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Towards an America First Foreign Policy
David Brog - The American Conservative
Almost everyone in the MAGA movement wants President Donald Trump to pursue an America First foreign policy. The only problem is that we haven’t even begun to define what that means … Knowing what you’re against is a start. But to govern we must transform America First from a reaction to past events into a prescription for present policy. This will take hard work and extensive deliberation. Before we can even begin debating specific policies, we must first agree upon the core principles that should undergird these policies. There are four basic principles that should inform an America First foreign policy … Right now, America First foreign policy is a pendulum swinging sharply away from neoconservative excess. These four principles can provide the grounding we need to stop the swing before we reach the other extreme.
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‘The Last Good War?’: Poll Shows Americans Have Conflicted Views of World War II
J. L. Micek – Mass Live
… The long-standing belief that World War II was America’s last “good” war is receding as well. That point is further reinforced by a YouGov poll released Tuesday that sampled the opinions of Americans and residents of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain … The result in the United States shows a partisan split, with three-quarters of Republicans (76%) inclined to be proud of the U.S. [role in the war], compared to a clear majority of Democrats (56%) … There is a similar division of partisan sentiment about the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in late 1945 that hastened the war to a close. Fifty-four percent of Republicans called the atomic bombings justified, compared to 25% of Democrats.
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World War II: Non-Conformist Views of the `Good War’
Mark Weber – Podcast
In a presentation packed with startling facts and provocative observations, Weber takes aim at the conventional view of World War II as conflict between Good and Evil. He reviews and quotes from two recent revisionist books: Human Smoke, by Nicholson Baker, and Churchill, Hitler and `The Unnecessary War’, by Patrick J. Buchanan. Weber tackles a range of widely accepted myths, including the “Big Lie” that Hitler was trying to “conquer the world,” and discredits the iconic image of Winston Churchill as a great statesman. Runtime: 30 mins.
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As Israel Openly Declares Starvation as a Weapon, Media Still Hesitate to Blame It for Famine
Belén Fernández – FAIR
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on March 2 that “Israel has decided to stop letting goods and supplies into Gaza,” where the ongoing Israeli genocide, with the loyal backing of the United States, has officially killed more than 51,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The announcement regarding the total halt of humanitarian aid amounted to yet another explicit declaration of the starvation policy that Israel is pursuing in the Gaza Strip, a territory that — thanks in large part to 17 consecutive years of Israeli blockade — has long been largely dependent on such aid for survival. Of course, this was not the first time that senior Israeli officials had advertised their reliance on the war crime of forced starvation in the current genocidal assault on Gaza.
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… In recent weeks, the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu has become strained as the two leaders are increasingly at odds over a strategy for tackling these challenges now that Hamas has been significantly degraded and Iran weakened, according to two U.S. officials, two Middle Eastern diplomats and two other people with knowledge of the tensions. Where Netanyahu sees an opportunity to finally take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump sees an opportunity to remove the threat of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon by making a deal … Twice in just this past week alone, Trump made public comments that rankled Netanyahu, the two U.S. officials, the two Middle Eastern diplomats and two other people with knowledge of the tensions said.
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It Looks Like Israel Totally Underestimated Trump
Dan Perry – Forward
There is a dawning realization in official Israeli circles that President Donald Trump may not be quite the pushover that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had assumed. After all, the Netanyahu camp greeted Trump’s presidential victory with barely concealed glee … How quickly things appear to change … Now, he’s skipping Israel on the first Middle Eastern visit of his new presidency, and has reportedly stepped back from his once-close relationship with his Israeli counterpart. . … Though there have been no public declarations of a rift, the signs are increasingly visible. … What Trump seems to have realized — perhaps more clearly than many Israelis themselves — is that the current government in Jerusalem is not a true ally of the U.S.
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Votes For Women
The Fiamengo File
Janice Fiamengo, a professor with the University of Ottawa, explains how feminists have re-written history to exclude Male Suffrage from the public consciousness to such a degree that most people believe that all men always had the right to vote. A distorted presentation of history has persuaded even university students and professors to believe that men withheld women’s voting rights for thousands of years. Runtime: 6:09 mins.
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On Tuesday, the British government surprised everyone by making an extraordinary change in its position towards Israel as the minister, Hamish Falconer, condemned Benjamin Netanyahu’s move to ethnically cleanse Gaza. This followed a rare display of unity amongst MPs across party lines to demand that the government to immediately recognise the independent State of Palestine. One Tory MP, Mark Pritchard, said he was wrong to have supported Israel for the last 20 years. Here are highlights of the proceedings. Runtime: 12:53 mins.
