Pennsylvania is undoubtedly a focal point in the 2024 presidential election. Residents have become accustomed to endless TV ads, stuffed mailboxes, and even the occasional canvasser knocking on their…

Jack Black ushers in Prince of Darkness, who accepted the award seated on a throne. Continue reading…

The following article, Racist: CNN Propagandist Angela Rye Threatens to Hold White People ‘Accountable’ for Not Voting for Comrade Kamala Harris (Video), was first published on Conservative Firing Line. Liberals are losing what’s left of their minds and in the process letting the entire world see them for the unhinged racist tyrants they really are.  On Saturday, Twitchy reported that CNN propagandist Angela Rye said white people should be held “accountable” for not supporting Kamala Harris. Talk about racist! Here’s video as posted to … Continue reading Racist: CNN Propagandist Angela Rye Threatens to Hold White People ‘Accountable’ for Not Voting for Comrade Kamala Harris (Video) ...

UTL COMMENT:- That's quite believable...but youth for me is whole body...

The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, was this last weekend. This year, I felt its cleansing power palpably.  My reacquaintance with the power of Yom Kippur came decades ago. I see it as part of the providential nature of this country that I was inspired to reconsider my Jewishness by a Christian novelist writing about religion. In one of his articles, he wrote about his own decision to mark Yom Kippur one year, whose name, translated into English, he parsed as the Day of At-one-ment. That playful decoding of the word I would discover, was a typical move of the rabbis of old, who knew that what came from God always had infinite depth if we only would leap in and explore. Those who are the greatest hold themselves the servants of those who accept their power. In this fractious political season, in this fractious time when nearly everything is politicized, at-one-ment is what we are missing. Its lack can be described in King David’s words: My soul thirsts for You, my body yearns for You, as one in a dry and thirsty land without water. The best politicians — and they are rare — are able to evoke a sense of oneness and peoplehood that makes sense of the often violent-tempered thrust and parry of democratic politics in modern nation states. Ronald Reagan’s evocation of morning in America was no empty slogan. It spoke to millions and powered one of the greatest election landslides in American history. It culminated in the end of the Soviet Union. Winston Churchill evoked a sense of a grand alliance for civilization that united many nations and led them united through grave peril to victory. There is a sense of civilizational decay today, much as there was in the ’30s. Then, it seemed that the constitutional idea had run aground, and that the new barbarisms of the dictators would take over from the floundering, befuddled, and timorous democracies. Today, it is more the sense of cultural bankruptcy. This is what the ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood and the mullahs accuse us of and try to exploit. From the number of our young who join themselves to the terrorist cause, it seems that there is some truth to that accusation. These young clearly do not see that those accusations can be dismissed out of hand. They have become convinced of America’s moral bankruptcy.   We must say that they see something real. To some significant degree, we have followed the trajectory of great empires of the past, transitioning from power to decadence, spurning the republic for a new imperial aristocracy, and developing a culture that, as Federico Fellini already saw decades ago, is ripe for an updated version of Petronius’ Satyricon. We owe the zealots thanks for pointing out to us the valid question: have we rid ourselves the moral bearings that guided our path to greatness, and chosen decadence in its place?  For here is the crucial point. The key is that we have a choice. A great civilization is not one that is perfect but one that continually corrects its errors. It knows that humans are limited in nature, and so must be resilient by letting go of what proves to be unworthy and rededicating itself to the deepest understanding it has of the great Oneness from which we and all the universe have as our eternal context. Our religious tradition has been the core of our American resilience, enabling us to face our own mistakes, own up to them, and shoulder the responsibility for fixing them. Eisenhower’s choice of religious terminology in his own book about the war, Crusade in Europe, was not accidental or off point. Nor was Lincoln’s starkly theological language a mistake in leading the nation to cleanse itself of slavery through a ghastly, bloody civil war. Churchill spoke of saving Western and Christian civilization and wrote in his histories of how religion is the deepest motivator, whether used for good or ill. One of the great themes in these last days in the Jewish calendar is remembrance. It is a major theme in the Hebrew Bible, used to characterize God and taught as a quality that humans ought to emulate.  This remembrance is not a retreat into a past viewed through the lens of nostalgia. It is something deeper. Wendell Berry pointed towards that meaning in noting that the word breaks down to “re-member,” to make something once again a part of something larger, of which it was constituent. Thus, when Genesis tells us that God remembered Noah, it is not saying that God had forgotten all about him, but that now Noah was to be joined to his purpose as it had been from the start — to rescue God’s project of Creation. This is the turning point in the story, which up till then had been a tale of human failure so all-pervading that it cried out for complete erasure. The point of remembrance is the point at which the story turns to how the Noah came safely back into a cleansed world. The human story of which he was a part is now re-membered, once again embodied and connecting the past with the future, the human with the divine, the failures with their redemption, and sin with sacrificial return to oneness — at-one-ment- with who we have ever been in the mind of God. How much are we dis-membered? Surely, we have allowed ourselves to become so alienated from each other that people on all sides of our troubled politics see this election in starkest terms. Such rare bipartisanship indicates a truth that for which we must assume responsibility and not worsen by merely blaming others. Not that others are without blame, but the path towards healing illnesses of the soul requires first that we see ourselves as part of what was whole and what can again be made whole — re-membering all the dismembered parts into a nation united into a comprehensive strength. The West discovered that the path to oneness is the path of freedom. There is no greater power than the power to become a servant to a great cause freely chosen. It far exceeds the uniformity that dictators establish by fear and force, whether Nazi, Communist, or Islamist. A rabbi of antiquity pointed out this Scriptural message: Rabbi Yochanan said, “Wherever you find mention of the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He, there you find mention of His humility. This is written in the Torah, repeated in the Prophets, and stated a third time in the Writings. It is written in the Torah: For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty and awe-inspiring God, who shows no favoritism and accepts no bribe [Deut. 10:17]. Immediately afterwards it is written, He upholds the cause of the orphan and widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.” God Gives Us the Freedom The supreme power of the universe finds its greatness in affording and upholding our freedom. God teaches how to serve Oneness through His own humble example. The late Chief Rabbi of the U.K., Jonathan Sacks, pointed out how truly powerful people can exemplify this trait. He wrote of how the late Queen Elizabeth met with a group of sixty or so Holocaust survivors. The Queen was always punctilious about her schedule, but not that day. She stayed far beyond what had been planned so that she could hear out the story each one had to tell. Rabbi Sacks, as Chief Rabbi, was there, and he wrote: One after another, the survivors were coming to me in a kind of trance, saying, “Sixty years ago I did not know whether I would be alive tomorrow, and here I am today talking to the Queen.” It brought a kind of blessed closure into deeply lacerated lives. Sixty years earlier they had been treated, in Germany, Austria, Poland, in fact in most of Europe, as subhuman, yet now the Queen was treating them as if each were a visiting Head of State. That was humility: not holding yourself low but holding others high. And where you find humility, there you find greatness. This is real aristocracy, the sort of thing Lincoln did, the sort of thing that Churchill did. Those who are the greatest hold themselves the servants of those who accept their power, making vivid the great wholeness of which they all are equally a part. In God’s great wholeness, humility and power are united. Created in God’s image, that is where our human greatness lies. Let us rouse ourselves to that true greatness and use our freedom as its Author intended — in service to each and every fellow member of His Great Commonwealth. READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: For Israel and Civilization, Vote Trump The Real Choice in This Election The post Created in God’s Image: Where Human Greatness Lies appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

On Thursday night, wealthy Catholics and New Yorkers gathered for the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, often just called the Al Smith Dinner, a prestigious charity event long famed for featuring appearances from U.S. presidents and presidential candidates. Speaking to Catholic journalist Raymond Arroyo about the Al Smith Dinner … Trump said that attending was, in his mind, a way of “honoring the Catholic Church.” This year, Vice President Kamala Harris decided not to attend, instead submitting a short video message. But former President Donald Trump was present, and he demonstrated not only his comedy skills but his deep appreciation for American Catholics. Harris’s less-than-four-minute-long video appearance was packed with contrived pop culture references which no doubt would be intelligible to 20-year-old college girls, but likely failed to land with her audience of older, wealthy Catholic elites and New York political brass. In addition to quoting from a Game of Thrones spinoff to explain why the nation needs a female president, Harris’s video also made jokes at the expense of the Last Supper. Although she attempted to conclude on a more serious note, she offered only hollow, meaningless platitudes — noticeably read from a teleprompter, of course. Meanwhile, Trump delivered 20 minutes of some of the finest comedy seen on any stage (without the aid of a teleprompter), roasting Harris for failing to show up. “It’s been a long tradition for both Democrat and Republican candidates for President of the United States to attend this dinner,” Trump said. “It’s a rule, you gotta go to the dinner, you gotta do it, or else bad things are gonna happen to you from up there,” he continued, pointing towards Heaven. Referring to Harris’s video message, he went on, “You can’t do what I just saw on that screen.” “My opponent feels like she does not have to be here, which is deeply disrespectful to the event and in particular to our great Catholic community, very disrespectful,” Trump said, garnering cheers of agreement from his audience. The former President continued, “The last Democrat not to attend this important event was Walter Mondale, and it did not go very well for him. He lost 49 states and he won one, Minnesota. So I said there’s no way I’m missing it.” Reportedly, Harris had a scheduling conflict with a campaign event and so chose not to attend. But Trump, who campaigns voraciously and regularly puts in 17 hours a day, made the time to show up in person. That is, of course, one of the key differences between the two candidates: Harris has no respect for American Catholics, perhaps erroneously believing that her current boss’s self-description as a “Catholic” will be enough to carry at least a portion of the key demographic; while Trump actually cares. The fact is that Trump likes Catholics. He married a Catholic, he staffed much of his first campaign and administration with Catholics — from Chief Strategist Steve Bannon to Attorney General Bill Barr — he allowed Catholic staffers to celebrate the Tridentine Mass at the White House, and he pays tribute to the contributions that Catholics have made to America and the whole Western world. Recently, Trump publicly praised the martyred Catholic priest Jerzy Popiełuszko, who was tortured to death by communists in Poland for supporting and encouraging the Solidarity movement. He posted the St. Michael prayer penned by Pope Leo XII to his social media account on the feast day of the Archangels. At his rallies, he has the “Ave Maria” sung. And on September 8, the former President publicly wished the Blessed Virgin Mary a happy birthday, accompanied by an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Speaking to Catholic journalist Raymond Arroyo about the Al Smith