I do not own one of those things.
I would rather look into my wife's beautiful eyes!
===
Should we up the voting age ? (See 1 and 1a below.)
Cynically speaking, since they learn very little in college about citizenship, "what difference does it make?"
===
Petraeus to the rescue. However, Obama will not listen because he prefers a defeatist agenda. (See 2 below.)
===
Teaching hate is what they do and it is all in a day's work. (See 3 below.)
And
It is what an unsupervised agency of the U.N (UNRWA) does as well and is supported by American tax dollars. How stupid can our government be? (See 3a below.)
Deaf ears! (See 3b below.)
===
Hillarious reminds me of a beached whale with bigger hips as she flips and flops all over the sand.
I attended a presentation by Ben Payne today. Ben, as many of you know, is headmaster at The Savannah Classical Academy (a Chatham County Charter School that selects by open lottery.) and everything they do there defies Hillarious' ignorance, comments and switched thinking because she is now in full campaign mode and will say and do anything to appease those who might be dumb enough to vote for her and would rather choke Carly.
Then after screwing Veterans, Hillarious decided that was dumb so she changed her mind. (See 4 and 4a)
===
Hoyer sees through Iran. (See 5 below.)
===
Dick
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Glenn Reynolds: After Yale, Mizzou, raise the voting age — to 25
Glenn Harlan Reynolds
How can students too spoiled to tolerate debate weigh opposing political arguments? They can't.
In 1971, the United States ratified the 26th Amendment, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake.
The idea, in those Vietnam War years, was that 18-year-olds, being old enough to be drafted, to marry and to serve on juries, deserved a vote. It seemed plausible at the time, and I myself have argued that we should set the drinking age at 18 for the same reasons.
But now I’m starting to reconsider. To be a voter, one must be able to participate in adult political discussions. It’s necessary to be able to listen to opposing arguments and even — as I’m doing right here in this column — to change your mind in response to new evidence.
But now the evidence suggests that, whatever one might say about the 18-year-olds of 1971, the 18-year-olds of today aren’t up to that task. And even the 21-year-olds aren’t looking so good.
Consider Yale University, where a disagreement over what to do about — theoretically — offensive Halloween costumes devolved into a screaming fit by a Yale senior (old enough to vote, thanks to the 26th Amendment) who assaulted a professor with a profane tirade because the professor's failure to agree with her made her feel ... unsafe.
As The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf writes: “Erika Christakis reflected on the frustrations of the students, drew on her scholarship and career experience, and composed an email inviting the community to think about the controversy through an intellectual lens that few if any had considered. Her message was a model of relevant, thoughtful, civil engagement. For her trouble, a faction of students are now trying to get (her and her husband, also a professor there) removed from their residential positions, which is to say, censured and ousted from their home on campus. Hundreds of Yale students are attacking them, some with hateful insults, shouted epithets, and a campaign of public shaming. In doing so, they have shown an illiberal streak that flows from flaws in their well-intentioned ideology.”
This isn’t the behavior of people who are capable of weighing opposing ideas, or of changing their minds when they are confronted with evidence that suggests that they are wrong. It’s the behavior of spoiled children — a characterization that Friedersdorf, perhaps unconsciously, underscores by not reporting the students’ names because, he implies, they are too young to be responsible for their actions. And spoiled children shouldn’t vote.
And this is at Yale, where — alarmingly — the students are supposed to represent America’s leaders of tomorrow. But the problem isn’t just at Yale, as the University of Missouri recently saw student protests oust a president for ... well, it’s not entirely clear what he did, but it had something to do with not being sensitive enough to students’ feelings. Nor, sadly, are such events unique; campus craziness has become a standard story line, with new examples appearing almost daily.
As Reason’s Robby Soave notes, student demands for “safe spaces” boil down to a demand that universities fulfill the role of Mommy and Daddy. In the old days — this practice, interestingly, ended about 1971, too — colleges stood in loco parentis (in the place of parents) and, as Soave writes, exercised extensive and detailed control over students’ social lives, sleeping hours, organizing and speaking. Now, he observes, the students are “desperate to be treated like children again.”