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More than a dozen senior Conservative MPs and peers have written to the prime minister calling for the UK to immediately recognise Palestine as a state, breaking ranks with their own party to do so. Seven MPs and six members of the House of Lords have signed the letter to Keir Starmer urging him to defy the Israeli government and give formal recognition to Palestine in advance of key UN talks next month. The letter, which has been seen by the Guardian, was written in late March soon after Israel broke its ceasefire with Hamas, diminishing hopes of an eventual two-state solution. On Monday, the Israeli cabinet went one step further, approving a plan to “conquer” the Gaza Strip and occupy most if not all of it.
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Americans Used to be Steadfast in their Support for Israel. Those Days are Gone
T. Bateman, L. Mintz, G. Edwards – BBC News
… The alliance between the two countries had been thrust into the international spotlight after the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023 and Israel’s offensive in Gaza that followed. During that war, the administration of President Joe Biden sent some $18 billion worth of weapons to Israel, maintaining unprecedented levels of US backing … But opinion polls suggest support for Israel among the American public is dwindling … Currently, these shifts in public opinion haven’t yet prompted a major change in US foreign policy … Those who see a fraying relationship are paying particularly close attention to the views of younger Americans – a group that has shown the most marked shift in opinion since 7 October.
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Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a “live-streamed genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe. In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with “specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide”. Israel has rejected accusations of “genocide” from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza … Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard … “States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools,” she added.
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Meet the Think Tanks Behind MAGA’s New Free Speech Crackdown
Robert Inlakesh - MintPress
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump — and many of his most prominent right-wing supporters — are directly linked to some of the most radically pro-war, pro-Israel organizations in the country. These connections form a sprawling web of lobbying groups, tech billionaires, and media figures who consistently promote Israeli interests above those of ordinary Americans. Why has the pro-Trump right suddenly pivoted from branding itself as a bastion of free speech to openly supporting censorship and state-led crackdowns? This MintPress News investigation uncovers a donor-driven advocacy network driving that ideological shift … This same network, once obsessed with defending free expression, now embraces censorship, blacklists, and government surveillance — so long as it targets their ideological opponents.
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The Book That Predicted the Return of Great Power Conflict
Jose Nino – Institute for Historical Review
In years when so many politicians and foreign policy experts waxed poetically about their vision of a “rules-based international order” of enduring global harmony, John Mearsheimer persistently warned against the delusions and dangers of this outlook. For years he has been a leading voice for a realist foreign policy, an outlook impressively laid out in his most important work, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics … a hard-nosed examination of international politics rooted not in sentiment or presumed idealism, but in the immutable realities of power politics … While liberals speak of economic interdependence and international norms, and neoconservatives push regime change in the name of “democracy,” Mearsheimer contends that material power, not ideology, drives the foreign policy decision-making of government leaders.
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Was the `Good War’ Really Good?
Tim Kelly - FFF
The Second World War is often called “the good war.” … That description comes from the war’s popular portrayal as a necessary Manichean struggle between the good Allied powers and the evil Axis powers … It is understandable that many would see the Second World War as a morally clear-cut conflict between good and evil. This view has persisted for almost 70 years, particularly in the United States — reinforced by countless motion pictures, documentaries, and books … Since 1945, American political leaders have frequently invoked the mythology of the good war to justify their bellicose, reckless, and arrogant foreign policy. Those expressing misgivings or skepticism toward Washington’s wars have often been accused of “appeasement” or forgetting the “lessons of Munich.”
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The Inspiring Legacy of Anti-War Conservatism
Brandan Buck - American Conservative
… Despite the rhetoric of modern neoconservatives, there is a long history of conservative skepticism about cheek-by-jowl U.S.-Israel relations. Throughout the early Cold War, conservatives in Congress — including Republicans — opposed American entanglements in the Middle East, drawing on an earlier noninterventionist consensus that valued restraint overseas and fiscal prudence at home … The growing conservative critique of unquestioning U.S. support for Israel and continued entanglement in the Middle East reflects a broader rejection of neoconservative orthodoxy, echoing the principled stands of past dissenters.
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I Wish I Could Stop Reading About The Slaughter In Gaza
Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr.