Dinner and his presence there, Trump said that attending was, in his mind, a way of “honoring the Catholic Church.” Regarding his increasingly frequent speaking and social media posting on the subject of Catholicism, Trump said that Catholicism is “just beautiful to me. I mean, I look at the whole thing, the words and the pictures, the pictures are so beautiful.” He added simply, “I think it’s really very beautiful.” Harris did not attend the dinner. She did not want to be in a room full of American Catholics. In her video message, the only thing she seemed able to think of that was even remotely related to Catholicism was an old Saturday Night Live character in a Catholic schoolgirl’s uniform. At a campaign event just days later, when an attendee yelled out, “Jesus is Lord,” Harris responded, “Oh, you’re at the wrong rally.” She didn’t show up because she simply detests Catholics, she has no respect for the Catholic Church, and she has no appreciation for American Catholics. Trump showed up because that’s who he is. He did not make a campaign speech, he did not make a case for why Catholics or New Yorkers should vote for him, he just told some very good jokes and made a room full of American Catholics laugh uproariously. He showed up because he respects the Catholic Church (Of course, he still has some work to do when it comes to respecting the moral teachings of the Church, so do not forget to pray for him.) and appreciates American Catholics. That is the choice that lies before American Catholics in the voting booth this November. READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: The Party of Demons The Case for Christian Conservatism   The post Trump Just Likes Catholics appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Mt. Lebanon, Pa., is a leafy suburb south of Pittsburgh known for its quality of life and its fine public schools. According to the educators who sit on blue-ribbon panels, the school district is among the best in Pennsylvania if not the country. Its graduates attend elite universities. And parents move to the district for the schools, surveys say. My wife and I moved there 35 years ago for just this reason. “There is no evidence in this [court] record of bullying, unkindness, or disrespect toward transgender students in the elementary school attended by the children of Plaintiffs.” But the vaunted Mt. Lebanon School District now finds itself on the losing end of a significant court decision over transgender education in its public schools. By embracing the radical idea that it was acceptable “teacher prerogative” to instruct first graders that their gender at birth could be wrong, the district staked out a position that was at odds with common decency, common sense, and common Christian conviction. The case began when Megan Williams, a first-grade teacher in the district’s Jefferson Elementary School spontaneously decided two years ago to observe Transgender Awareness Day by reading noncurricular books which presented gender identity topics to her students. She then told her first-grade students: “when children are born, parents make a guess whether they’re a girl or a boy. Sometimes parents are wrong.” Some of the young children experienced confusion about how that topic personally affected them. District Superintendent Timothy Steinhauer (who has since retired) testified in the lengthy court discovery that accompanied the case, it was longstanding practice within the district to honor opt outs on subjects parents found objectionable. But the opt outs and prior notice were “always teacher prerogative.” Steinhauer testified: “We [the District] don’t have any specific guidelines for what you should notify parents about and not notify parents about.” Steinhauer confirmed there were no written procedures on how or whether to notify parents. But in this instance, past precedent was ignored. Parents were not notified or given the option to opt out. The district unequivocally backed teacher Williams’ own personal preference, which was colored by the fact that her own child of the same age was transitioning from boy to girl at the same time. One former Mt. Lebanon teacher who still lives in the district finds the conduct the case revealed bewildering and appalling. “I’m glad the judge sided with the plaintiffs, but I am appalled at the school district,” she writes. “This is not the Mt. Lebanon that I grew up in, graduated from, raised my children in and taught in.” (READ MORE: Let’s Just Say It: Transgenderism Is a Mental Illness) “When I retired from Mt. Lebanon, the school district ALWAYS sided with the parents,” she adds. “We had to be so careful about what we said. This is just unbelievable. I am very disappointed in this town. Mt. Lebanon was always a conservative community. I’m very sorry to hear how Mt Lebanon has changed.” Likewise, it’s not a district my wife or I recognize anymore. I suspect, however, that’s a sentiment widely shared by many citizens across America whose trust in community schools has been shattered. As in many liberal enclaves, the prevailing ethos in Mt. Lebanon now puts great emphasis on “inclusivity.” But as the case made clear, their inclusivity is meant only for politically acceptable minority groups. Christians now are perhaps in the minority in our community. If you espouse a Christian worldview, as did the three courageous moms who sued the school district, that is unacceptably intolerant. In this regard, Mt. Lebanon has changed radically in the time we’ve lived there. It’s not quite Berkeley (California) yet, but it has moved inexorably in that direction. While the Lebo electorate was mostly Republican when we moved here, the school board hasn’t had a Republican elected to it in more than a decade. And despite the rhetoric of “tolerance” expressed on yard signs and at cocktail parties, in the higher social strata, the only acceptable tolerance is that of the liberal persuasion. On the school board at least, if you cling to your Bible, you are considered deplorable and decidedly persona non grata. This transition of America — from true tolerance to a widespread embrace of cancel culture, in both urban and suburban settings, even in an outwardly friendly place like Mt. Lebanon that supposedly espouses tolerance — has been well documented by academics on the fringes of the academy, where the transition is most radical. Theologian Carl Trueman, of Grove City College, has written persuasively on the role “expressive individualism” plays now in the social dynamic of towns like Mt. Lebanon. Tolerance and inclusivity mean not just living quietly and peacefully as a trans person, but changing the pronoun usage of everyone else to conform to your expressive identity. Consider