Well, OK, I guess. But children don’t vote. Those too fragile to handle different opinions are too fragile to participate in politics. So maybe we should raise the voting age to 25, an age at which, one fervently hopes, some degree of maturity will have set in. It’s bad enough to have to treat college students like children. But it’s intolerable to be governed by spoiled children. People who can’t discuss Halloween costumes rationally don’t deserve to play a role in running a great nation.
1a)
Center for American Progress kerfuffle accidentally reveals Palestinians were advising demonstrators in Ferguson
Oops! As a byproduct of an internal dispute at the far left think tank, the Center for American Progress (CAP), it has been revealed that Palestinian advisers were brought into the Ferguson, Missouri demonstrations to advise the rioters. Exactly who paid for them to apparently fly halfway around the world (or otherwise build "strong relationships") and stick their noses into an American political dispute is unclear, though it has been bandied about that George Soros has played a major role in funding the #BlackLivesMatter movement that is ginning up black anger, and presumably 2016 election turnout for Hillary.
The dispute that led to the shocking disclosure involved the invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak at CAP. The left wing journal, The Nation, chronicled the dispute and let slip the incriminating information. Ali Gharib and Eli Clifton write:
There is dissent at the Center for American Progress. Late last month, the Democratic Party–aligned think tank announced that it would, with encouragement from the influential pro-Israel lobby AIPAC,accept an offer from Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to host the right-wing Israeli prime minister for an event. The invite stirred controversy: Many liberals who normally fall within the Democratic Party milieu were miffed that Netanyahu, a figure who has been widely seen over the past several years as openly siding with Republicans and neoconservative ideologues, would be given an opportunity to rehabilitate his image as a bipartisan figure.
A statement of dissent was prepared and delivered at a staff meeting. The Nation, well-connected on the left, obtained a copy and revealed:
The staffers who rose to deliver the statement of dissent said they were left out of the process and now face difficulty returning to the communities from which they come and work with. “It becomes difficult to step outside of our building and say to our allies why this visit is happening, for some of us here we ourselves feel that we were not considered in that decision,” the statement reads. The authors cited, for example, the strong relationships built between Palestinian protesters, who face routine tear-gassing at their demonstrations, and Black Lives Matter activists in places like Ferguson, Missouri. “[I]t’s hard to separate American progress from world progress when young people in Palestine are advising young people in Ferguson on how to deal with tear gas and flash grenades,” they wrote.
Does the phrase “outside agitators” ring any bells? How about “interference in the internal affairs” of a nation?
It has long been clear that #BlackLivesMatter is another Astroturf operation of the left. But the revelation that deep pocket interests, able to engage radical people in from the Middle East (were there any Hamas or Hezb’allah people in Ferguson?) should raise all sorts of red flags.
Hat tips: Carol Greenwald and Karin McQuillan
Read more:http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/11/center_for_american_progress_kerfuffle_accidentally_reveals_palestinians_were_in_ferguson_advising_demonstrators.html#ixzz3rIRqu5lK
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
DPS Note: This frightening idiocy has infected our colleges and universities, where the lunatic students are, with supporting approval from their equally misguided professors and administrators, running our academic asylums and insisting on zero tolerance for hurt feelings and zero tolerance for even having to hear an opinion with which they disagree. Until now, however, I haven’t seen that form of dementia appear in what one might call the adult world. But now, here it is, metastasized into an admittedly far left but nevertheless arguably adult organization. Someone had been figure out some kind of chemotherapy to deal with this idiocy before we have the oh-so-tender generation cowering in their safe rooms with their comforting blankies and stuffed animals when Putin, the Mullahs and the Chinese say things to them which hurt their feelings. Never mind the Israelis' insistence on not committing suicide to accommodate the mindless pro-Palestinian propaganda which these morons have imbibed.
And next time I will tell you what I really think.