… The Israeli military has expanded its wars to the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, killing thousands more. These wars are creating many more enemies for the U.S. President Trump received approximately $100 million for his campaign and another $100 million for his Inauguration, according to press reports, from Miriam Adelson, widow of a Jewish multi-billionaire, apparently for a promise of total support for the Netanyahu government in Israel.
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What Would Jesus Do?
George D. O’Neill, Jr.
… For years, a vocal strain of American Christian Zionist leaders have supported policies that do precisely that — enabling the starvation and slaughter of Palestinians while underwriting broader wars that have decimated ancient Christian communities across the Middle East … What kind of religious leaders cheer the bombing of Gaza’s widows and orphans, left destitute by policies supported by American and Israeli leaders? Decades of war propaganda have numbed many Americans to the atrocities committed in their name. Yet a growing awareness is stirring both here and abroad … For decades, some American Christian Zionist leaders have backed Israel’s destructive actions, often at the expense of the very people Jesus called us to protect.
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Iran and the United States: Nuclear Argy Bargy
M. Reza Behnam – Antiwar
Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the United States and Israel have been zealous in their efforts to disempower it. Israel has used its powerful hasbara (propaganda) machine to peddle absurdities about Tehran as a nuclear threat to the region and the world … Unlike Israel and the United States, it has not threatened nor bombed, invaded or occupied its neighbors … It is important to establish that the U.S. intelligence community — the collective work of America’s 18 spy organizations – has determined that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. It stated as much in its “Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community” 2024 report: “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.”
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Netanyahu’s Plan for Gaza Risks Dividing Israel, Killing Palestinians and Horrifying World
Jeremy Bowen - BBC News
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told Israelis that “we are on the eve of an intense entry into Gaza.” Israel would, he said, capture territory and hold it: “They will not enter and come out.” … It is more likely that the offensive will sharpen everything that makes the Gaza war so controversial … Prolonging the war divides Israelis, kills even more Palestinian civilians and horrifies millions around the world, including many who describe themselves as friends of Israel. While the IDF attacks Hamas in Gaza, the government’s plan is that its soldiers will force some or all of the more than two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza into a small area in the ruins of the south … A new offensive will kill many more Palestinian civilians, deepen the misery of the survivors and bereaved inside Gaza, and widen the toxic rifts within Israel.
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Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich Says Gaza to be ‘Totally Destroyed,’ Population ‘Concentrated’ in Small Area
The Times of Israel
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says that within half a year the Gazan population will be “concentrated” in a narrow strip of land … He adds that Gaza will “totally destroyed,” that the entire territory north of the Morag Corridor will be “empty,” and that in six months Hamas will not be a functioning entity … “Within a few months we will be able to declare that we have won. Gaza will be totally destroyed,” Smotrich says … Adds the finance minister: “The Gazan citizens will be concentrated in the south. They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.”
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‘They Died for Nothing’: America and the Myth of World War II
D. Taylor - Crisis magazine
… Most Americans view World War II as the “good war” because the Allies defeated a regime bent on world domination … This is the World War II celebrated in so many Hollywood films … It is no wonder that this is the version of World War II most people know. But the actual war is one thing and our memory is another. The Western Allies’ D-Day heroics notwithstanding, it was the Red Army that defeated the Nazis, not the Americans … During WWII, there was a marked difference, for example, in how the ordinary soldier saw the conflict and how our government leaders understood it …. That war turned the United States from a republican, continental empire into a global, liberal one … Once you make egalitarianism part of a global crusade, it becomes nigh impossible to stop pursuing it, at home or abroad …
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How accurate is this hallowed portrayal of America’s role in World War II? As we shall see, it does not hold up under close examination … The three Allied leaders accomplished what they accused the Axis leaders of Germany, Italy and Japan of conspiring to achieve: world domination … Presidential deception to justify war did not start with George W. Bush. Americans who express admiration for the US role in World War II, and for Franklin Roosevelt’s presidential leadership, have little moral right to complain when presidents follow his example and lead the country into war by breaking the law, subverting the Constitution, and lying to the people.
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Who Were the Carthaginians? Ancient DNA Study Reveals a Stunning Answer
Ariel David - Haaretz
Carthage is famed for its vast Mediterranean empire and its three bloody wars with Rome, which ultimately ended in utter destruction. But who were the Carthaginians? … We know precious little about the origins and distant past of the Carthaginians, or Punic people, as the Romans called them. Now, a team of researchers has extracted the DNA of scores of people buried in ancient Punic settlements across the western and central Mediterranean, including Carthage itself, and has made a startling discovery … But by the time Carthage became a major power, its people had almost no genetic link to their Levantine founders … Instead, it seems the Punic people were exceptionally diverse, and derived most of their ancestry from a genetic profile similar to that of ancient people from Sicily and Greece.