what happened in a Virginia public school district. The school board recently agreed to pay $575,000, after years of litigation, to settle with Peter Vlaming, a high school French teacher whose employment was terminated in 2018 for refusing to use male pronouns for a transgender student. Vlaming had tried to avoid pronouns altogether and used the student’s preferred name, but was fired after “accidentally” using a feminine pronoun. Vlaming sued, and the Viriginia Supreme Court ruled that his rights were violated. “I was wrongfully fired from my teaching job because my religious beliefs put me on a collision course with school administrators who mandated that teachers ascribe to only one perspective on gender identity — their preferred view,” Vlaming said. He was represented in his lawsuit by the Alliance Defending Freedom. Social commentator Aaron Renn, author of Life in the Negative World, describes how Christians in this dynamic are treated now in the “negative world.” “In this era,” Renn writes, “society has an overall negative view of Christianity. Being known as a Christian is a social negative, particularly in the higher domains of society. Christian morality is expressly repudiated and now seen as a threat to the public good and new public moral order.” Federal Court Weighs in On Trans Instruction On Sept. 30, Joy Flowers Conti, the senior federal judge in the Western Pennsylvania district court who oversaw the lengthy school court case, issued her decision. Until the judge’s ruling, Williams’ own personal and subjective standard of gender fluidity and identity was the only acceptable pedagogy on transgender instruction in the Mt. Lebanon School District. When parents objected, administrators treated the parents as religious fanatics, and backed the teacher’s conduct without question or inquiry. The three moms then filed a federal lawsuit, claiming their constitutional rights were violated. It was a David vs. Goliath legal contest which ended, incredibly, in ignominious and embarrassing defeat for the school district. By issuing a summary judgment, Judge Conti said there was no need for a trial because there was nothing for a jury to decide. As a matter of law, the judge writes in her opinion that the district and its attorneys didn’t understand the law as applied and interpreted in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (based in Philadelphia, which includes Western Pennsylvania). A lawsuit that got scant local attention ended abruptly (local news outlets ignored it almost entirely, but the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently covered the story.) Ironically, a case the school district dealt with dismissively — it twice submitted petitions to the judge to have the complaint thrown out — turned out to be a huge win for parental, religious, and constitutional rights in public schools. (READ MORE: What We’re Learning From Pushing Back Against the Trans Crowd) Summary judgment was entered in favor of all three plaintiffs and against the teacher, three administrators, and the district itself. There were no financial penalties asked for or assessed, but the district will likely be held liable for all of the plaintiffs’ attorney fees and costs. As part of her ruling, Judge Conti issued a meticulous 94-page opinion that is must reading for anyone concerned with the drift towards radical activism that now pervades many public schools. Within the 94 pages are the cultural signposts of our modern times. On page 2, Judge Conti dismisses the “kindness, tolerance, and respect” argument so prevalent among transgender activists. “There is no evidence in this [court] record of bullying, unkindness, or disrespect toward transgender students in the elementary school attended by the children of Plaintiffs,” Judge Conti writes. “This case involves different beliefs about gender identity.” One of the parents who objected to Williams’ instruction was Roman Catholic. A second was Mormon and the third religiously unaffiliated but morally motivated. Of the three moms, only one still lives in the district. According to her attorney, she continues to be ostracized and cancelled by some in the community. “The Parents disagree that gender is a subjective, individual choice. They assert that gender is objective, immutable and determined by God and biology,” Judge Conti writes. On page 19 of her opinion, Judge Conti relates a telling exchange which presaged the controversy. On Oct. 1, 2021, six months before the events occurred which triggered the lawsuit, a Mt. Lebanon parent (“not a party to this case”) wondered how Jefferson Elementary School might memorialize LBGTQ month after reading about it in the school newsletter. The parent asked in an email to the school principal: “I was wondering if/how this is acknowledged in the first grade because I am not comfortable with my daughter learning about gender identity at this age.” Brett Bielewicz, the school principal, replied: “There is no formal introduction or lessons surrounding it at [Jefferson Elementary School], especially in 1st grade. It’s just merely an acknowledgment of inclusivity and awareness to our JES community.” Nothing formal, but informally yes, as parents in the school would soon discover. The events that triggered the lawsuit began on March 30, 2022, when Megan Williams, a former student in the district who teaches first grade at Jefferson Elementary School, sent a text to two fellow teachers which read: “Tomorrow is international trans day of visibility. I’d like to read something.” She was acting on impulse born of personal circumstance. Williams’ child (a biological boy who was the same age as the first graders in her class) changed to using female pronouns the same week that Williams read two transgender books to her first-grade class on “international trans day.” On that day, the books were read and discussed. If it had stopped there, Williams may have gotten away unscathed. But after telling students that she’d like to bring her child to school in a month for Take Your Child to Work Day (which teachers were not permitted to do), Williams told students that her boy was now a girl, and she’d be wearing a dress to school. She then told the first graders “when children are born, parents make a guess whether they’re a boy or a girl. Sometimes parents are wrong.” One confused child raised his hand and said: “But I’m a boy. I don’t want to be a girl.” The aide in the class testified that the student was “upset.” Williams responded, “Yes you are. Talk with your parents about that.” In more than two years of litigation, the district (whose board president is himself an attorney) steadfastly maintained in repeated court filings that the parents not only had no case; they had no rights as parents to opt their first graders out of transgender instruction. That argument — that “teacher prerogative” in the district trumped any and all parental rights — was specious, legal observers say. Judge Conti was equally skeptical. She writes: Throughout this litigation, [the district and its administrators] have taken the position that in a public school, parents have no constitutional right to notice or to opt their children out of any kind of instruction, regardless of the content of that instruction, the age of the children, or whether the instruction is part of the published school curriculum.