To all you cancer survivors out there (including myself), my apologies for using such an analogy. I just couldn’t think of a better way to characterize this spreading disease in our country.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)-
Petraeus: Ground Forces Needed in Syria to Defeat ISIS
The former commander of U.S. Central Command also said there are currently not enough Special Forces
By Nicholas Ballasy
-“If your objective is to get to the diplomatic table, and we’re there now, to a degree, you have to have a military context. There is no military solution, as everyone is fond of saying. There is a military context that has to be established without which no one is going to go to the negotiating table, or at least they won’t negotiate seriously. And by the way, if you want to degrade and defeat the Islamic State and the al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Khorasan Group, the al-Qaeda element sent there for establishment of a cell in Northern Syria, you’re going to have to have a ground force.”
Despite his emphasis on the need for ground forces, Petraeus said the U.S. military is able to do a lot with air capabilities.
“It’s very, very important to note that our capabilities now are just so vastly greater than when we did the fight to Baghdad. The armada of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft that we have over the skies in Iraq and Syria is just breathtaking,” he said.
Petraeus, the former commander of U.S. Central Command, also said there are currently not enough Special Forces.
“There’s special operation forces writ large, and I’m talking now about both so-called black special operations, the special mission units, publicly known as Delta Seal Team Six and the Rangers, for over the last decade under JSOC control, conducting targeted, precise, counter-terrorist operations, as many as 10 to 15 per night on average during the surge in Iraq, and just about that during the surge in Afghanistan as well, and there’s never enough of those, frankly, and there certainly aren’t enough of the …Green Beret Special Forces,” he said.
“The Seals and the Marines that can conduct those missions, as well, and did so very skillfully in Afghanistan, there’s just never enough of them – and I know because I tried to find every single one in the inventory, and tried to get them into Iraq, Afghanistan or the greater Central Command area. So number one, even in steady state times, we end up having to augment them quite considerably, or literally, use conventional forces to perform missions that under ideal circumstances, you would use Green Berets again, or Seals or Marines,” he added.
Petraeus told the audience Syria might be the “Humpty Dumpty that can’t be put back together again.”
“In a perfect world, we’d love to see a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian, inclusive government evolve, but I think that becomes more and more remote the longer the fighting goes on,” he said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)Palestinian Media Watch reports
lead to second arrest of Antisemitic teacher
at the Al-Aqsa Mosque
Sheikh Al-Mughrabi's defense:
I was just quoting the Quran
Antisemitic Sheikh:
"Allah can annihilate all the Jews down to the last one...
But what does Allah want?
He wants us to fulfill His command"
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi teaches Islam twice a week at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Palestinian Media Watch has exposed that his teachings are blatantly Antisemitic. In August, PMW reports led to his arrest and questioning by Israeli Police, who banned him from the Temple Mount for a month. Last week, the Sheikh was arrested a second time, again because of PMW's documentation of his most recent Islam lessons, which PMW provided to the police.
While Palestinians are carrying out numerous stabbing attacks against Israelis and the PA and Fatah are fueling Palestinian rage, falsely claiming that Israel is fabricating the attacks as a pretext to shoot Palestinians, Sheikh Mughrabi encouraged the conflict further by stating that Allah is able to destroy all Jews, but wants Muslims/Palestinians to "fulfill His command":
"Allah can annihilate all the Jews down to the last one, throughout the world. But, what does Allah want? He wants us to fulfill His command."
[Al-Msjed Al-Aqsa YouTube channel, Oct. 27, 2015]
The Sheikh explained the fulfillment of Allah's command as carrying out Ribat in the Al-Aqsa Mosque - a concept denoting religious war/conflict over land claimed to be Islamic. To illustrate the desirability of becoming a Ribat fighter, the Sheikh compared the benefits granted a Ribat fighter in Paradise to those granted a Martyr, stating that it is far more beneficial to die while carrying outRibat:
"The most important thing I can do to fulfill Allah's command when I am in the Al-Aqsa Mosque is Ribat... Let's compare the privileges that are bestowed upon the Ribat fighter to the privileges of the Martyr: 'The Ribat fighter marries 70 of the Dark-Eyed (i.e., virgins).' The Martyr gets two of the Dark-Eyed, while the Ribat fighter gets 70. 35 times more than the Martyr. 'He marries 70 of the Dark-Eyed, and can advocate on Judgement Day on behalf of anyone he wants.'"