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Chinese Companies Build Fire Trucks for $400,000 in Six Weeks. In the US It’s $2 Million in 4 Years
Video – Kevin Walmsley
Wall Street firms have taken over the manufacturing industries for first-responder vehicles in the United States, reports Kevin Walmsley, an American businessman who lives and works in China. After years of consolidation and the closure of dozens of production lines, he notes, three companies control 80% of the US industry. Costs for fire trucks of all types have soared, along with delivery times. Ladder trucks, for example, jumped from $1.3 million to $2.3 million each in just two years. Cities typically wait over four years to receive their rigs, after placing deposits for them. Firms also cut back on supply of replacement parts … These were contributing factors in the Pacific Palisades fires, which ravaged Los Angeles and caused over $52 billion in damages. Runtime: 12 mins.
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New Thinking Needed on National Defense
Stephen Bryen
… Despite these expenditures, the Ukraine War has exposed some dramatic inadequacies. We have learned that America’s arsenal as it stands today would be quickly depleted in any future sustained conflict. And we’ve learned that our allies are in far worse shape. This raises the question of how we can spend so much on our national security but still have a military that seems so woefully underprepared for a major conflict … Consider the fact that most of the first-person view (FPV) drones — drones controlled by a remote pilot using video cameras — that are being used on the battlefield in Ukraine and elsewhere are built with parts made primarily in China … We learned very early on in the Ukraine War … that the incredibly expensive tanks we gave to the Ukrainians were defenseless against very inexpensive FPV drones.
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California’s economy has overtaken that of the country of Japan, making the US state the fourth largest global economic force. Governor Gavin Newsom touted new data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis showing California’s growth. The data shows California’s gross domestic product (GDP) hit $4.10 trillion (£3.08 trillion) in 2024, surpassing Japan, which was marked at $4.01 trillion. The state now only trails Germany, China and the US as a whole. “California isn’t just keeping pace with the world – we’re setting the pace,” Newsom said.
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Millennials lack basic knowledge of World War II, with nearly half of 18-34-year-olds not knowing Britain fought for the Allies and more than one in ten thinking the ‘Miracle of Dunkirk’ refers to when the Nazis surrendered, researchers claim … While nearly two-thirds of millennials (61%) claim to have good knowledge about the Second World War, 41% did not know that the UK fought on the side of the Allies … Two-thirds of millennials are not even aware which countries emerged victorious from the conflict … Indeed, millennials are more interested in who is top of the music charts (22%), the names of celebrity babies (20%), and how many followers they have on social media (20%), than what happened during World War II.
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“Celebration? What celebration? It feels more like a funeral” – the damning words of a former senior Nato figure to describe this week’s ceremonies marking Victory in Europe Day … VE Day was a joint Allied triumph over Nazi Germany … But 80 years on, we’re surrounded by countless news and academic analyses breathlessly singling out Donald Trump as the modern day nail in the coffin of the strong transatlantic bonds forged back then. In Europe, the American president is viewed by many as the slayer-in-chief of decades-old common values; shared visions of security, democracy and rule of law … A YouGov poll in March indicated that, 80 years on from VE Day, a large majority of Western Europeans (78% in the UK, 74% in Germany, 75% in Spain) now view the White House as a big threat to peace and security in Europe.
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US President Donald Trump says he plans to rename Veterans Day – known as Remembrance Day in the UK – as “Victory Day for World War I” to celebrate American contributions to the conflict. The president also wants to name VE Day on 8 May as “Victory Day for World War II”, he said on his Truth Social social media platform … The days mark the end of World War I in 1918 and Germany’s surrender to the allies in 1945, respectively. In his late-night post, Trump said that “many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8th as Victory Day, but we did more than any other country, by far, in producing a victorious result” in the Second World War … The US has not historically recognised VE Day. The country was still at war with Japan on the Pacific front for several more months after conflict ended in Europe.
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The US played the most significant role in achieving victories in the two world wars, President Donald Trump claimed on Friday. Trump made the claim while announcing he has designated May 8 as Victory Day for WWII and November 11 Victory Day for WWI. Nazi Germany officially capitulated to the Allied forces on May 8, 1945, shortly after Soviet troops captured Berlin … “Many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8th as Victory Day, but we did more than any other Country, by far, in producing a victorious result on World War II,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Thursday. “Nobody was close” to the US “in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance,” Trump claimed. “We won both Wars,” he wrote, adding that “We are going to start celebrating our victories again!”
