EDUCATION Comments turned off

Racist CRT Lessons in Public School Classrooms How leftist race-baiters are violating public school children’s constitutional rights. Joseph Klein

Posted By on November 17th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/racist-crt-lessons-poison-public-school-classrooms-joseph-klein/

PEN America claims it is committed “to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.” But PEN has taken a radical left turn in defending the teaching of critical race theory concepts even to elementary and secondary school students. PEN believes that bills introduced in at least 24 state legislatures against such racially divisive teaching are akin to censorship in violation of the teachers’ First Amendment rights. 

“These bills appear designed to chill academic and educational discussions and impose government dictates on teaching and learning. In short: They are educational gag orders,” PEN stated in its introduction to a report entitled “Educational Gag Orders: Legislative Restrictions on the Freedom to Read, Learn, and Teach.”

Far from legitimately defending free expression under the First Amendment, PEN is defending racially charged indoctrination of impressionable public school students as young as four or five years old. It is the students whose constitutional rights are being violated when they are pressured in class to internalize dogma that pits race against race and to even recite such racially charged rhetoric in front of other students.

K-12 teachers are perfectly free to advocate for critical race theory on social media and in whatever discussions they may have with other adults outside of the classroom. But the courts have not accorded educators the same freedom to force feed lesson plans based on critical race theory precepts upon elementary and secondary public school pupils.

These pupils are a captive audience. As one federal Court of Appeals decision put it, “Children who attend school because they must ought not be subject to teachers’ idiosyncratic perspectives.” The educators are not entitled under the Constitution “to present personal views to captive audiences against the instructions of elected officials.”

Under America’s federalist system, state elected officials have the authority to regulate public school education within their jurisdictions, including setting reasonable limits on public school curricula. State legislators can certainly use this authority to pass laws shielding children from being indoctrinated in public school classrooms, where they are captive audiences, with racial group identity ideology. Applicable statewide laws preempt left wing local school board decisions that are in direct conflict with those laws.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Culture Wars and the Degradation of Language Like truth, the integrity of words is another casualty of war. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on November 17th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/culture-wars-and-degradation-language-bruce-thornton/

From Thucydides to George Orwell, the degradation of language during war and political conflict has been recognized. As Thucydides wrote of the brutal and violent civil war in Corcyra, “Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.” Like truth, the integrity of language is also a first casualties in culture wars.

The culture war that has been waged for over half a century––and is now reaching a destructive absurdity in “wokism,” “cancel culture,” and blatant censorship and suppression of free speech––has made debased language one of its most important weapons. So insidious has been this process that even conservatives opposed to the progressive left’s illiberal and unconstitutional excesses legitimize these transformations of language by using that ideologically corrupted vocabulary.

Take, for example, using the word “gender” instead of “sex.” First introduced in the Fifties by sexologist and suspected pedophile John Money, this change in usage was popularized in the Sixties to reinforce the dubious idea that sex-identity is not binary by nature, but comprises multiple variations, just as linguistic gender is not restricted to masculine or feminine, but can classify nouns by other qualities such as “animate” or “inanimate.” Male and female, masculine and feminine thus are not facts of nature, but social, cultural, and political “constructs” that serve the interests of the prevailing regime of power.

In other words, using the word “gender” to mean “sex” insidiously reinforces the constructivist ideology underlying as well Marxist theory and its antihumanist economic and political determinism. It also gratifies modernity’s fatal hubristic conceit: that human reality can be manipulated, changed, and reinvented at will by “technicians of the soul,” as Stalin called the self-proclaimed improvers of human nature.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Votes to count even if they are mailed in on napkins in Washington state (!!??)by Stephen Green

Posted By on November 17th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2021/11/16/insanity-wrap-voting-by-napkin-legal-in-seattle-n1533281

Things can get pretty complicated when a napkin is your primary means of data collection and storage.

But that won’t stop the wise people in charge of Washington State elections from accepting a napkin — yes, a napkin — as a legal ballot.

The Post Millennial reports that “Interesting voter protocols came to light during a recent election review training in Seattle.”

An individual getting trained asked the official a question which exposed questionable Washington state voting laws.

In regards to the example of the newspaper clipping under review, the individual asked the official with King County Elections:

“So, even if someone took a napkin and wrote the office, the race, and their selection, that would be enough?”

The official replied, “That would be enough and we would count that as a vote.”

Maybe it’s time to ask, “Is there anything under Washington State law that can’t be considered a legal ballot, and if not, why?”

Another question to ask is: “How bad are things for Democrats, really, when they have to enable this level of election fraud… in Seattle?”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Which Will Be the ‘Party of the Parents’ in 2022? By Rick Moran

Posted By on November 17th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/11/16/who-will-be-the-party-of-the-parents-in-2022-n1533288

It’s no secret that the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey and electoral contests elsewhere came down to the “parent vote” — a bloc that Democrats felt they’ve controlled for decades. The Dems are the “party of education” after all, and the tens of thousands of politically active teachers never let us forget it.

But something happened on Nov. 2 that altered the ground rules and helped the Republicans dominate. And Democrats only have themselves to blame.