[Al-Msjed Al-Aqsa YouTube channel, Oct. 27, 2015]
Israeli TV Channel 1 reported that PMW documentation of these teachings led to the arrest of the Antisemitic preacher. In the TV report, the Sheikh is shown defending his Antisemitic teachings as mere quotes from the Quran:
"It is not incitement at all. We are Muslims, we have a right to say: 'Allah said, Muhammad said.' Everything that comes from the Quran is part of our faith, what we believe."
[Israeli TV Channel 1, Nov. 4, 2015]
In another recent lesson on Islam, the Sheikh warned his listeners not to "become too excited" and kill a Jew inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque itself, because it would provide Jews with "an excuse to Allah" to build the Temple there as "a memorial" to the killed Jew:
"There is one situation I want to warn you of, in which the Children of Israel may build their Temple inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. If we, in any way, become too excited, and kill a Jew inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Children of Israel will use this as an excuse for Allah: 'In thisplace one of our people was killed, and we will build a memorial for him.' What will this memorial be? The Temple. However, praise Allah, everyone is aware of this matter, and this situation will not arise, and all the riots are taking place outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, not inside it."
[Al-Msjed Al-Aqsa YouTube channel, Oct. 30, 2015]
PA media also reported on the Sheikh's arrest: "The occupation arrested a Sheikh at the Al-Aqsa [Mosque] under the pretext of 'incitement' in lessons in religion [Islam]" [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 5, 2015]
See PMW's report on the Sheikh's teachings about Martyrs and virgins to young children.
The following are longer excerpts of the two Islam lessons taught by Sheikh Al-Mughrabi and the report on his arrest on Israeli TV 1 and in the official PA daily:
Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi: "Allah can annihilate all the Jews down to the last one, throughout the world. But what does Allah want? He wants us to fulfill His command. If we ask ourselves: 'How can I fulfill Allah's command?' The most important thing I can do to fulfill Allah's command when I am in the Al-Aqsa Mosque is Ribat (i.e., religious conflict/war over land claimed to be Islamic) in the Al-Aqsa Mosque... The Prophet [Muhammad] says about the Martyr: 'His sins are forgiven with the first gush of blood.' Some privileges are bestowed upon the Martyr. The first: 'His sins are forgiven with the first gush of blood.' The Martyr's second privilege: 'He marries two of the Dark-Eyed (i.e., virgins) of Paradise.' His third privilege: 'He advocates on behalf of 70 members of his family.' [...] Let's compare the privileges that are bestowed upon the Ribat fighter to the privileges of the Martyr: 'The Ribat fighter marries 70 of the Dark-Eyed (i.e., virgins).' The Martyr gets two of the Dark-Eyed, while the Ribat fighter gets 70. 35 times more than the Martyr. 'He marries 70 of the Dark-Eyed, and can advocate on Judgement Day on behalf of anyone he wants.'"
[Al-Msjed Al-Aqsa YouTube channel, Oct. 27, 2015]
Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi: "One hundred rabbis signed a decision, or petition, saying: 'In our opinion, this is not the appropriate time to invade Al-Aqsa (i.e., the Temple Mount). It is not the duty of the Children of Israel.' I promise you that soon, we will see an additional petition from the religious [Jews] that will allow the religious [Jews] to build the Temple outside the walls of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Because it is not possible to build it inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. There is one situation I want to warn you of, in which the Children of Israel may build their Temple inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. If we, in any way, become too excited, and kill a Jew inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Children of Israel will use this as an excuse for Allah: 'In this place one of our people was killed, and we will build a memorial for him.' What will this memorial be? The Temple. However, praise Allah, everyone is aware of this matter, and this situation will not arise, and all the riots are taking place outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, not inside it."
[Al-Msjed Al-Aqsa YouTube channel, Oct. 30, 2015]
Israeli TV 1 news report on Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi's second arrest:
Israeli TV 1 newsreader: "The inciting preacher from the Temple Mount has been arrested. Last week, we reported that Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi incites freely. And on this topic, here is the report by Dana Ben Shimon."
Sheikh Al-Mughrabi: "It is not incitement at all."
