The Real Reason Why Your Kids Can’t Go Back To School (Hint: It’s Not COVID-19)

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/12/28/the-real-reason-why-your-kids-cant-go-back-to-school-hint-its-not-covid-19/

Schools have been closed for the better part of a year now, for the putative reason that COVID-19 makes them unsafe. Only distance learning and Zoom and other online classes are safe enough for both teachers and kids, we’re told. Even though the science says otherwise, powerful teachers unions keep schools closed anyway. But why?

Let’s start with a blunt fact: The teachers unions — including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), along with a host of radicalized local unions — don’t have your kids’ best interests at heart, despite their well-funded, slick propaganda to the contrary.

They oppose reopening schools, despite overwhelming evidence they should be reopened immediately.

As a must-read piece in the American Institute for Economic Research recently noted:

Significant evidence shows that a truncated school year supplemented with online learning is vastly inferior to the education children get in-person. Virtual learning is particularly harmful to students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds who do not have sufficient resources to support their learning.

This is a looming disaster for all children, but especially for poor and minority kids.

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) estimated that school closures could cost the 24.2 million affected U.S. students nearly 5.53 million total years of life, largely due to lower incomes, less educational achievement, and worse health outcomes.

Trump signs $2.3T relief, spending package Brett Samuels

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/531632-trump-signs-relief-bill-despite-criticism

President Trump on Sunday signed the government funding and coronavirus relief package, the White House said, averting a government shutdown and delivering economic aid as the pandemic worsens.

Trump signed off on the $2.3 trillion package from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., days after he expressed displeasure with the spending outlined in the omnibus and complained that the coronavirus relief measure should include direct payments of $2,000 per person, up from $600.

But the delay came after Trump single-handedly brought the government to the brink of a shutdown and unemployment benefits expired for millions of Americans Saturday as the bill went unsigned.

Trump has visited his golf club in Florida each day since arriving in the state on Wednesday and has made no public appearances. He did so again on Sunday both before and after signing the legislation.

“I will sign the Omnibus and Covid package with a strong message that makes clear to Congress that wasteful items need to be removed,” Trump said in a statement upon signing the legislation. “I will send back to Congress a redlined version, item by item, accompanied by the formal rescission request to Congress insisting that those funds be removed from the bill.”

Testing The “Systemic Racism” Narrative December 26, 2020/ Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-12-26-testing-the-systemic-racism

How do you establish that a hypothesis is true? According to numerous explainers of the scientific method, starting with philosopher Karl Popper, the best you can do is to try to prove the hypothesis false, and fail. By this method — the scientific method — you can never definitively establish “truth” of a hypothesis, but over time you can get close.

Of course, we now live in the era of official narratives permanently immunized from attempts at falsification, nevertheless incorrectly claiming the mantle of “science.” The big three for this crazy year of 2020 are (1) the proposition that forced “lockdowns” and mask-wearing mandates slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus, (2) the proposition that human greenhouse gas emissions are causing dangerous increase in global surface temperatures, and (3) the proposition that income and wealth inequality are the result of “systemic racism” in our society. Proponents flood us with information consistent with these narratives, as if such information, if only provided in sufficient quantity, could prove their truth. But if we are really interested in getting as close as possible to the truth, shouldn’t we instead be looking for information inconsistent with the narratives?

Here is the exposition of the scientific method from physicist Richard Feynman from his classic series of recorded lectures:

[W]e compute the consequences of the [hypothesis], to see what, if this is right, if this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works.  If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.  In that simple statement is the key to science. . . .

For today, let’s consider applying this logical method to testing one of this year’s big three narratives, namely the narrative that “systemic racism” is the principal explanation for disparities of income and wealth in our society. Following Feynman’s exposition, our first step would be to come up with some of the necessary consequences of this hypothesis, so that they can be tested.

Reclaiming the Swamp: The Issue of Our Time Shmuel Klatzkin

https://spectator.org/swamp-class-politics/

In an amusing and insightful article this week on JNS.org entitled “The upside of defeat,” Ruth Blum noted wryly how much easier it is to criticize an opponent who has gained power than to defend a friend who is in office. As she puts it, the critic’s task is simplified by having no need to account for the inevitable weaknesses of any human in high office. She writes:

Being on the offensive requires little more than hurling darts at sure-fire bullseyes, which is why the likes of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and their apologists in the West are comfortable targets.

Far trickier is standing up vigilantly for the person at the helm in one’s own country.

Far trickier indeed.

It is appealing to seek simplicity. William of Occam identified simplicity with truth, and the short and elegant solution to a problem is superior to one that requires complications to arrive at the same solution.

But that’s only part of the story. Occam’s razor only says to prefer the simple answer when the complicated answer is equal to it in every other significant way. Sometimes we impose simplicity on something that is in reality complicated. And that deviates from truth.

