Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior…
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More Legal Shenanigans from the Biden Administration’s Department of Education

Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior of federal administrative agencies, whose vast armies of overpaid bureaucrats remain unaccountable for their excesses.

Among the most familiar examples of that bureaucratic abuse is the Department of Education (DOE).  Recall, for instance, the United States Supreme Court’s humiliating rebuke last year of the Biden DOE’s effort to shift hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt from the people who actually owed them onto the backs of American taxpayers.

Even now, despite that rebuke, the Biden DOE launched an alternative scheme last month in an end-around effort to achieve that same result.

Well, the Biden DOE is now attempting to shift tens of millions of dollars of…[more]

March 19, 2024 • 08:35 AM

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Anti-Semitism: Let Us Choose the Path of George Washington, Not Ilhan Omar Print
By Timothy H. Lee
Thursday, March 14 2019
According to the latest survey on the issue by the left-leaning Pew Research Center, twice as many liberal Democrats sympathize more with Palestinians than with Israel.

In alarmingly rapid fashion, once-disreputable notions have ascended to acceptability in mainstream liberal circles. 

For example, the label “socialist” once constituted a slur to which liberals would object.  And rightfully so.  Socialism constitutes an oppressive governmental system that relies upon compulsion, wreaks economic havoc and has directly caused the deaths of tens of millions of people over the past century. 

Today, however, liberals proudly accept the label, and Gallup surveys show that Democrats view socialism more positively than capitalism by an astonishing ten percentage points.  Apparently, conditions in places like Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea aren’t yet catastrophic enough to dissuade them from their fantasies. 

Elsewhere, extremist concepts like single-payer healthcare, slavery reparations and tax rates up to 90% were dismissed by such recent liberal icons as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.  Approaching the 2020 election season, however, those propositions have become mainstream policy positions on the left. 

Now, an even more sinister sentiment appears to be gaining a foothold among liberals:  anti-Semitism. 

Many liberals might object to that suggestion, of course.  They’ll typically respond that criticism of Israel or pro-Israel Americans is separable from anti-Semitism.  But for numerous reasons, those rationalizations cannot withstand even passing scrutiny. 

For instance, consider celebrated freshman Representative Ilhan Omar (D – Minnesota), who tweeted, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” 

More recently, Rep. Omar has invited rebuke for repeating the timeless anti-Semitic trope that supporters of Israel somehow maintain “dual loyalty.”  Among multiple similar disgraces, she accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of capturing American politicians’ support with “the Benjamins, baby,” referring to $100 bills. 

For the record, AIPAC doesn’t contribute to candidates for political office. 

Or take sudden liberal superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D – New York).  The freshman Congresswoman recently held a 45-minute conversation with British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who immediately afterward tweeted, “Great to speak to @AOC on the phone this evening and hear first hand how she’s challenging the status quo.”  He added, “Let’s build a movement across borders to take on the billionaires, polluters and migrant baiters, and support a happier, freer and cleaner planet.” 

For her part, Representative Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “It was an honor to share such a lovely and wide-reaching conversation with you, @jeremycorbyn!” 

For anyone unfamiliar with Mr. Corbyn, a primer is in order.  He’s the man who referred to terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah as “our friends,” and he attended a wreath-laying ceremony at the burial ground of Palestinian terrorists who kidnapped and murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. 

Yet “AOC,” as she’s known, considers it an “honor” to join forces with the man. 

Some may respond that people like Rep. Omar or Rep. Ocasio-Cortez don’t represent liberals more broadly, but that would be false.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D – California) proudly appears on the cover of this month’s Rolling Stone magazine alongside Representatives Omar and Ocasio-Cortez, all smiles. 

More substantively, public opinion surveys reveal an ominous change among American liberals. 

According to the latest survey on the issue by the left-leaning Pew Research Center, twice as many liberal Democrats sympathize more with Palestinians than with Israel.  And among all Democrats, sentiment is evenly split.  Disturbingly, that trend has accelerated quickly in just the past two years: 

As recently as two years ago, in April 2016, Democrats were more likely to sympathize more with Israel (43%) than with the Palestinians (29%), with 16% saying they sympathized with both or neither…  The share of liberal Democrats who sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians has declined from 33% to 19% since 2016. 

By comparison, Americans overall support Israel over Palestinians by a three-to-one margin, 46% to 16%.  And among Republicans, that disparity is 79% to 6%. 

It’s therefore no surprise that in a separate Rasmussen Reports survey, “voters rate anti-Semitism as an increasingly serious problem in America today, and see it on the rise among Democrats.”  Specifically, 42% of respondents believe that anti-Semitism is a growing problem in the Democratic Party, versus 35% who disagree. 

The trend is unmistakable, and alarming.  And it must be resisted. 

Among the tenets of American Exceptionalism stands our comparative historical aversion to deeply rooted anti-Semitism more common across the rest of the world.  George Washington, in his August 21, 1790 Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, rejected the anti-Semitism of other nations and cultivated greater tolerance in the new United States of America: 

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. 

Going forward, let us recognize the growing menace of anti-Semitism, and may we choose the path of George Washington, not that of Jeremy Corbyn and Ilhan Omar. 

Notable Quote   
 
"Americans do not trust several major U.S. institutions, including the national news media.The recently released Center Square Voters' Voice poll found that 43% of Americans say the media is trustworthy, compared with 54% who said it is not trustworthy.Younger people were more likely to trust the media, with 47% of those ages 18-34 saying they trust it and 46% saying the opposite.The numbers steadily…[more]
 
 
— Casey Harper, The Center Square
 
Liberty Poll   

Do you believe the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately reject the new Biden administration automobile emissions rule as beyond the scope of administrative agency authority?