Israeli TV 1 reporter: "So [said] Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi, the preacher from Al-Aqsa, this evening in court."
Sheikh Al-Mughrabi: "We are Muslims, we have a right to say: 'Allah said, Muhammad said.' Everything that comes from the Quran is part of our faith, what we believe."
Israeli TV 1 reporter: "Last night, he was arrested in his home in the Old City [of Jerusalem] as a result of sermons he has given at the Temple Mount that incite against Israel and the Jews. It reached its peak during the last religious lesson he gave at the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
PMW video exposing the Sheikh's Antisemitic teachings:
Sheikh Al-Mughrabi: "Allah can, in the blink of an eye, ''He only says, 'Be,' and it is'' (Quran), Allah can annihilate all the Jews, down to the last one, throughout the world. However, what does Allah want? He wants us to fulfill His command."
Israeli TV 1 reporter: "This wild incitement was already exposed several months ago by the research institute Palestinian Media Watch. The organization Honenu submitted a complaint to the police, and as a result, the Sheikh was arrested this August and banned from the Temple Mount for 30 days. At the end of the investigation, the police even recommended indicting him, but the state attorney said the matter was still being examined. However, in the meantime it turns out that the Sheikh continued. No measures were taken against him, and no limitations were imposed on him, and he continued inciting. Here is a reminder of what we showed last week:"
Sheikh Al-Mughrabi: "[At the End of Days] we will follow the Jews everywhere. They will not escape us. They will not be able to escape us. The Children of Israel will all be exterminated, the Anti-Christ will be killed and the Muslims will live in comfort for a long time."
Israeli TV 1 reporter: "The arrest of the Sheikh will be extended until tomorrow [Nov. 5, 2015]. Al-Mughrabi is almost certainly not the only Sheikh preaching hatred at the Temple Mount. The question is whether this arrest will lead to arrests of other preachers."
[Israeli TV Channel 1, Nov. 4, 2015]
Headline: "The occupation arrested a Sheikh at the Al-Aqsa [Mosque] under the pretext of 'incitement' in lessons in religion [Islam]"
"The occupation police arrested a [Palestinian] resident of Jerusalem yesterday [Nov. 4, 2015] at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque on the grounds of 'incitement.' The occupation police claimed that they arrested a Jerusalem Sheikh in his fifties (i.e., Sheikh Khaled Mughrabi), a resident of the old city of Jerusalem, on the grounds of 'incitement' during lessons in religion [Islam] and Shari'ah in the Noble Sanctuary of Jerusalem (i.e., the Temple Mount). Police noted that he was transferred to the Jerusalem Magistrates Court for extension of his custody for the purpose of investigation."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 5, 2015]
3a)
Center For Near East Policy Research Lt <ctrforneareastpolicyresearch@gmail.com>
November 11, 2015
Yesterday
morning, calls to "kill Jews" emanated from the mouths of teachers in
the
US- funded UNRWA junior high school in Shuafat - in Jerusalem.
Two Shuafat students, aged 12 and 13, obeyed the rantings of their teachers and strolled to a nearby Jerusalem light rail stop and tried to stab Jews to death who were waiting for the train.
This week, we dispatched a TV crew to film Arab children as they learn to kill Jews at the UN schools in Jerusalem – at a time when 42% of the Arab students in Jerusalem learn at these UNRWA schools.
Celebrations of murder in UN schools must be documented.
On October 28, I participated in a Knesset hearing on Arab education, where Israeli government spokespeople admitted that no one supervises UNRWA schools.
Perhaps Israeli and American governments assume that if kids go to a UN schools, they will learn principles of peace.
That is why we need funds to document how UN teachers & UN officials instead preach the "values" of Jihad, martyrdom, liberation of all of Palestine, all of Palestine, even though the theme of UNRWA education is: PEACE STARTS HERE.
Our task is to expose this reality - that children at UN schools are taught to murder Jews. Openly.
Our purpose: to stop future murders..
