Monthly Archives: May 2021

Support for Hamas

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Iran has been exposed, once again, as supporting terrorism, this time straight from the horse’s mouth.

[Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau,] Ismail Haniyeh…thanked “the Islamic Republic of Iran; who did not hold back with money, weapons, and technical support.”

Nor does the support for Hamas come solely from Iran.

In his speech Friday at the start of his joint press conference with Republic of Korea President Moon Jae-in, President Joe Biden (D) spoke at length—bragged—about how he’d been in frequent contact with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and about how several levels of his administration had been in constant contact with various levels of Netanyahu’s government to pressure the Israelis to “find a way” to end the hostilities with Hamas (and, oh by the way, Egypt helped out), and how he, Biden, had pushed Netanyahu to stop the rioting in Jerusalem. Biden had not a word, not a syllable, of his effort to push the Hamas leadership to stop their terrorist attacks on Israel or to push the Hamas leadership to stop Palestinian rioting in Jerusalem.

That’s coupled with Biden’s anxious push to get Iran to let the US (re)join the Iran nuclear weapons acquisition deal, ultimately to lift sanctions, and to pay billions more American dollars to the terrorism- and terrorist-supporting state, much of which money will go to Hamas.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took note of that latter, also.

America is about to supply Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief to continue this. For America’s security, and for that of Israel, this is dangerous.

That’s this administration’s one-sided pressure on Israel, backed up by his Progressive-Democratic Party as Party Congressmen insistently accuse Israel of terrorism and apartheid, with nary a word about Hamas’ terrorism and with no contradiction from Party leadership. Biden has pretty words, to be sure, about undying support for Israel, but that prettiness is belied by his actual behavior.

Whether it’s Biden’s intent or not, the outcome of his behavior is decreased antithesis toward Hamas and Hamas’ terrorism (which much clearly is Party’s intent), and increased the danger to Israel and to us.

Definitions

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The Supreme Court has agreed to take up Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which is about a Mississippi law that substantially bars abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Court’s ruling, whatever they decide, however united or split they decide to be, will substantially impact their 1992 Planned Parenthood v Casey ruling that created a bar against “substantial burdens” on a putative right to abortion and their Roe v Wade ruling of 20 years earlier that manufactured out of the umbras a “right” to abortion.

The Court, though, in keeping with Chief Justice John Roberts’ timidity, is unlikely to decide the matter broadly, possibly even avoiding Constitutional matters altogether. It has taken up, from the several questions in front of the lower courts, only the narrow one of whether all pre-viability bans on elective abortions violate the Constitution.

It occurs to me that even that much hinges on the definition of “viability.”

Here’s the Merriam-Webster Online definition of viability as it pertains to babies:

the capability of a fetus to survive outside the uterus

Roe‘s creation set an implicitly technology-based threshold of the third trimester for its viability standard. There’s nothing in the definition of viability about requiring medical support—or medical intervention of any sort—for the fetus to survive outside the uterus. Medical technology has advanced considerably in the 40 years since Roe; the 15 weeks of Dobbs is within the capability of today’s medical technology.

Texas just enacted a similar ban, but that State’s threshold was set at 6 weeks. That does stretch the bounds of today’s medical technology, but maybe doesn’t exceed them. The Court’s Dobbs ruling will, of course, impact the Texas law if it goes one way. Or, the Court could uphold Dobbs, but say 6 weeks goes too far.

In any event, while the technology basis of Roe‘s threshold is strongly implied, it would be good if the Court in its ruling explicitly stated that the threshold depends on medical technology and can be moved toward conception as medicine increases its ability to sustain fetuses and bring them to term outside the uterus.

Arithmetic and Social Justice

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California education officials—at least that’s how Williamson Evers, Senior Fellow, Director of the Center on Educational Excellence, refers to them; you and I might have different, colorfully metaphoric terms—want to base arithmetic training in K-12 on whether the classes have sufficient social justice in them, rather than on whether 2+2 equals 4 (Polish proverbs are not allowed, either). California’s Instructional Quality Commission is looking at requiring arithmetic to be taught in accordance with A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.

This manual claims that teachers addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy. It sets forth indicators of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,” including a focus on “getting the right answer,” teaching math in a “linear fashion,” requiring students to “show their work” and grading them on demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter. “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,” the manual explains. “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates ‘objectivity’.”

This, of course, is…nonsense.

If the Left, or their so-called educators, were truly interested in “social justice,” they would desist from their blithe, if carefully unspoken, assumption that blacks (all minorities, come to that) are inherently inferior, intrinsically incapable of mastering arithmetic—or anything else—as well as can any other group of human beings.

But if they did that, the Left would have to find a different means of feeling superior to others so that they could feel good about themselves.

Instead, they cling desperately to their (not so) soft bigotry of low expectations.

A Joke?

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President Joe Biden (D) was asked a question while he was playing around with an electric Ford F-150 truck, taking it for joy test drives around the parking lot of a Ford plant in Michigan.

Here’s the exchange.

Reporter: Mr President, can I ask you a quick question on Israel before you drive away since it’s so important?
Biden: No, you can’t. Not unless you get in front of the car as I step on it. I’m only teasing[.]

Only teasing?

This is part and parcel with his then-boss President Barack Obama’s (D) overt attack on journalists, arresting one, spying on another’s personal communications, spying on that one’s mother’s personal communications, attempting to blackball an entire news organization—all because they asked inconvenient questions.

This was no joke—Joe Biden was threatening a journalist because the man asked an inconvenient question.