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Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II
Daily Mail (Britain)
… In Britain we remember the great crusade against the Nazis as our finest hour. But as the historian Keith Lowe shows in an extraordinary, disturbing and powerful new book, Savage Continent, it is time we thought again about the way the war ended. For millions of people across the Continent, he argues, VE Day marked not the end of a bad dream, but the beginning of a new nightmare … In Prague, captured German soldiers were ‘beaten, doused in petrol and burned to death’. In the city’s sports stadium, Russian and Czech soldiers gang-raped German women.
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Germany’s defeat in May 1945, and the end of World War II in Europe, did not bring an end to death and suffering for the vanquished German people. Instead the victorious Allies ushered in a horrible new era that, in many ways, was worse than the destruction wrought by war. In a sobering and courageous new book, After the Reich: The Brutal History of Allied Occupation, British historian Giles MacDonogh details how the ruined and prostrate Reich (including Austria) was systematically raped and robbed, and how many Germans who survived the war were either killed in cold blood or deliberately left to die of disease, cold, malnutrition or starvation.
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The European Atrocity You Never Heard About
R. M. Douglas -- The Chronicle of Higher Education
… Between 1945 and 1950, Europe witnessed the largest episode of forced migration, and perhaps the single greatest movement of population, in human history. Between 12 million and 14 million German-speaking civilians — the overwhelming majority of whom were women, old people, and children under 16 — were forcibly ejected from their places of birth in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and what are today the western districts of Poland … Most disturbingly of all, tens of thousands perished as a result of ill treatment while being used as slave labor (or, in the Allies’ cynical formulation, “reparations in kind”) in a vast network of camps … By any measure, the postwar expulsions were a man-made disaster and one of the most significant examples of the mass violation of human rights in recent history.
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Tariff and Spend
Ron Paul
… The media and big spenders in both parties are screaming about how President Trump’s budget proposal contains large reductions in federal spending … While President Trump is proposing many necessary cuts in federal agencies and programs, including those concerning the use of taxpayer money to promote “wokeness,” his budget increases military spending to around a trillion dollars. It also makes no changes to Social Security or Medicare. This means President Trump’s supposed radical spending plan does not reduce spending on three of the four largest items in the federal budget … The truth is that, if the president and Congress were serious about cutting spending, they would start by slashing the Pentagon’s budget. Very little of the military spending actually goes to defending the American people.
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Hundreds of companies are deliberately shunning white men for jobs amid pressure to make workplaces more diverse, a survey has found. A poll of 1,216 of American businesses with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies found that one in ten avoid hiring white men altogether and six in ten human resource (HR) managers put diversity over qualifications when selecting candidates. The study, conducted by website Resume Builder, also found that one in three HR managers believe that “reverse discrimination” occurs because of DEI policies. Three-quarters suspect that these policies were introduced “in part for appearances”.
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Amnesty International: Israel Carrying Out ‘Live-Streamed Genocide’ in Gaza
D. DeCamp - Antiwar
Amnesty International said in its annual human rights report that Israel is carrying out a “live-streamed genocide” as the world looks on. “Since 7 October 2023 – when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages – the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide,” Amnesty Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said in an introduction to the report. “States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals, and schools,” Callamard added.
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Where’s the Outrage Over ‘Systematic’ Sexual Violence Against Palestinians?
S. Salaime - +972 (Israel)
Last month, a report for the UN Human Rights Council affirmed — as Palestinians have long asserted — that Israel has systematically employed sexual violence and gender-based crimes against Palestinian women, men, and children since October 7. The investigation, released alongside harrowing testimonies from survivors and witnesses, civil society representatives, academics, lawyers, and medical experts during a two-day hearing in Geneva, reached several key conclusions that, in my view, demand immediate global attention and action. First, Israeli forces’ use of gender-based violence has escalated dramatically in both scale and intensity since October 7, becoming “systematic.”