Intellectuals are most prone to falling prey to the oversimple idea. Proud of their specialized abilities and well-honed skill at abstract thought and ideas, they can fall prey to the propensity to imagine that their great power has at last triumphed and that their ideas control reality.

Black on Black Indifference By Marilyn Penn

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2016/02/08/black-on-black-indifference/

Name a black American politician, academician or celebrity who has publicly condemned the atrocities of Boko Haram, Al Shabab or Al Qaeda Affiliates.  When did you see a protest march  by Black Lives Matter in solidarity with their murdered Nigerian sisters and brothers?  Has there been any black voice from any black group concerning the 219 schoolgirls who are still missing from the original 276 black girls kidnapped in Nigeria in  2014?  Has Oprah organized a campaign to raise awareness of this ongoing crime among all school-children here and in So. Africa where she has created her own school?  Have there been any demonstrations on American campuses concerning the targeting by Boko Haram of black Nigerian students – killing boys and kidnapping, raping and impregnating girls?  Which academic groups have organized to pressure our government or the UN to take action to stop the slaughter of thousands of Nigerian civilians, their villages burned by the vicious Muslim group whose name translates as “Western Education Forbidden.”  Point to a lead op-ed in the NYTimes written by Cornel West, Alice Walker, Al Sharpton or Spike Lee in the last year that has drawn world attention to the horrific slaughter led by Boko Haram, Al Shabab, Al Qaeda Affiliates or Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa.

To the east of Nigeria is Sudan and the newly formed South Sudan which gained its independence from the militantly Islamic north in 2011.  The South, comprised of Christian and other native religions has suffered starvation of thousands of its people along with rape, forced cannibalism and the massacres of thousands. Since 1955, more than two million people have died, tens of thousands have been kidnapped and enslaved and five million have been displaced in what was the longest running civil war among all nations.  Has the UN established an agency similar to UNRWA, the only relief organization dedicated solely to the needs of Palestinian refugees, kept in that status for more than three generations to sustain anti-Israel political hatred.  Have Europeans and Americans donated billions of dollars to help Christian Sudanese as they are threatened and menaced by Arabization and Islamization?  Has any Muslim organization offered food, medical care, social service welfare to the thousands of blacks victimized by Islamic violence in South Sudan?  The  Islamist persecution of blacks has spread all over Africa to countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania –  has the Pope issued a plea for world leaders to intercede in this human tragedy?

Enemies of the country By Martin Marcus

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/enemies_of_the_country.html

Who are the enemies of the United States?  It is a long list.  I define “enemy” as someone who would commit a serious federal crime or look the other way when it occurs.

On 3 November 2020, there was a presidential election in which voter fraud was alleged in at least six states.  Was there voter fraud?  In the previous three presidential elections, the total number of votes was between 127 million and 129 million.  In this election, it was 155 million.  This is a 20 percent increase.  The increase for Trump is expected.  He did a great job as president.  The increase for Biden can only be explained as voter fraud.

The people who performed the voter fraud are enemies of the country.  They voted on behalf of others, including dead people.  They brought in suitcases of ballots to be counted after poll watchers were expelled.

They fed ballots into machines multiple times.  They counted invalid ballots.  They programmed voter machines to change the tallies and to reject ballots, so that poll workers could put in what they wanted.  People who do such things are felons.

If one suddenly had an extra million dollars in his possession, the government would see this as sufficient evidence to look for a crime.  Biden’s sudden “popularity” is also sufficient evidence to launch an investigation.  Every district attorney in the contested states should be looking for voter fraud.  The fact that they do not means that they are enemies.

Reducing the Consequences of Fraud in National Elections By Phillip G. Pattee

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12

/reducing_the_consequences_of_fraud_in_national_elections.html

Thanks to the rampant fraud apparent in the 2020 presidential election, United States citizens have diminished trust in the electoral process.  Changes will be necessary to restore faith in the electoral outcome.  Voter ID laws, purging the deceased from voter rolls, blockchain technology with redundant servers, improved cyber-security, and the like are all possible ways to reduce fraud and should be pursued.  Nevertheless, there is potential that some will still attempt to illegally game an election system that they could not win legitimately.  While it may not be possible to eliminate election fraud entirely, it is relatively simple to reduce the payoff for the effort to become less effective.

The Electoral College’s design is that each state casts its votes for president and vice president based on the outcomes of elections within that state in a manner that the state’s legislature directs.  Each state is afforded the number of votes equal to the whole number of senators and representatives for the state, with the District of Colombia also receiving three total votes.  Because each state has two senators and at least one representative, a feature of the Electoral College is that it provides those least populous states with three votes, whereas an allotment based strictly on their population would only allow them one electoral vote.  Because of this attribute, there are times when the popular vote breaks for one candidate and the electoral vote for the other.  Some consider this an undesirable artifact of an outdated election system and propose eliminating the Electoral College, replacing it with a national popular vote.