…That is simply not the law within the Third Circuit. She continues: Refusing to provide opt outs for parents who assert religious and fundamental parental rights objections to transgender instruction to young children, while providing notice and opt out rights for other sensitive secular and religious topics, constitutes disparate treatment and violates the Equal Protection clause. Though few local citizens seemingly know of the case (due to the news coverage blackout), what made it such a lightning rod is that first graders were involved. “Who decides how to determine a young child’s gender identity goes to the heart of parental decision-making authority on a matter of greatest importance,” Judge Conti writes. She further observes: “Concerns about undercutting parental authority are heightened when the children are in first grade and the person trying to influence them is their teacher.” And court testimony clearly demonstrated that teacher Williams was not the least bit repentant. She believed “I’m in the right here!” and “that she was free to instruct the young, captive students in her class in accordance with her beliefs without giving parents prior notice or an opportunity to opt their children out of that instruction,” Judge Conti writes. In any other context, this would be called indoctrination. But because it occurred in a Mt. Lebanon public elementary school, and was a type of indoctrination the school board endorsed, it is considered exhibiting “tolerance” and “respect.” That’s how the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette framed it in this column (in fairness to the PG, they did publish my rebuttal). Of note, Judge Conti drew a sharp contrast with how principal Bielewicz dealt with the parents’ complaint compared to another situation that arose at the school. In the fall of 2022, after the lawsuit had been filed over the first-grade transgender instruction, a German teacher in the same school was doing some introductory instruction to a fifth-grade class about family-related words in German. In response to one student’s question, the teacher was alleged to have told the class, “I understand biology, and there’s always one mother and there’s always one father.” After discussing this incident with Assistant Superintendent Marybeth Irvin, Bielewicz, the school’s principal, interviewed every student in the class to assess the damage that had been done to the students. By contrast, Williams’ earlier violation, the judge noted in her opinion, was not investigated by either Bielewicz or the district. The judge writes: “Bielewicz characterized the Parents’ position as merely objecting to Williams’ reading books.… The adult aides in Williams’ classroom were not interviewed or consulted at all.… The administrators made public statements in support of Williams.” This pattern of discrimination on transgender topics explains why the judge ruled as she did. While parents were not provided any advance notice or the ability to opt their children out from Williams’ outburst on March 31, teachers within the district had on prior occasions provided advance notice and opt outs to students participating in routine activities, including: the Scripps Spelling Bee; dissecting animals in biology; viewing video clips from a television series involving a gay character; and an assembly featuring a therapy dog. Will Anything Change? Returning to the chronology of events: when one of the plaintiff parents (Carmilla Tatel) met with school principal Bielewicz on April 5, 2022 to raise concerns about Williams’ conduct, he could not guarantee that Williams wouldn’t teach the transgender content again. According to the court record, Bielewicz had sent an email to Williams the day before which read: “You got tons of support from top down — trust me!” He was right. Incredibly, everyone in the chain of command — Assistant Superintendent Irvin, Superintendent Steinhauer, and School Board President Jacob Wyland — expressed public affirmation for Williams and her actions. No one was disciplined then, nor even now (one shortcoming of the ruling, in my view). Williams and Bielewicz still work at Jefferson. Steinhauer and Irvin are retired, while Wyland still heads the school board. Until recently, Bielewicz’s public message as Jefferson’s principal read as follows: “I thank you in advance for allowing me the opportunity to ‘be the change we wish to see in our world!’” As part of the judge’s ruling, change will finally be enforced on him and others in the district. After more than two years of litigation, Mt. Lebanon schools have been ordered to give parents advance notice and opt out of transgender instruction. The total cost of this fiasco to community taxpayers has not been revealed. “We are pleased that Judge Conti did a detailed examination of the facts and the law, and confirmed what we have said from the start: parental rights and beliefs matter in public education and cannot be disregarded or ignored. We are hopeful the District now understands that and will act accordingly,” says the victorious Pittsburgh attorney David Berardinelli, who very ably represented the plaintiffs. Will the Mt. Lebanon School District act accordingly in the future? The people who run it haven’t done anything sensible or truly tolerant since the start of this sad affair, so I have my doubts. A decision on whether the district will appeal the decision is expected on Oct. 21, when the school board meets. Although an appeal might seem ill-advised under the circumstances, modern standards of “tolerance” dictate that it may. Thomas O’Boyle (tom@beverlyheights.org) blogs on the news (O’Bservations) and co-hosts a podcast (Scattered Seeds Podcast). A former assistant managing editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he previously worked for the Wall Street Journal as a staff reporter and bureau manager in Bonn, (then) West Germany and Pittsburgh.    