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By Mitchell Langbert

Join Professor Langbert, featured speaker at QVGOP’s New Years Club Meeting on Academic Freedom!

THURS. JAN. 2, 2020 at 7:30 PM
At: Young Israel of Holliswood – Holliswood Jewish Center
86-25 Francis Lewis Blvd., Holliswood, NY 11427
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

I grew up in Long Island City, Queens, just south of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district.  I began my political life as a left-wing Democrat.  In 1972, when I was 18, the Vietnam War was raging, and anti-war protests were the rage.  However, I soon noticed that the left was more image than substance, more a matter of signaling than of achieving virtue.  After I graduated from college in 1975, I read Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, took a corporate job, and watched Abraham Beame and the Democrats oversee the city’s bankruptcy, which was due to  Beame’s accounting; public sector unions; Robert Moses’s urban redevelopment policies; and a decades-long commitment to taxes, regulation and welfare.

Because of the exodus of corporate headquarters from New York, in 1986 I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in my field, human resources.  The instruction I received at Columbia Business School was first-rate, but when I entered the professional academic world at a university in New York’s North Country, I realized that the march to the left had progressed past the point of no return.  Left-wing feminist professors, often based in “studies” programs (gender studies, ethnic studies), routinely harassed untenured, conservative professors. A glance across a hallway was a reason for a formal sexual harassment complaint. Professors who questioned preferential policies were subject to “investigation” by the college’s human resource department.  Professors who questioned the official, left-wing narrative were subject to whispering-and-defamation campaigns.

Because of political harassment, I left the North Country after two-and-a-half years, and after two brief stints at New York-area colleges I began a career at Brooklyn College in 1998.  During the ensuing 21 years I suffered a number of left-wing attacks, including a demand that I resign from a departmental personnel committee because I insisted that job candidates have credentials relevant to the department’s field (business administration) rather than just  have  racial or gender credentials; a formal investigation because I said that slavery did not contribute to long-term American economic ascendancy (the more horrific and profitable slavery in the West Indies not having led to economic success there, for instance); and a national media campaign to fire me, led by a pro-Antifa professor, because I made light of the accusations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 

As I have noted in a recent piece in The College Fix, the attacks against me failed, and since then my work has been covered by Lou Dobbs, the New York Post editorial page and elsewhere.  Notice, though, that I have tenure, have favorable student evaluations, and have published 30 academic articles. A more recent hire would not have been likely to survive.  When the New York Sun closed, the city lost the only newspaper that had paid attention to left-wing academic abuses.

Meanwhile, I developed an interest in academic reform.  Together with Phil Orenstein, I campaigned for an academic bill of rights in the early 2000s, and I began to pursue research on education. 

My recent research concerns faculty political affiliations.  The origins of left-only universities can be traced to two early twentieth century foundations: the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Rockefeller’s General Education Board.  These foundations provided financial incentives to secularize universities, and the New Deal, which used universities as left-oriented ideological-mediating institutions, cemented the incentives.  Subsequently, Democrats and RINOs have provided ongoing moral and financial support to academic groupthink.  At present, virtually no Republican donors work as professors in the four leading universities in 30 states that I have recently sampled.

Things are far gone in both higher and K-12 education, but the Department of Education, even under our beloved president, has not done enough to systematically study how far.  I am asking Republicans to pressure Betsy DeVos and elected officials to begin to study what can be done.  So far, the DOE under Secretary DeVos has implemented Title IX reform, but little more.

Mitchell Langbert is an Associate Professor of Business at Brooklyn College. His research recently has focused on political affiliations of professors and executives. His Blog features insights into politics, current events, the economy and higher education.

By Robert Golomb

Life had been filled with fame and fortune for the writer and model Elizabeth Pipko. In 2013, at the age of just 17, she wrote and self- published, her first book, “Sweet Sixteen”, a collection of deeply personal poems.  A year later, she composed a second book, also exclusively of poetry, titled, “About You”, which was described in Arian Huffington’s “Thrive Global” newsletter as among the “best books to read before you sleep.”   

The same year she published “Sweet Sixteen”, Pipko signed a contract to model for Wilhemia Models, a top agency in the profession. Within months, photos of Pipko began appearing in major fashion magazines, including DT, Maxim and Esquire. The following five years proved even kinder to Pipko’s modeling career; her growing legions of fans could find pictures of her  on the pages of People and Vanity Fair and on the covers of Supermodels SA and L’ Officiel.

 “I couldn’t ever have even dreamed of becoming a model because I was an awkward and shy person most of my life”, stated Pipko, as we began our interview in Manhattan last week. “So becoming a model became even more than a dream come true for me”.