Within the current Electoral College, fraud in one location is limited in its effect on the national outcome.  The only electoral votes affected are from that state where the fraud occurred.  The votes from other states are unaffected.  This is an essential feature of the Electoral College — it provides a firebreak against the consequences of fraud.  In the hypothetical election where the electoral vote is equally divided at 269 for each candidate, one fraudulent popular vote would only change the election outcome if the popular vote in one state was equally divided.  It is significantly more challenging to change election outcomes with the Electoral College in place. Fraud must occur in numerous close elections — as in the battleground states this year.  At issue here is that in most states the winner of the state’s popular vote receives all the state’s electoral votes.  The potential to illegitimately gain 16 to 20 electoral votes is still temptingly worthwhile.

The Joys of Paris in Coronavirus Days by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16884/paris-coronavirus

One remembers lazy afternoons spent discussing the fate of mankind and providing answers to non-existent existential questions, and warm evenings visiting exhibitions of structuralist paintings with no structure, rounding up all that at sunrise with a generous bowl of onion soup in the fruit and vegetable market in Les Halles.

Having nowhere to go and nothing interesting to do, being in Paris these days feels like being in Moscow in the 1960s when the only excitement was provided by rumors about the arrival of new supplies of potatoes or a one-day availability of hot chocolate in Cafe Pushkin.

The roots of this unbelievable population control, something even Lenin could not dream of, may be found in the culture of dirgisme (overall control) that assumes the governments know best even when they admit they don’t.

“You are lucky to be in Paris at this time,” says a friend phoning from New York. “Here, we are like rats in a box, going round and round.”

In the past few weeks I have heard similar lamentations from friends in London and Berlin, not to mention Beirut and Tehran.

Why are Palestinian leaders rejecting Arab-Israeli peace? Moshe Dann

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/why-are-palestinian-leaders-rejecting-arab-israeli-pea

Palestinianism is a form of identity politics intended to make Arab Palestinians think of themselves as victims of Israel, Jews and their supporters, and to promote terrorism.

In order to understand why Arab Palestinian leaders, led by the PLO and Hamas, reject the Abraham Accords and efforts to promote peace between Israel and its neighbors, and why they refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist, it is necessary to understand their ideology: Palestinianism.

Palestinianism is not a national movement. It is an anti-Jewish movement conceived and dedicated to opposing the right of the Jewish people to reestablish their historic homeland in Eretz Yisrael. 

Although demanding “self-determination” and statehood, and promoting a vague “Palestinian national identity,” their agenda is focused on and committed to destroying Israel. Nearly the entire contents of the PLO and Hamas covenants are devoted to this genocidal goal, and are the basis of Palestinian law and culture.

Palestinianism is essentially a form of identity politics intended to make Arab Palestinians think of themselves as victims of Israel, Jews and their supporters, and to promote terrorism.

Suggesting a “two-state solution,” or “two states for two nations,” therefore, begs the questions: Are Palestinian Arabs a nation, or a people? On what is “Palestinian national identity” based? How will creating a terrorist-run state serve the interests of peace and Palestinians? Although considered a legitimate expression of nationalism, Palestinianism has neither a long, nor distinguished history, which explains why the peace process between Israel and Arab Palestinians has failed and will continue to fail.

‘We Will Squash Them’: The Persecution of Christians, November 2020 by Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16882/persecution-of-christians-november-2020

“They tried to force some of our Christians to convert to Islam. They also tried to force my wife and our four children to convert to Islam, but when they refused to convert, they shot my wife in the head while our four children were cut into pieces with a Somali sword. — Morningstar News, Democratic Republic of Congo.

“Islamic militants turned a village soccer field in northern Mozambique into an execution ground when they beheaded more than 50 people during three days of savage violence…. More than 2,000 people have been killed and about 430,000 left homeless in the region since 2017.” — Barnabas Aid, Mozambique.

For two months after kidnapping a deaf and mute Christian teenage girl her, five Muslim men repeatedly gang-raped and tortured her. All this time, police ignored the parents’ pleas to intervene. It was only when a local authority took up the case, and only after months of court meetings, that the girl was located and returned to her parents. One of the kidnappers insisted the girl had willingly converted to Islam and married him. — British Pakistani Christian Association, Pakistan.

The following are among the abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of November 2020:

The Slaughter of Christians

Indonesia: On Nov. 27, Islamic terrorists beheaded a Christian priest and killed three other Christians by slitting their throats in Lembantongoa village. During the raid, a Salvation Army church and six Christian homes were also torched. While acknowledging that an Islamic militant group was responsible, authorities claimed that the attack was not “religiously motivated.” One human rights researcher said that this “latest strike was a ‘clear escalation’ of violence against Christians.”