The post Judge Raps PA School District for Trans Instruction appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The past month has brought news of myriad spectacular triumphs by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), at the expense of Israel’s, America’s, and the West’s mortal enemies in the Mideast: Iran and its putrid proxies. In a few weeks, the IDF has: (1) destroyed the last terrorist brigades of Hamas in Gaza and killed its terror mastermind Yahya Sinwar; (2) is well underway to dismantling Hezbollah’s huge arsenal of rockets and terrorist army; (3) retaliated against the Houthis in Yemen — even as they hold world commercial shipping hostage in the Red Sea; and (4) frustrated Iran’s feeble long-distance efforts to damage Israel. Gilder recently called Israel “the leader of the Free World.” The relatively timid terror-state/proxy response to Israel’s going on full-bore offense attests to: (1) the effectiveness of Israel’s actions; (2) the fear thereby instilled in terrorist leaders contemplating reprisal; (3) the fecklessness of American efforts — increasingly ignored by Israel — to temper Israel’s response, in the absurd hopes that negotiations will yield a deal that ends the fighting; and (4) the equally absurd hopes that a ceasefire will lead to a durable “just and lasting” peace agreement. Gilder on Israel Enter George Gilder in 2024, one of the premier American intellectuals of the past half-century, with the second edition of his 2009 book, The Israel Test. Therein, he provides abundant anecdotes and data to persuade readers that Israel, not America, is now the leader of the free world; and further, that if the West does not wake up and follow Israel’s lead, it, too, will collapse. Gilder (a colleague of mine at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute), combines historical scholarship, much of it unknown to the American public — by even many actively involved in Mideast issues — with acute analysis of the underlying dynamics and future prospects for change. Gilder describes the astonishing agricultural contributions Jews emigrating to the Holy Land made on land barren for 1,200 years, beginning with the 7th century Muslim conquest and reaching its nadir during the last 400 years of the Ottoman empire. The land in question, Britain’s Palestine Mandate, was topographically similar to Southern California, with even more potential for productive growth. Beginning with the first settlement, established in 1878, Jewish immigrants within 50 years made the land fertile, conquering malaria in the process. Notably, Jews purchased tracts of land at above-market prices from absentee Arab owners (effendi), and subsidized relocation for displaced tenant farmers. Gilder divides the postwar period into three segments. From 1948 to 1967 Jordan ruled Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank), and Egypt held sway over the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. Under the socialist superintendence of the United Nations, stagnation in refugee camps was the order of the day. But those in Palestine under Arab governance nonetheless did better than those trapped in UN camps. The second period, 1967-1990, saw Israeli administration of territories recovered during the Six Day War, albeit Sinai reverted to Egyptian control in 1979. West Bank and Gaza economies boomed. Until the 1987 First Intifada (“shaking off”), Palestinians enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, one of the fastest growth rates worldwide. Save for Arabs living in the U.S., the average Palestinian did better than typical Arabs living in any other country. The third period, 1991-present, was dominated by the 1993 Oslo Accords that created the risibly named “peace process.” Upon terrorist Yasir Arafat’s return to take over the Palestine Authority (PA), the Palestinian economy cratered. Under terrorist kleptocrats, it has never recovered, embracing what Arab leader Musa Almai told Jewish Agency leader David Ben-Gurion in 1934: “I would prefer that the country remains impoverished and barren for another 100 years, until we ourselves are able to develop it on our own.” But this period was also marked by Israel’s transformation into “Startup Nation.” It came to pass because Bibi, Ariel Sharon’s finance minister, sought a U.S. sovereign loan guarantee to give Israel access to Western financial markets. President Bush’s treasury secretary, John Snow, conditioned the loan on Israel shrinking the size of its public sector. Within a few years, Israel’s public sector shrank from 60 to 20 percent of its GDP. The Bottom Line Gilder recently called Israel “the leader of the Free World.” As America equivocates, Israel acts. If Israel succeeds, Pax Judaica will supplant Pax Americana. If Israel fails, we will see neither Pax Sinica nor Pax Sovietica, but a chaotic era of sauve qui peut (“save oneself who can”). READ MORE from John C. Wohlstetter: Fixing Presidential Debates: Lose the Moderators Will 2024 Bring Doom for the Filibuster and the Court? John C. Wohlstetter is the author of Presidential Succession: Constitution, Congress and National Security (Gold Institute Press, 2024) The post Israel and the Twilight of the Terror Masters appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

America’s intelligence agencies have been politicized to such an extent by left-wing ideologues in recent years that they have been transformed from respected defenders of American national security interests into a leftist police state bureaucracy.  This is the basic premise of Dr. J. Michael Waller’s book, Big Intel: How the CIA and FBI Went from Cold War Heroes to Deep State Villains. Dr. Waller provided an in-depth discussion of his book and the current state of America’s intel agencies at an event hosted by the Bastiat Society of Washington, DC on September 6, 2024. Thus, he favors a new executive order to abolish the FBI and transfer its useful functions to other agencies. Waller’s talk outlined the historical timeline of this transformation, via a long communist “Red thread,” dating back more than a century to a meeting in 1922 at the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow. The meeting was attended by the leaders of the European communist parties to consider how to spread the revolution into the Western democracies, including the United States, after having recently succeeded with Lenin’s Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917. Their first target was Germany.  The communists’ strategy for a takeover of Germany was to foment distrust and dissatisfaction with the country’s relatively new constitutional republic, the Weimer Republic, established in 1919.  