 In early summer of 2016, however, Pipko, made what was to be a life changing decision, putting that dream come true at risk.  It was a decision which she believed she had to keep hidden from the heads of the modeling and fashion industries, afraid that if her secret was uncovered, she would never be allowed to work as a model again.    

That secret was simply that Pipko had decided to work on the campaign for then presidential candidate Donald Trump. Pipko, who told me that she had little interest in politics before then, explained what motivated her to work for Trump, although fearful that it could end her modeling career.

“I had always considered myself to be a non-political person”, she stated. “I was immersed in the world around me, finding similarities between myself and those on both sides of the political aisle, and therefore choosing to pay very little attention to current day politics.

“And then”, she further explained, “I saw Donald Trump on television. He was discussing his promise to bring jobs back for Americans and his plans to always keep America first.  And when I heard him also promise that he would tear up the Iran Nuclear deal and work to regain our once incredibly strong relationship with our greatest and most loyal friend, the State of Israel, I was incredibly impressed, and he won my total support.”         

Pipko was in fact so impressed that a few days later she walked into the candidate’s campaign headquarters in Trump Towers and signed up to work as a volunteer in the building’s call center. “The slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ kept ringing in my ears, because I believed that if Donald Trump won, he would deliver on that promise”, she recalled. “So every hour and every day that I worked on the campaign to get this great man elected president was an honor for me as a loyal American, who never imagined herself, at just 21 years old, to be in such a position.”  

 After serving as a volunteer for 2 months, the Trump campaign offered Pipko a salaried position as the coordinator of campaign volunteers throughout America.      

“I jumped at the offer and accepted the job”, stated Pipko. “But having over the past year heard virtually every executive, agent and model and even friend in the industry repeating the same canard about how evil Donald Trump is, I knew that if I wanted to keep modeling, I had to keep my new job a secret”.

By chance, however, Pipko encountered one of the few models in NYC who shared both her political views and fears.  “In the summer of 2016, I was working at campaign headquarters at Trump Towers when I ran into a top male model whom I had known from Wilhelmina”, Pipko  remembered.  “When we spoke, I found that, he like me, was working for Trump because he believed that Trump would fulfill his promise to make America great again. Also, like me, he knew that if the folks in the modeling industry ever found out what he was doing, his career would be over.  Our conversation reinforced my decision to keep my work for the Trump campaign a secret.”

Pipko continued to keep that work a secret for two more years- until love intervened. On  December 26^th, 2018, she married Darren Centinello, also a Trump campaign staffer, whom she had met and fallen in love with during the campaign.

“My personal and political life became intertwined when I fell in love with Darren”, she reflected.  “So, after our wedding, I knew the time had come to put my concerns about my modeling career out of my mind and announce publicly that I had proudly worked for and continue to proudly support President Trump.”      

 Pipko did just that. Beginning first with the print media, Pipko contacted the New York Post, which on January 26, 2019 published an interview- based column revealing her secret under a title that told it all: I was a secret Trump supporter: Model feared politics would kill her career.

 Within the first day of the column’s publication, Pipko received the reaction she had both feared and expected for the then past 2 years. “There were many people in the industry, some of whom I had thought were close friends, who sent me emails saying the most terrible thing about me”, she recalled. “And when I tried to contact some other friends whom I had not heard from hoping for their support, my emails and phone calls were never returned.”

 Pipko intrepidly moved on to the TV media, where the following day she appeared on the Fox station news talk show Fox and Friends. There Pipko explained why she had made the decision to put her modeling career in jeopardy by revealing that she had worked on the Trump presidential campaign. “I explained to the hosts and the audience”, she stated, “that I had come to the realization that my work on behalf of a great candidate who ended up becoming President of the United States and {supporting}, all that he was doing for our great country was far more important to me than a modelling career.”

 That appearance on Fox and Friends did in fact put an end to her once flourishing modelling career. But Pipko had no regrets.  “I was never offered another modeling assignment after my appearance on Fox and Friends”, she told me. “Yet I was fine with that. I was ready to begin a   new phase of my life.”   

 Starting this past March that “new phase” of her life evolved into a political crusade, now known as “The Exodus Movement”. Pipko, who is an orthodox Jew, a self- described “proud Zionist”, an outspoken critic of the powerful anti- Israel faction of the Democratic Party,  and, as we already know, a loyal Trump supporter, described the purpose of The Exodus Movement, which now has branches in 12 states containing large Jewish populations, which include California, Florida, New York and New Jersey.  