David Bedein
Director
Israel Resource News Agency
Center for Near East Policy Research
Beit Agron
37 Hillel Street, Suite 105-106
Jerusalem 94581 Israel
+972-547-222-661
www.unrwa-monitor.com
3b)
Many on the left are unhappy about what appears to have been a highly successful visit to Washington for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. He survived a meeting with President Obama without reigniting their longstanding feud, was cheered at the annual meeting of Jewish federations and an event at the American Enterprise Institute and even escaped a session at the liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) unscathed despite hostile questions and an unfriendly audience. That’s bad news for those who were hoping that the White House’s decision to splinter the bipartisan pro-Israel coalition over the Iran nuclear deal would be the start of a genuine push to isolate the Jewish state’s government in Washington. But though he won on Iran, the president is beset with a host of other pressing problems in a Middle East that has descended to chaos on his watch. He doesn’t face the same political constraints that restricted his inclination to punish Israel in his first term. But another blowup with Netanyahu is not worth the effort especially since the Palestinians have already proved — even to Obama — that nothing he does for them will make them willing to make peace.
Obama’s futile push for détente with Iran and dithering on Syria has destabilized the Middle East and damaged the security of Israel and moderate Arab regimes. But, at least for the moment, Netanyahu has good reason to think he can wait out the next 15 months confident that the next American president he will have to deal with will be no worse and probably a lot friendlier than Obama.
That’s extremely frustrating for those who were hoping that Netanyahu would be humiliated or abused by a Democratic Party that abandoned Israel during the Iran debate. But the reaction to his session at CAP is particularly instructive. Many on the staff of the think tank with close ties to the Hillary Clinton campaign were angry about the invitation to Netanyahu and his ability to debunk many of their standard talking points about Israel only added to their frustration.
During the questioning from CAP President Neera Tanden, Netanyahu did have to eat crow for his foolish statement on the day of his re-election in March about Israelis needing to turn out to balance out Israeli Arab votes. But other than walking back that indiscreet remark (which sounded racist, but which was really a reminder to Israelis that they shouldn’t let a party dominated by Islamists and Communists decide who should lead Israel’s next government), Tanden didn’t lay a glove on Netanyahu.
It’s worth going over some of his key points because they go to the heart of the critique of Israel in this country.
It is conventional wisdom on the left that Israeli settlement building makes peace with the Palestinian impossible. But if almost all of the building is taking place in Jerusalem and the settlement blocs that would almost certainly remain inside Israel in the event of an agreement, what goes on in these areas won’t affect the outcome of talks. Just as important, Netanyahu pointed out that despite the continual talk about settlements expanding, virtually no new Jewish communities have been built since Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. The only “expansion” comes in the form of new housing inside existing areas. As the New York Times reported:
“It’s become an axiom that we are gobbling up land — we’re not,” Mr. Netanyahu said, asserting that no new settlements had been built in the past 20 years in Israel, and that the expansions had not “materially” altered the map. “Google this,” he implored the audience.
More to the point, Netanyahu again was able to point out that it was Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas who has refused to negotiate. The Palestinians refused three offers of statehood in 2000, 2001 and 2008 and wouldn’t talk seriously to Netanyahu despite his acceptance of a two-state solution and his willingness to offer them most of the West Bank. So long as Abbas is unwilling to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders would be drawn, the argument that it is Israel that is the obstacle to peace is simply a lie.
The status quo between Israel and the Palestinians isn’t good for either people. But so long as the Palestinians remained anchored to a political culture whose foundation is hatred for Israel and the Jews, there is nothing Israel can do to solve the problem by itself. Whatever one may think of Netanyahu, it is time for Americans who care about Middle East peace to stop blaming Israel for the lack of progress toward peace. These simple truths can be ignored, but they can’t be credibly disputed. That’s why left-wingers who are primarily motivated by animus against the Jewish state and uninterested in the real goal of the Palestinians — destruction of Israel — don’t want Netanyahu to be heard.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)
Clinton Turns Against Charters
Randi Weingarten got what her union’s endorsement paid for.
Hillary Clinton has moved to the left of President Obama on trade, energy, immigration, student loans, health care and entitlements. But even we’re surprised by her latest move, which is to turn against charter schools as an engine of education opportunity.