Unfortunately for the communists, Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party, aka the Nazis, had the same idea, capitalized on turmoil created by the communists, and successfully preempted the communists’ takeover of the country. The ideological force behind the communists’ agenda in Germany was an unofficial school of thought known as the Frankfurt School, established in 1923 at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.  Its purpose was to promote the communist ideology of Karl Marx.  After Hitler achieved power in 1933, most of the scholars of the Frankfurt School fled Germany to other European countries and to the United States. In the United States, prominent Marxist scholars from the Frankfurt School established a presence at Columbia University in 1934 under the name of the Institute for Social Research.  This group of Frankfurt School scholars developed and promoted the ideas of critical theory, which espouses relentless criticism of an existing order for the purpose of destroying it and replacing it with a new communist revolutionary order. Critical theory led to the development of critical law theory, critical race theory, and critical gender theory.  Dr. Waller stated during his talk that critical law theory gradually spread throughout American higher education and is now taught at almost every law school in the United States.  This has led to law school graduates trained in critical law theory to gravitate to legal careers that advocate the various forms of critical theory, which, in practical employment terms, means careers primarily in leftwing advocacy groups and government. Critical race theory and critical gender theory have gradually become established social policies in the federal government under the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or DEI policy. Essentially, DEI rejects the primacy of individual rights, merit-based advance, objectivity, and excellence on the grounds that these concepts are merely strategies used by the dominant group (white men) to subjugate minority racial, gender, and sexuality groups. Critical law theory and DEI policy is now so prevalent in the federal government that Dr. Waller stated up to 97 percent of political donations from U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) employees are given to Democrats per Federal Election Commission data.  This is an indicator of how politically-lopsided the DOJ has become in favoring Democrats and socialist, left-wing policy over Republicans and conservative policy. Thus, the federal agency most responsible for enforcing U.S. law is also one of the most politically biased and not representative of most of the country. The predominance of attorneys trained in critical law theory at American law schools and now employed at the DOJ has spread into the FBI and the other intelligence agencies.  Thus, Waller’s reference to the “Red thread” means that the long-term objective of the communist leaders who met at the Marxist-Engels Institute in Moscow in 1922 has been significantly achieved with the gradual spread of Marxist progressive ideology throughout American institutions. Waller Names Names Waller mentioned several recent U.S. government officials with radical anti-American backgrounds who burrowed into the government bureaucracy many years ago and eventually rose to its most senior positions. For example, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was a self-described leftist radical during his college days at Columbia University where he participated in student riots and an armed takeover of a Columbia University ROTC office in 1970. Also, Obama’s CIA director, John Brennan, voted for Communist Party USA presidential candidate Gus Hall in the 1976 U.S. presidential election.  And Obama’s FBI director, James Comey, actually identified himself as a communist during his college days in an October 2003 interview with New York magazine.  The magazine suggested that Comey had ill-defined, self-promoting political views and a soul that was “up for grabs.” Waller explained that former senior government officials such as Holder, Brennan, and Comey are only representative of a new and much larger generation of like-minded officials that have spread throughout the intelligence agencies. It is Waller’s belief that critical theory now permeates the intelligence agencies to the point that open support and advocacy of DEI policies are now required for promotions, coveted assignments, pay raises, and bonuses.  Therefore, he argues, DEI policies within the intelligence agencies should be treated as a foreign-sponsored counter-intelligence problem, but the counter-intelligence and the public corruption divisions within the FBI are the two most politically corrupt parts of the FBI and should be the first to be cleaned out. The cultural decay and politicization of America’s intelligence agencies has become so deep and widespread that Waller believes simply changing the political leadership of the agencies or restructuring the organizational charts will not solve their systemic problems.  The problems can only be addressed by dramatically downsizing these agencies as well as drastic recruiting reforms, including banning hiring from schools that push critical theory. Interestingly, Waller points out that the FBI was never created by an act of Congress but by an executive order in 1908.  Thus, he favors a new executive order to abolish the FBI and transfer its useful functions to other agencies, such as the DOJ and the U.S. Marshals Service. As for the CIA, Waller commented that it is too large at 35,000 employees and wastes billions of dollars on intelligence information that can be found in the public domain. Rather, the CIA should only comprise around 1,500 employees who are engaged in needed covert intelligence activities. Needless to say, Waller paints a very dark picture of the current state of America’s intelligence agencies. He sees them as degraded and heavily-politicized left-wing bureaucracies that have compromised their intended missions of neutral service to the nation’s security and protecting the U.S. Constitution.  Waller’s book Big Intel is a must-read for those interested in this history and his discussion at the Bastiat Society of Washington, DC event on September 6, 2024 is found on Youtube here. READ MORE from Steve Dewey: Scholar: Kamala Harris Borrows From Karl Marx Turmoil at the FDIC Steve Dewey is a retired federal financial regulator and founder of GeoFinancial Trends, LLC (www.geofinancialtrends.org) and writes on Substack (stevedewey.substack.com).  He can be reached at steve@geofinancialtrends.org The post Expert Michael Waller: America’s Intel Agencies Are Compromised appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Israeli Police and Israel Defense Force (IDF) forensic teams spent the first day of the Jewish High Holiday of Sukkot on Thursday, October 17, working to determine if the body of one of the three terrorists killed the previous day in Gaza belonged to the top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.  