“We are asking American Jews and our allies to fight anti- Semitism, which has become frighteningly unmistakable in the political left of the Democratic Party”, she asserted. “Our goal is to fight that growing and vile anti-Semitism by supporting political candidates who will proudly stand up for Jewish Americans and our great ally, the State of Israel. {Thus} we are leading an exodus of Jews and their friends from a party {The Democratic Party}, which continues to fail to take our concerns to heart.”                         

Still, Pipko acknowledged that The Exodus Movement faces an uphill battle trying to convince Jews, who have in the past supported Democratic candidates by an almost 4- 1 margin, to vote to re-elect President Donald Trump. Nevertheless, she told me that she remains undaunted. Stating that The Exodus Movement and similar organizations have exposed what she repeated to contend is the anti- Israel bias and the anti- Semitic rhetoric of the powerful leftist extremist members of the Democratic Party, she asserted, “It remains our goal to be able to convince Jewish Democrats to reconsider their political allegiance and vote for President Trump in 2020.”

Pipko is presenting that same message to the audiences of her old friends at Fox and several other news channels, where she appears as a frequent guest. “I am asked my opinion on a variety of different issues on these shows” she noted. But then she added that the opinion that she most commonly shares with the hosts and viewing audience is that “President Trump has truly made good on his promise to make America great again.”

 With those final words, it became even clearer to me that Pipko continues to be free of care about what her former bosses, colleagues and friends in the fashion and modeling industries think of her or her political views.

Robert Golomb is a nationally and internationally published columnist. Mail him at MrBob347@aol.com or follow him on Twitter@RobertGolomb

By Robert Golomb

Editor’s Note: This is syndicated columnist’s Bob Golomb’s latest column as published in The Published Reporter and other media honoring the life and legacy of highly decorated World War II Veteran, Phil Kahn.

“…having had the opportunity to fight to defend America alongside so many of the most decent and most courageous Americans who have ever lived”, he stated, “has been the greatest honor of my life.”    

The world in which Philip Kahn and his twin brother Samuel- the sons of Jewish Polish   immigrants- were born in New York’s Harlem Hospital on December 15, 1919 was in the first   year of recovery from the most brutal war of then recorded human history. That war, World War 1 (also referred to as the First World War), fought from July 28 to November 11, 1918, involved Germany, Austria- Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire in a global battle against the Allied Forces-  Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States (which first entered the conflict in April 1917).  

 While by that memorable November 11^th day that WW1 was won by the Allied Forces (celebrated today as Veterans Day) approximately 37 million people had been killed, including more than 110,000 American service men and women, several months after the war ended, the world was inflicted with even greater suffering caused by still another great catastrophe. However, unlike WW1, that other catastrophe, which was to tragically impact upon the Kahn family, was not the result of the cruelty of humankind but rather the result of the cruelty of nature.   

 That nature generated mercilessness was bred in the Spring of 1918 by a contagious, deadly strain of the avian influenza virus. Originating in China, the virus quickly spread a plague of misery and death throughout every nation on the planet. By the time this plague, named the “Spanish Flu”, ended in the summer of 1919, it had infected an estimated 500 million people- approximately one- third of the world’s population at the time- and killed between 40-50 million people, including in the range of 675,000 Americans.

One of those Americans was Samuel Kahn, who died from the virus 3 weeks after his birth.          

 Philip Kahn, whom I interviewed in his daughter’s western Long Island home last week, described how the tragedy haunted him and his family throughout their lives.  “From my earliest memories, probably beginning at 3 or 4, I can recall my father and mother discussing their grief over losing my twin to this awful disease”, he remembered. “Their conversations about him remain in my mind. And until this day, I continue to wonder about what type of great person Samuel would have grown up to become, had he lived.” 

Fortunately, the family had previously been blessed with two older sons- Jack, born in 1914 and Louis in 1915. Kahn told me that despite the sad lingering memories of the loss of his twin brother, he led a wonderful life growing up in the upper West Side of Manhattan, living with his father, who owned a local bakery, his mother, a homemaker, and his 2 older brothers.   “My mother and father, who had immigrated to America years before with their families to escape the growing anti- Semitism in Poland”, Kahn stated, “taught my brothers and me to enjoy every piece of American life. And what enjoyment we had.  They took us on day trips throughout every borough in the city. We especially loved Brooklyn, where our most enjoyable summer destination was to the beaches of Coney Island, and then we would take a short walk to eat hot dogs and French fries at Nathans.  Most importantly”, Kahn added, “My parents taught us to follow and cherish our Jewish faith and to love and be loyal to the great country of America that had opened its doors of freedom and opportunity to them.”  

