, a show of pragmatism by an Islamic party that decided to focus on improving the lot of its constituency, Haredi-style, rather than function as the mouthpiece of the Palestinian Authority. Despite the political instability and multiple elections, things were looking up. Jerusalem was also seeing positive changes. For the past five years, the government and municipality allocated a large amount of the budget for closing social gaps between the western and eastern parts of the city, with investments in infrastructure, education and quality employment. Every day we were building the bridges that should have been built years ago, with civil society leaders, with spiritual leaders, and local muktars. We are planning a high-tech park in Wadi Jos as well as hotels and commercial centers in order to improve the lives of east Jerusalemites. So what happened? How did we get here? The conventional wisdom, until the rockets started to fall, is that it all started because of Sheikh Jarrah, with the impending expulsion of four Palestinian families in a neighborhood that had once been Jewish and called Shimon Hatzadik. This is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented aspects of this sad story. The expulsion became the focus of much criticism against Israel for essentially a real estate property dispute that was commandeered by the Palestinian leadership for their own sinister aims of painting Israel in a negative light and scoring political points. True, there is a property dispute involving Jews: A Jewish Sefardi trust can prove ownership of these houses from before the establishment of the State of Israel, while the Palestinian families living there cannot. After the illegal occupation of Jordan into east Jerusalem in 1948, these houses were handed over to whoever wanted to live in them. War is cruel – it kills and displaces people. Those Jewish families were displaced and some members even killed during the war. The families that moved in did so knowing they had no ownership rights - even their lawyers understood that legally they were squatting. In the 1980s, the land ownership cases were initiated. The Palestinian families were offered a fair compromise: Declare a protected tenancy and you can stay. They originally agreed. Later, as Palestinian Authority lawyers got involved, they influenced the families to reject compromise, knowing the families would lose. The Palestinian Authority knew these families would be expelled but were quite happy to score cheap political points on the backs of these residents. The PA has always been prepared to steamroll the individual for the sake of the "cause." They care little for the fate of these families. The court decisions have served their political agenda. The added bonus for the PA is that this crisis is a perfect distraction from the fact the officials have canceled yet another election and are going into the 17th year of a four-year term. For that, too, Jerusalem was blamed. The excuse was that the Israeli government would not allow the Arab residents of the city to vote. As far as any of us know, there was never a formal request put in by the PA to the Israeli government. However, even if it were true that Israel would not allow the postal polling, that would only influence some 6,000 votes, as the main voting majority are free to vote in any of the PA neighborhoods near Jerusalem. That’s 6,000 out of 160,000 votes! This cynical attempt to blame Israel for canceling an election they never wanted was completely transparent even to the Palestinian voters and even more so to Hamas. Cue in Hamas: Hamas and its perpetual backer Iran have been looking for an excuse for a confrontation for a while now. They have watched helplessly as the Abraham Accords flourished and have seen how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been downgraded to the bottom of everyone's priority list. They are concerned that, for the first time in history, Israeli Arabs would serve in an Israeli government – never mind that the party currently holding the balance of power in Israel is a light incarnation of their movement, the Muslim Brotherhood. And if that wasn’t enough, Iran is still reeling from an electrical "work accident" in their Natanz nuclear plant that showcased their vulnerability. So, what is the best way to drive a wedge between Jews and Muslims, between Israel and the Arab world? Start a war, do it on Ramadan when religious fervor is high, and start in Al Quds (Jerusalem), where everyone will support you, and your political organization will be seen as the true defenders of the faith. Throw in an ill-planned police barricade situation in Damascus Gate on Ramadan for crowd-control purposes on the heels of the Meron tragedy a week before, and you have the perfect storm. First fire a rocket in Jerusalem, and you create the linkage from the get-go, never mind that Jerusalem has a large Muslim population. Once you connect this to Al Aqsa you have a justification – it’s actually kind of a brilliant strategy. The intifada of 2001 was also called the Al Aqsa intifada – by linking the two, you get popular support and, at the same time, the whole Muslim world is on your side. The images of Israel's heavy air power of course help tell the narrative of the victimhood that everyone has bought lock, stock and barrel since 1967. Here we go again. Needless deaths for a Hamas political campaign against Fatah and Iran's proxy war with the West.
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