While incarcerated, Sinwar underwent life-saving brain surgery by Israeli doctors after an Israeli dentist discovered a brain tumor. “At this time, the identity of the terrorist cannot be confirmed,” the IDF stated Thursday afternoon amid mounting anticipation. But by early evening, reports confirmed that Sinwar had in fact been eliminated. Sinwar had been the military commander and political leader of the Hamas chapter in Gaza until early August when he was announced as the new leader of Hamas — which also operates in the West Bank and minimally in Lebanon, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey — following the Israeli air strike that killed former leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.  The incident leading to Sinwar’s death began on Wednesday, October 16, when IDF troops from the 828th Bislamach Brigade, operating in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, observed three Hamas officials entering a building. The Brigade was soon met with resistance and a fire fight broke out with Hamas combatants on the ground floor. After confirming that no hostages were kept in the vicinity, the troops called for an artillery strike that collapsed part of the building. While inspecting the rubble, the soldiers noticed that one of the bodies — with a hole in the head due to collapsed concrete — looked strikingly similar to Sinwar.  The body of the suspect was not moved from the demolition site for several hours due to a high threat of booby-traps in the area and the fact that the military vest on the body contained several grenades which could have been rigged. Part of a finger, however, was removed to expedite identity testing. Large caches of money and hi-tech communication devices were also found next to the body.  Despite rumors spreading like wildfire and headlines over the holiday that rushed to proclaim Sinwar’s death, the IDF maintained that a full forensic investigation must be conducted before conclusions are made. The body was extracted and brought to Israel late on Thursday and the IDF and police set to work determining whether or not the DNA, dental samples, and fingerprints from the cadaver belonged to Sinwar, a process that can take up to several hours. Israel possesses samples of Sinwar’s DNA, fingerprints, and dental records from the time the terrorist leader had spent much of his adult life in Israeli prisons. Over the course of the war, Sinwar had been among the most wanted terrorists for his mastermind planning of the October 7 attack. Earlier this year, in February, IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari released footage of Sinwar walking through the Gaza tunnels and stated: “The hunt for Sinwar will not stop until we catch him, dead or alive.” The terrorist leader managed to evade detection for an entire year, with many intelligence officials suspecting him to be hiding amongst Israeli hostages as human shields deep within the tunnels of Gaza. Upon hearing the news on Thursday afternoon, Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant tweeted on X a quote from Leviticus 26: “You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword.”  Although the IDF was not intentionally pursuing any leads on Sinwar when they engaged in Rafah on Wednesday —they did not know he was one of the officials entering the building — his confirmed elimination is something of a crown jewel in the long roster of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders assassinated in recent months by the IDF’s intelligence-informed precision strikes.  Born in 1962 in the Gaza city of Khan Younis, Sinwar joined Hamas soon after Sheikh Ahmed Yassin founded the terrorist group in 1987. He oversaw the terrorist group’s internal security and intelligence within Gaza and implemented ruthless means of torture or death to anyone accused of collaborating with Israel, earning him the moniker “butcher of Khan Younis.” Sinwar Spent Years in Israel Ironically, he became fluent in Hebrew during his 23 years in Israeli prison where he served four life-terms for killing Israeli soldiers and Palestinian collaborators. While incarcerated, Sinwar underwent life-saving brain surgery by Israeli doctors after an Israeli dentist discovered a brain tumor. He was then released in 2011, along with 1,027 other security prisoners, in exchange for the kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.    When the IDF acted alone to take out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in his underground bunker in Beirut on September 27, US officials in Washington responded with frustration for not being informed until the mission was well underway. This time, Defense Minister Gallant promptly informed his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, of the likelihood of Sinwar’s death as the body was being investigated.  Although the U.S. has maintained unyielding military and political support for Israel over the past 12 months, the war has no doubt strained U.S.-Israel relations. Earlier this week, Israel received the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery from the U.S. — an advanced interception system to help deter and repel ballistic missile attacks from Iran as seen on April 14 and October 1. Yet, at the same time, the Biden White House is pressuring Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu to scale down IDF military campaigns in Gaza, where over 100 Israeli hostages are still missing, and to restrain from bombing Hezbollah arsenals in Beirut. Recently, the White House has rubbed shoulders with Jerusalem over insufficient aid to Gazan civilians as increased Israel vetting security delays or restricts aid trucks from Jordan on suspicion of arms smuggling.  In any given week it seems hard to pin down what exactly the current White House’s clear objectives are in the Middle East. On the other hand, Israel’s committed, intelligence-informed, precise, and timely targeting of top Hamas and Hezbollah leaders presents a clear statement of strength and deliberate retaliation for perpetrations against the Jewish state. Many of these targets also come with hefty U.S. bounties on their heads for killing U.S. servicemembers. Sinwar’s elimination is a significant blow to the Hamas leadership and another Israeli facilitated act of rightly deserved justice.  READ MORE from Bennett Tucker: Israel Fends Off Massive Iranian Missile Barrage Nasrallah’s Death: Israel Takes Step Toward Victory The post Israel Eliminates the ‘Butcher of Khan Younis’ appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.