“Most charter schools, they don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them. And so the public schools are often in a no-win situation,” Mrs. Clinton said last weekend in South Carolina. She also acknowledged that “for many years now” she has “supported the idea of charter schools,” though “not as a substitute for the public schools.”
Well, as Mrs. Clinton used to appreciate, charter schools are public schools—albeit freed from bureaucracy and union work rules. In her 1996 memoir, “It Takes a Village,” she wrote that “I favor promoting choice among public schools, much as the President’s Charter Schools Initiative encourages.” In 2007 she told a teachers-union conference in New York that “I actually do believe in charter schools.”
Why the sudden change? Her press assistant explained to Politico that “Hillary Clinton looks at the evidence. That’s what she did here.” Sorry, that quote is from Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of Teachers that endorsed Mrs. Clinton in July, 16 months before Election Day. The National Education Association followed. Unions loathe charter competition, and Mrs. Clinton is returning the favor of these early endorsements.
If Mrs. Clinton had looked at the evidence, she’d have seen a different story about charters and “the hardest-to-teach kids.” Charters don’t exclude difficult students. Like other public schools, they aren’t allowed to discriminate. Nearly every state requires a random lottery to choose students if there are more applicants than openings. The reason some charters turn away students is that they lack the resources to accommodate every desperate family trapped in a teachers-union compound.
Charters serve some of the most troubled students, including a higher percentage in poverty than all public schools, according to Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes. In urban centers in particular, charters serve mostly minority students and include more who are learning English than do public schools as a whole.
Mrs. Clinton knows these basic facts, so she may be tapping into the recent political melodrama over New York City’s Success Academy charter schools. Founder Eva Moskowitz runs tight ships, and students who misbehave can expect the once typical response called discipline. Ms. Weingarten has been running a political and media campaign against Success Academy, though its attrition levels are lower than district averages in the Big Apple. If you want to see public schools that really don’t tolerate disruptive students, go to your average rich suburban school.
Mrs. Clinton’s charter reversal suggests her Education Department would be a wholly owned union subsidiary. The losers will be the poor parents and children who Democrats claim to represent.
As Clinton travels across America, she should examine how long veterans wait for health care at their VA facilities. When she comes to Philadelphia, she'll see that waits for thousands of doctors' appointments at the local VA center still drag out longer than 30 days - a wait VA calls unacceptable.
On vet issues, cluelessness
Veterans Day is a chance to honor the 939,000 Pennsylvania men and women who put their lives on the line for your freedom. It's also a chance to reflect on the challenges they face here at home. Chief among them is the ongoing crisis at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which in many respects has only worsened since it made national headlines last year.
Unfortunately, the leading Democratic presidential candidate - Hillary Clinton - refuses to even admit such a crisis exists. Two weeks ago, she claimed VA's problems haven't been "as widespread as they've been made out to be." She even tried to speak for the veteran community, claiming most of us are satisfied with VA.
As a veteran myself, I wonder whether Clinton has picked up a newspaper, turned on the television, or even so much as spoken to a veteran in the past year. If she had, she would know the crisis at VA is ongoing in Pennsylvania and across the country.
Even VA admits that problems are widespread. According to agency officials, excessive waits are up 50 percent across the country since last year's scandal. If that's not widespread, I don't know what is.
Keep in mind: These wait times cause veterans pain, suffering, and even death. Last year's scandal left at least 40 veterans dead while stuck on secret wait lists designed to hide excessive wait times. VA's internal investigation later revealed that these wait lists existed nationwide.
That puts Clinton's claim in context. If anything, VA's problems are more widespread than they've been made out to be.
Her claim that most veterans are happy with VA is equally out of touch. A recent Gallup Poll showed that only 28 percent of Americans approve of the government's handling of veterans' issues - down 10 percent from last year, when the scandal erupted. And in the wake of that scandal, 50 percent of veterans said they found it difficult to get care, while 60 percent had lost confidence in VA.
More important than these statistics are the stories behind them. Hardly a day goes by without a headline or newscast telling the story of veterans who waited weeks, months, or even years before receiving care from VA - if they received care at all.
