Doug Santo

Jon Podhoretz:

“…On this day of all days it needs to be said: America has been a blessing for the Jewish people unlike any other blessing given any other people in the history of the world.

One crime — or 29 separate crimes, committed at the same time by a monster in human form — cannot be allowed to overshadow this extraordinary fact.

My own gratitude to America is actually greater today than it was yesterday because of the outpouring of grief and rage and common humanity we have witnessed in the response to the horror in Pittsburgh.

The philo-Semitic response to this unspeakable act of anti-Semitism reveals how American Jews are anchored in America in a way that Jews who live anywhere else outside of Israel are not anchored to the lands in which they reside or have ever resided.

We are Americans. And we are Jews. And there is no contradiction between the two. When people talk freely and foolishly and noxiously about America as having been built on racism, there is one simple answer to their libel: George Washington’s letter to a synagogue in Newport, written in August 1790.

“The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy — a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship,” Washington wrote. “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

That final phrase, taken from the prophet Micah, was violated in the most obscene way on Saturday. But the story of America is a story of a country that has indeed served as vine and fig tree for the world’s most beleaguered peoples…”

https://nypost.com/2018/10/29/what-i-learned-as-an-american-jew-after-the-pittsburgh-synagogue-attack/

“…Entrepreneurship isn’t just for new products; it can also deliver new kinds of education. It’s a darned good thing that we allow that (unlike some “progressive” countries) because American education is notoriously high in cost and low in quality.

Here in North Carolina, a business entrepreneur, Robert Luddy, is using some of his wealth to start new schools. He has a thriving chain of K-12 schools and is now looking to open an extension into higher education, which will be called Thales College.

In today’s Martin Center article, Shannon Watkins writes about this intriguing development.

Thales will be a blend of the old and the new. The curriculum will be old — a true liberal arts education — but the pedagogical approach will be new — the “flipped classroom” where students listen to lectures on their own time and classroom time is reserved for discussion of the material.

Faculty members will need to have strong teaching and mentoring abilities in addition to their doctorates.

How much will it cost? Only $4,000 per term and students will be able to earn their degrees in three years. Obviously, to keep costs down to that level, there won’t be any sports or excess administrators.

Thales won’t take any federal student aid money (to preserve the school’s independence) and doesn’t plan to seek accreditation (which is no guarantee of quality anyway).

Unlike many college students, Watkins writes, Thales students “will not be the kind of students who sit at the back of the class, completely unengaged. Between the coursework’s level of rigor and the one-on-one attention received from professors, a Thales education will require discipline, focus, and dedication. The admissions requirements are themselves demanding: in order to be admitted: students must have a minimum 1100 SAT (or 22 ACT) and 3.25 GPA.”

The college plans to open next year.

Hooray for competition!…”

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-new-college-plans-to-open-no-federal-money-no-accreditation/

“…Kanye West has reportedly designed T-shirts urging black people to leave the Democratic Party in a “Blexit.”

The shirts first appeared at Turning Point USA’s Young Black Leadership Summit Saturday in Washington, according to the New York Post’s Page Six. They advocate for a black exit or “Blexit” from the party.

“Blexit is a renaissance and I am blessed to say that this logo, these colors, were created by my dear friend and fellow superhero Kanye West,” Turning Point USA’s communications director, Candace Owens, told Page Six…”

https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/413527-kanye-west-t-shirts-urge-black-people-to-leave-democratic-party

How are Americans ever going to ‘come together’ if the first thing a political party sees when it sees dead Americans is a partisan cudgel?

David Harsanyi:

“…The same Voxers who had long rationalized, romanticized, and excused the Jew-killing terror organization of the Middle East were now blaming the existence of the evil, anti-Semitic Pittsburgh shooter on Republicans. The same Pod bros whose echo chamber deployed anti-Semitic dual-loyalty tropes to smear critics of the Iran deal were now incredibly concerned about the Jewish community.

There were many others, and that was bad enough. But others decided to dip into a little victim blaming, as well. Hadn’t American Jews been little too Jew-centric and pro-Israel for their own good?

Franklin Foer of The Atlantic demanded that Jews finally dispense with their faith, adopt his, and start expelling co-religionists for their political opinions. (If you want to read about the left’s co-opting of American Judaism, I recommend Jonathan Neumann’s excellent book, “To Heal The World?”) Wire creator David Simon went bold, embracing a transparent anti-Jewish conspiracy theory, accusing the Israeli government of intervening in the American democracy.