 As the world began moving in the tragic path of a second World War in the 1930’s, Kahn would, before he even reached his 21^st birthday, be given the chance to prove that he had learned his parents lesson of love and loyalty to his nation. In Asia, Imperial Japan launched the genocidal conquest of Manchuria, which they followed in 1937 with the even more brutal invasion of mainland China. In Europe, Fascist Italy, extending its reach into Africa, invaded Ethiopia in 1935.  And in 1939, in the same beleaguered continent of Europe, Adolph Hitler’s murderous Nazi army invaded Poland- an action that triggered England and France to declare war on Germany. World War 2 had just begun.  

 Kahn was convinced that America, which had remained neutral in the conflict up to that point, would soon be forced to end that neutrality and enter the war to defeat the German, Italian and Japanese Fascist nations (which upon the signing of an alliance pact in September 1940, became known as the “Axis Powers”). “I would go to the theatre and watch the movie reels showing the Germans murdering thousands of innocent civilians – many of them my Jewish brethren, showing the Japanese committing mass murder in the Pacific, and the Italian army slaughtering people in Africa”, he recalled.  “I knew that America, the greatest, strongest and most moral nation in the world, would not sit passively by as the evil forces of the Axis waged a war to take over the world. I knew that the day would soon come when the United States would join the battle to defeat this evil.”  

In 1940, 1 year before what he had forecast to be the “day that would soon come”, Kahn   enlisted in the United State Army’s Aviation Cadet Pilot Training Program in Fort Gordon, Georgia, which provided him with training on aerial combat.  “I was trained to be a flight chief which involved learning about all the aspects of piloting, co- piloting, engineering and grounding a plane.”   Still, there was an equally important lesson he learned.  “Training together with hundreds of Americans coming from all parts of the country, the kinds of people I had never met before”, he stated, “I saw first- hand how decent and courageous my fellow Americans were, and I made many friends.”    

 When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1945, killing 2403 Americans, followed 3 days later with Germany’s declaration of war against America, Philip, as many of those courageous Americans with whom he had trained, was sent off to the battle in the Pacific, while others were sent to Europe.  Serving alternately as a co-pilot, crew chief and aerial engineer, Kahn flew 14 perilous missions over Japan, dropping tons of murderous firebombs over heavily civilian populated cities.  Kahn, who had been promoted the rank of sergeant by then, told me that these bombings left him with conflicting emotions. “I felt these lethal aerial attacks were a justifiable payback for Pearl Harbor. And I knew that they would help shorten and win the war. But I couldn’t get it out of my mind that we had killed many civilians, including, men, women and children, who did not have a chance to escape our onslaught”, he said.   

 Kahn told me that during his time in combat he often thought and worried about his older brothers who were soldiers fighting the Germans in Europe. That worry, which of course, was probably shared by every American whose family member was fighting against the Germans,  ended on May 7th 1945, the day Germany surrendered to America.   

 Remembering that day Kahn, who was stationed in an air base in an island off the Japanese mainland at the time, stated, “When I heard the news that Hitler and his genocidal empire had been destroyed, I felt a great sensation of joy and pride as an American. Also, having learned some frightening details about the genocide of European Jewry, I thanked God that American troops had liberated hundreds of thousands of survivors.  In addition, I believed the Americans, including my two brothers, who had fought so valiantly in Europe would soon be returning home.”  

That belief was premature. Seeing their closest ally go down to defeat did not make the Japanese consider surrender, even as daily American bombing raids were reigning death and destruction throughout their major cities. Realizing the suicidal tenacity of the Japanese,        American generals began drawing up plans for a massive invasion of the land of their Asian enemy. Expected to take a year and cost one million American lives, the plan involved transporting most of the troops from Europe, probably including Philip’s brothers, to join American forces in Asia for a massive attack against mainland Japan.     

“The plan was a poorly kept secret. We knew that the Americans, possibly my own 2 brothers who had just defeated Hitler, would once again be called upon to possibly die for their country.   But we knew, just as those of us fighting in the Pacific, they would be ready, willing able to fight to the death to defeat our enemy”, stated Kahn.   

That “fight to the death” never had to be fought.  On August 6, 1945, American pilots, flying a B-29 bomber aircraft, dropped an Atom Bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing more than 90,000 people; On August 9^th, with the Japanese still refusing to surrender, American B-29 pilots dropped a second Atomic Bomb, this one over Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.  And finally, on August 15^th, the Japanese announced their unconditional surrender, putting an end to a war that claimed more than 85 million lives throughout the world, including those of more than 300,000 Americans.