When she's not denying that these problems exist, Clinton blames them on her political rivals. She accuses Republicans of playing budget games with VA, but its budget has ballooned over the past two administrations - one Republican, one Democratic - and a Republican-controlled Congress passed legislation last year granting VA emergency funding.
The truth is that VA's problems are of its own making, and they've existed for years. VA's inspector general recently revealed that more than 307,000 veterans in the agency's database may have passed away while waiting to enroll in the system. Countless veterans' lives are on the line.
These problems aren't isolated or overblown. Veterans in Pennsylvania and across America know better - we're the ones dealing with VA in our daily lives.
This Veterans Day, we need to ask ourselves a simple question: How can we trust Hillary Clinton to fight for us when she won't even acknowledge the problems we face?
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney served as assistant vice chief of staff for the Air Force, was the director of Vice President Al Gore's "Reinventing Government" program, and is a Fox News analyst. tmcinerney@earthlink.net
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)--
Obama Appeasement Of Iran So Bad A Leading Liberal Objects
Insisting that Iran's leadership can't be trusted, House leader Steny Hoyer warned against hard-liners who would delay the nuclear deal.
Nuclear Deal: The Obama administration is actually helping Iran rebuild a nuclear reactor. Meanwhile, Iran's early defiance of the nuclear pact has a top congressional liberal Democrat up in arms.
The U.S. is famous for helping countries rebuild after a war, but when it comes to Islamofascist Iran, the world's foremost terrorist state, we may be helping it rebuild before it someday launches nuclear war against us, Europe, Israel or one of its own Arab neighbors.America will join with China, France, Germany and Russia in reconstructing the heavy-water nuclear reactor near Arak, which was suspected of producing nuclear weapons fuel.
While the official purpose is to redesign the plant and render key equipment inoperable, Tehran boasts that it will be sent "advanced equipment" with which the reactor will be modernized.
Perhaps the most galling aspect of this is that Iran admits it can modernize the Arak reactor itself, especially with the $100 billion that President Obama is allowing to come its way, thanks to the nuclear agreement.
It's hard to know which is worse: Tehran using some of that money on rebuilding a plant that might ultimately return to nuclear weapons activity, or using some of the money to finance terrorism and fund conventional military arms with which to gain dominance over its Mideast neighbors.
Once again, this administration has turned logic on its head. Why, Mr. President, are we letting Iran keep its nuclear program, contrary to what you promised was the purpose of the talks with Tehran? Because, according to Obama, letting them go nuclear is the only way to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons.
And now, rebuilding a reactor is, we're told, the only way to stop it from producing weapons fuel.
It's all about as absurd as the idea that if we had only bought enough Zyklon B for the Nazis in the 1930s (for delousing of clothing, of course), instead of them getting it themselves, they would never have used the poisonous gas to kill any Jews.
U.S. nuclear experts will also be providing the Iranians with "technical advice and expert consultations on nuclear matters," according to the Energy Department.Worse yet, while we're bending over backwards to upgrade Iran's nuclear program, lending manpower, materiel and money, Iran this week actually ceased shutting down uranium centrifuges at two facilities. The move was a response to complaints from 20 members of the Iranian parliament that the nuclear deal was being followed too fast, contrary to the Ayatollah Khamenei's demands.
The White House would have us believe that implementation of the pact at this early stage is proceeding as planned. But a veteran congressional Democrat leader is playing skunk at that garden party.House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland on Tuesday stated that the U.S. and the other signatories to the Iran nuclear deal "must not tolerate any attempt by Iran to bend to its hard-liners by delaying the fulfillment of its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action."
The stoppage on the required dismantlement, Hoyer pointed out, comes "just after Iran detained another American citizen and tested a ballistic missile."The 17-term congressman added: "As I have stated many times before, Iran's leadership cannot be trusted, which is why there must be clear and unambiguous consequences for even minor violations of the agreement. ... Iran's leaders must know with certainty that they cannot get away with shirking any of their obligations to dismantle key components of their country's nuclear program."
The warnings on the right have been deafening about the dangers of the Iran nuclear deal. Maybe it takes alarms from a liberal like Hoyer to make this president listen.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------But we doubt it.
No comments:
Post a Comment