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China’s Factories Are in Another World
Video – Kevin Walmsley
China’s industrial proficiency is shocking to manufacturing experts. Their degrees of automation, of engineering expertise, and supply chain domination have no close peer across other modern economies. China’s latest innovation is “dark factories”, massive production centers that produce complex products with no humans involved … Chinese smart manufacturing is likely the largest in the world, today, and will more than double in size by 2030. Chinese artificial Intelligence systems are already in place, cost little, and its engineers are strongly proficient in their applications. Chinese electricity costs far less than peer countries. And, here again, China’s monopolistic control over the global raw materials and logistics chains is probably an insurmountable hurdle for North America, Europe, and other Asian countries. Runtime: 11 mins.
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The Most Influential Jews in Trump’s First 100 Days
Jacob Kornbluh - Forward
… Jewish advisers in Trump’s second term are helping to undo whatever moderation characterized his first term. They are driving key initiatives, including detaining and deporting foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian campus protests … Here is a look at the key Jewish figures in Trump’s inner circle: Steve Witkoff, special envoy to the Middle East … Howard Lutnick, secretary of commerce … Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser … Will Scharf, White House staff secretary … Laura Loomer, the far-right influencer with access to Trump.
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The Death of Adolf Hitler
Audio – BBC News
On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler killed himself in a bunker in the German capital Berlin as Soviet Red Army soldiers closed in. But first he married his lover, Eva Braun, and dictated a final will and testament to Traudl Junge, who typed several copies for posterity. In 1989, Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s secretaries who was in the bunker when he died, shares her testimony in this BBC “Witness History production. She talks about Hitler as a boss and as a human being, the situation in Berlin at the time, and how she survived. Runtime: 9:11 mins.
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Hitler’s Testament: Historic Final Statement
Institute for Historical Review
A day before his death in his beleaguered command center in central Berlin, Adolf Hitler summoned Traudl Junge, his youngest secretary, for an important task. Standing at a large table in the conference room of the cramped underground concrete bunker complex, he paused a bit before he began dictating “My Political Testament,” a declaration that would be his final words to the German people, as well as a statement for coming generations … Hitler also sought to explain why things had turned out so calamitously, and he anticipated accusations that would be made against him in the years ahead.
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When Canada’s Prime Minister Met With Hitler
A. Levine - Winnipeg Free Press (Canada)
… Like many others who came into contact with Hitler before the Second World War, [Canadian Prime Minister William Mackenzie] King was plainly in awe of him, as is clear in the approximate 7,400-word moment-by-moment assessment of the meeting [in June 1937, in Berlin] he dictated to [secretary] Pickering for his diary. He praised Hitler more than once: “I spoke … of what I had seen of the constructive work of his regime, and said that I hoped that that would continue … That it was bound to be followed in other countries to the great advantage of mankind.” … “He has a very nice, sweet, and one could see, how particularly humble folk would come to have a profound love for the man… As I talked with him, I could not but think of Joan of Arc. He is distinctly mystic.” … “I believe the world will yet come to see a very great man … in Hitler.”
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Lyndon B. Johnson led the nation in an untraditional manner at times, going so far as to conduct meetings with his advisers while seated on the toilet. The 36th U.S. president was known for a method of persuasion called the “Johnson treatment,” in which he won political victories either through flattery or bullying. One of LBJ’s most common tactics was inviting people into the bathroom and continuing the conversation, often leaving the door wide open and creating an awkward environment … He was known to have aides stand just outside the shower, and he kept the conversation going while drying himself off afterward … The president’s eccentricities weren’t limited to just the toilet, either. LBJ once completely stripped down while conducting an interview with reporters aboard Air Force One, continuing the conversation as normal.
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US Bans Government Personnel in China From Romantic or Sexual Relations with Chinese Citizens
Associated Press
The U.S. government has banned American government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential new directive. Though some U.S. agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “non-fraternization” policy, as it is known, has been unheard of publicly since the Cold War. It’s not uncommon for American diplomats in other countries to date locals and even marry them.
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Muslims Now Largest Religious Group in Vienna Classrooms
The Local – Austria
New figures from the City of Vienna show that children of Islamic faith now make up the largest single religious group in the city’s primary and secondary schools, accounting for 41.2 percent of all pupils. It’s a slight but noticeable increase from 39.4 percent last year – and it’s already fueling new discussions about diversity, integration and how schools can help shape shared values in an increasingly pluralistic city … The numbers reflect how Vienna’s student population has been changing over time. While the proportion of Muslim students has grown, Christian faiths now account for a combined 34.5 percent, including 17.5 percent Roman Catholic and 14.5 percent Orthodox. A further 23 percent of pupils declare no religious affiliation at all.