For those who confuse progressivism with Judaism — which is to say many — it might be difficult to understand that undermining the Democratic Party isn’t an act of anti-Semitism…”

http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/28/the-lefts-response-to-the-mass-shooting-of-jews-is-an-act-of-bad-faith/

There’s always something to gain if you do the Left’s bidding at a key moment. She’s also fielding book offers. Plus: Her lawyers said they were representing her on a pro-bono basis. Why does she need all of this money?

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/10/27/nothing_to_gain_kavanaugh_accusers_coffers_are_growing.html

This article is mostly good. I believe the 24/7 media drives much of the rancor in society as a result of the need for ratings combined with institutional bias. Move away from the news and people are normal.

Justin Fox:

Drive from coast to coast and everybody seems to be getting along fine — as long as you don’t listen to talk radio in the car or turn on cable TV news at the hotel.

“…Now that I’m back in New York and my media diet is back to more or less normal, the sense of calm, remove and, yes, optimism that pervaded my long days of driving has begun to dissipate. Maybe this just means I’m returning to the real world after an escapist journey. But I also wonder if it’s an indication that my normal media diet — even though it’s mostly free of such known toxins as Facebook and cable TV news, and heavy on old books — is driving me a little nuts.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a column puzzling over the rise in political polarization in the U.S. despite the absence of “a single great ideological divide” like slavery in the 19th century, and asked readers what they thought was driving it. The majority of the responses fingered the media in some form or another. That seems about right…”

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-26/road-trip-america-takes-us-beyond-news-media-politics?srnd=opinion

From the nitwit capital of the world

SF spends $300,000 to register noncitizen voters; 49 sign up… 

This is the democrats worst nightmare

“…Young black conservatives wore Make America Great Again caps and chanted the president’s name at the White House.

Mr Trump won just 8% of the African American vote in the 2016 presidential election and critics accuse him of stoking racial tensions.

But he told the activists that the black community was more interested in the economy than race…”

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-45997233/the-young-black-americans-backing-trump?SThisFB&fbclid=IwAR36SH-AjYpR5kL8TrTYalUrJgB9vNht-rZlgb9ITCW0kQM6CZP_urwikMM

God bless the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. I wish them all the best. What a tragedy. 

“…U.S. troops landed in Iceland last week ahead of the start the largest NATO military exercise since the Cold War, and apparently, they left their mark in the most appropriate way possible: by drinking every last beer in the nation’s capital.

A significant number of bars in downtown Reykjavík were forced to make emergency beer runs under the onslaught of thirsty American sailors and Marines in town for the start of Trident Juncture 18, Iceland Magazine reports.

Local media estimate that 6,000 and 7,000 U.S. military personnel exhausted beer cellars across the Icelandic capital in the span of a single weekend…”

https://taskandpurpose.com/sailors-marines-beer-iceland/

96.1 percent of University of Texas administrators, 93.5 percent of faculty donated to Dems.

Ed Driscoll strung this together

UN report calls Bay Area homeless crisis human rights violation — Special rapporteur cites SF and Oakland along with worst slums in the world.

Found via “Comfortably Smug,” who tweets, “We need a coalition of the willing to go into San Francisco for regime change.”

Earlier: California Ranks as Poorest State, One of the Worst for Income Inequality. “Want a liberal utopia? This is what it looks like.”

“…The Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee recommended anti-Trump attorney Michael Avenatti and his client Julie Swetnick to the Justice Department for possible criminal charges on Thursday. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley noted that in multiple public statements, Swetnick and Avenatti contradicted the sworn statement they provided claiming that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh ran a gang-rape-party ring in high school.

What was a very bad day for Avenatti got worse when NBC News reported hours later that “NBC News also found other apparent inconsistencies in a second sworn statement from another woman whose statement Avenatti provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee in a bid to bolster Swetnick’s claims.”

It was very good reporting by NBC News. But it was also reporting based on interviews conducted three weeks ago, with no clear indication of why the outlet chose to sit on it. . . .