 Kahn, who shortly after the surrender co-piloted several reconnaissance missions over these 2 annihilated cities, told me that while the horror of death and destruction he observed from his plane still troubles him to this day, he remains convinced that America’s use of these horrific weapons was justified.  “The sight of tens of thousands of dead human bodies and the sight of debris from the obliterated homes and buildings has haunted me to this day”, Kahn lamented. “Yet, I believe that the estimates of the large number of casualties America and their allies would have sustained in an invasion were correct. So, dropping the bombs, I remain convinced, was our only option.”  

The highly medal decorated Kahn like, most of his fellow 16 million WW2 American heroes, went on to live a normal life after the war. He got a job, which he kept his entire working life, as an electrician for Local 3 in New York City; married his high school sweetheart, Rose; raised 2 daughters with her; and now has 6 grandchildren and 4 great- grandchildren, with two more soon arrive.

Reminiscing about his one hundred- year life, Kahn, who recently lost his wife after 73 years of marriage, stated, “I feel that I have been a blessed man.  My parents and brothers were loving and supportive. My wife was kind and beautiful. My children, grandchildren and great- grandchildren are the joy of my life. And the greatest blessing of all -we live in America.”

While I found Kahn to be extremely modest throughout the interview, he seemed unable to conceal his pride when he noted that his WW2 valor been documented in the Library of Congress in Washington DC, the Cradle of Aviation in Long Island and in the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan. “I have felt very gratified to have my military service recognized by our nation. And having had the opportunity to fight to defend America alongside so many of the most decent and most courageous Americans who have ever lived”, he stated, “has been the greatest honor of my life.”    

Robert Golomb is a nationally and internationally published columnist. Mail him at MrBob347@aol.com or follow him on Twitter@RobertGolomb

By Elizabeth Pipko

    My parents and grandparents came to the United States from the Soviet Union about 40 years ago. They sacrificed all that they had so that I could one day be born in the greatest country in the entire world. Growing up, my father would often tell me about his first few years in the United States, having to decide on some days whether to take the subway home or to buy himself dinner, as he could not afford to do both. His stories always ended with the same few words – “It was all worth it, because you were born an American.”

        My grandfather, a famous artist back in Russia who was not allowed to paint the images that he dreamed of, had a very specific hope – to come to America and to be free to live an openly proud Jewish life. Back in Russia, he often painted in the dark and in secret, terrified that the authorities would catch him painting what was not allowed and punish him. He dreamed of a life in the United States, with the liberty and freedom to believe in whatever he chose to believe in, and for his children and future grandchildren to be able to do the same.

        Now I have the honor to live a life full of advocacy for the things that mean the most to me, being a proud Jew and a proud American. No matter what happens in our world, I will never let my parents’ and grandparents’ sacrifices be in vain. It is my job to not only continue the legacy that was left for me, but to fight to show others the beauty and strength that comes with being a PROUD Jewish American.

        We are living in difficult times. Antisemitism is on the rise and our country is more divided than ever. But we must not give up. We owe so much more to all those that came before us, and all those that will come after us! We owe everything we have to those that fought and died for the freedoms that we enjoy today, and I will never allow those around me to give up on the future of the greatest country in the entire world.

     All of us must look in the mirror and ask ourselves, why are we voting? And who are we voting for? Is it for ourselves and the strange attachment that we have to the Democratic Party despite its many empty promises over the last few decades? Or is it for our future children and grandchildren, and the future of our amazing country? Has the left given you what you voted for? Or have they disappointed you, like they have disappointed many? It’s time to take our country back. And to vote ONLY for those that support us. Not just with their words, but with their actions! 

      It is time for us to come together! It is time for us to use our voices and our hearts to mend the spirit of our country back together and to make sure that we leave a better country behind for all future generations. There should be no hate left in our hearts, only spirit and pride in our great nation. A nation that welcomes all people, no matter where they come from or what they believe in, a nation that has given so much hope to so many around the world, and a nation that I love with all of my heart.

Join me on December 5th at the Holiday Dinner Party at Young Israel of Holliswood at 7:30 pm hosted by the Queens Village Republican Club and let’s celebrate our great USA!

Elizabeth Pipko, Founder & President of The Exodus Movement, featured on Fox News, is an international model, former Trump campaign staffer and fiercely proud millennial Jew.

Join Elizabeth and celebrate the holidays at the QVGOP Holiday Dinner Party:
THURSDAY DEC. 5, 2019 at 7:30 PM
At: Young Israel of Holliswood – Holliswood Jewish Center
86-25 Francis Lewis Blvd., Holliswood, NY 11427

$40 Per Person
RSVP Required: www.QVGOP.org
or contact Jim Trent: 718-343-8830 or jtrent8830@aol.com