But per the newest story, these are the details NBC News knew for a fact during the Kavanaugh debate, and chose not to report:On September 30, Avenatti forwarded an anonymous woman (I’ll call her Woman B) to NBC claiming she could corroborate Swetnick’s story. On the contrary, she said of the punch spiking “I didn’t ever think it was Brett” and when asked if she ever witnessed Kavanaugh act inappropriately towards women replied, “No.”On October 2nd, Avenatti publicized a sworn statement from an unnamed woman claiming she had “witnessed firsthand Brett Kavanaugh, together with others, ‘spike’ the ‘punch’ at house parties I attended with Quaaludes and/or grain alcohol” and he engaged in “inappropriate physical contact with girls of a sexual nature.”The same day, Avenatti confirms to NBC News that the woman is Woman B.
On October 3rd, Woman B tells NBC she only “skimmed” the statement she made to Congress.
The same day, when asked about the discrepancies, Avenatti suddenly backtracks and claims the woman is not Woman B.On October 4th, Woman B texts NBC: “It is incorrect that I saw Brett spike the punch. I didn’t see anyone spike the punch … I was very clear with Michael Avenatti from day one.”The same day, when asked about her denials, Avenatti responds, “I have a signed declaration that states otherwise together with multiple audio recordings where she stated exactly what is in the declaration. There were also multiple witnesses to our discussions.”Five minutes later, Woman B texts NBC: “Please understand that everything in the declaration is true and you should not contact me anymore regarding this issue.”Minutes later, NBC calls again, and Woman B again reiterates she never saw Kavanaugh spiking punch or being sexually inappropriate.On October 5th, she texts NBC: “I will definitely talk to you again and no longer Avenatti. I do not like that he twisted my words.”

Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed October 6th. At the time of his confirmation, there was a sworn statement before Congress indicating that the Supreme Court nominee was a sexual assailant and drugged women. As far as the Senate and public knew, there was nothing indicating that statement was false.

NBC News knew that it was false. Four days earlier, they at least had enough to report that Woman B had changed her story. And days before that, they knew that one of the witnesses that Swetnick alluded to could not “attest to the truthfulness” of her allegations as she claimed in her sworn statement.

What gives? One gets the impression that had Grassley not moved to recommended Avenatti for criminal charges, NBC News would have continued to sit on the story…”

https://freebeacon.com/blog/nbc-news-sit-evidence-discrediting-kavanaugh-accuser-weeks/

Related

“…Everyone seems to remember Ronald Reagan’s 600-ship Navy from the 1980s, but few understand how precipitate the decline was following the demise of the Soviet Union. First the Bush/Clinton “peace dividend,” and then the nation’s focus on its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saw the Navy fall from 592 ships in 1989, to 350 in 1998, to its nadir of 271 in 2015. While this was playing out, both civilian and uniformed leaders made the argument that the Navy did not require large numbers of ships so long as the ships it retained were of the most advanced designs. This answer appeared valid, in theory, but the reality was that a smaller fleet simply could not be everywhere we needed it to be at once.

The result has been a slow unraveling of the maritime order of free trade and free navigation that the United States and its Navy struggled so hard to build over the previous 70 years. The current situation recalls the “broken windows” theory of law enforcement first advanced by George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson in the early 1980s. The theory took its name from the phenomenon wherein an unrepaired broken window acts as a psychological invitation to break other windows. Kelling and Wilson argued that police could control crime by maintaining a general sense of order in their communities, with cooperation from the communities themselves. This entailed patrolling on foot rather than by car — so that officers would be seen as part of the neighborhood — and by taking “quality of life” offenses seriously.

Between 2001 and 2016, when the Navy was shrinking rapidly, the United States’ strategic focus was firmly locked on its counterterrorism wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. Most of the Navy’s deploying ships were either moving towards those conflicts or returning home from them, leaving entire maritime “neighborhoods” unpatrolled — and windows started to break…”

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/11/12/the-navy-we-need/?fbclid=IwAR1cmjaqRWeqCeLesez4e4YHrOoJwcR3J9WSopnHwrnVL9mC0wlLCpTRhGM

VOTE 🗳 Let's Fly! >>https://t.co/mRkX21eF1g<< 💪🦅🇺🇸 #LetsFlyMI #MISen #TeamJohnJames pic.twitter.com/8hF1Dd751T

— John James (@JohnJamesMI) October 26, 2018