The party of lockdowns and school closings didn’t count on parents getting an eyeful of what public schools had been putting into the heads of their children during the pandemic. And parents of all races, all creeds were, in many cases, flabbergasted.

And now that schools are reopening — mostly — parents are being instructed to once again, sit on the sidelines and let the “experts” get back to propagandizing their children.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

Meanwhile, Democrats see the results of elections in Virginia and New Jersey as a fluke and that once parents come to their senses, they will reject the Republicans because of all the “free” goodies that Joe Biden is going to give them.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden administration letting America’s nuclear superiority slip through our fingers By Francis P. Sempa

Posted By on November 17th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/biden_administration_letting_americas_nuclear_superiority_slip_through_our_fingers.html

The Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military included a section on the PLA’s nuclear buildup.  The report states that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) “is developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that will significantly improve its nuclear-capable missile forces.”  Nuclear warhead production has increased.  At least three new ICBM silo fields are being constructed, “which will cumulatively contain hundreds of new ICBM silos.”  The PLARF’s road-mobile DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBMs) force is growing.

China plans to “modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces,” including land, sea, and air-based platforms (the triad), according to the report.  The Pentagon estimates that by 2027, the PLARF will have at least 700 deliverable nuclear warheads and at least 1,000 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2030.  China’s ICBM force consists of CSS-10 Mod 2 missiles with a range of 11,200 kilometers, DF-41 missiles that can strike targets 12,000 kilometers away, and CSS-4 Mod 2 and Mod 3 missiles with a maximum range of 13,000 kilometers.  With these three missile types, China can deliver nuclear warheads to the entire continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii.  Some of these missiles have MIRV capability, meaning they can deliver multiple warheads to multiple targets.

China’s nuclear weapons expansion has been characterized by the head of U.S. Strategic Command as “breathtaking,” a “strategic breakout” designed to give China a “coercive capability” to deter the U.S. from defending its allies against Chinese aggression.  Meanwhile, Russia is engaged in its own nuclear buildup, and it may eventually outnumber the U.S. in warheads by ten to one.  And China and Russia have gradually become strategic allies as both seek to undermine America’s role as the organizer of the liberal world order.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America Hardcover –by John McWhorter

Posted By on November 17th, 2021

https://www.amazon.com/Woke-Racism-Religion-Betrayed-America/dp/0593423062

New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed linguist John McWhorter argues that an illiberal neoracism, disguised as antiracism, is hurting Black communities and weakening the American social fabric.

Americans of good will on both the left and the right are secretly asking themselves the same question: how has the conversation on race in America gone so crazy? We’re told to read books and listen to music by people of color but that wearing certain clothes is “appropriation.” We hear that being white automatically gives you privilege and that being Black makes you a victim. We want to speak up but fear we’ll be seen as unwoke, or worse, labeled a racist. According to John McWhorter, the problem is that a well-meaning but pernicious form of antiracism has become, not a progressive ideology, but a religion—and one that’s illogical, unreachable, and unintentionally neoracist.
 
In Woke Racism, McWhorter reveals the workings of this new religion, from the original sin of “white privilege” and the weaponization of cancel culture to ban heretics, to the evangelical fervor of the “woke mob.” He shows how this religion that claims to “dismantle racist structures” is actually harming his fellow Black Americans by infantilizing Black people, setting Black students up for failure, and passing policies that disproportionately damage Black communities. The new religion might be called “antiracism,” but it features a racial essentialism that’s barely distinguishable from racist arguments of the past.
 
Fortunately for Black America, and for all of us, it’s not too late to push back against woke racism. McWhorter shares scripts and encouragement with those trying to deprogram friends and family. And most importantly, he offers a roadmap to justice that actually will help, not hurt, Black America.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Looks Like Joe Biden Just Lost The New York Times

Posted By on November 17th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/11/17/looks-like-joe-biden-just-lost-the-new-york-times/

His crumbling public approval rating must be troubling to President Joe Biden. But can it possibly compare to learning that the liberal mainstream media is turning on him as well?

On Tuesday, the New York Times sent an email to its morning update subscribers with the headline: “Who’s to blame for inflation?”

“It is dragging down President Biden’s approval ratings and fueling discontent among Americans,” writes senior economics correspondent Neil Irwin. “How did we get here? Who is to blame?”

We fully expected the Times to make excuses for Biden. And at first, it looks as though that is what Irwin is going to do, writing that “presidents have less control over the economy than headlines might suggest.” But then he adds that “the current situation is an exception to the rule.”

And even more remarkable is what comes next. Irwin writes:

You can draw a direct line from a specific policy decision that Biden and congressional Democrats made this past winter to some of the inflation happening now.

In designing the stimulus that Congress passed in March, Biden’s administration went big, with $1.9 trillion in pandemic relief — on top of a separate $900 billion package that passed three months earlier. Put the two together, and $2.8 trillion in federal money has been coursing through the economy this year while economic activity has trended only a few hundred billion dollars a year short of what mainstream analysts would consider full health.

The fact that the Times, along with others in the mainstream media, admits that inflation is a problem is in itself a noteworthy development, since for months it insisted that it was just a data anomaly – one that Republicans were trying to exploit for political gain.

Now, with prices for many common household goods having gone up by double digits over the past few months and no end in sight for the trend, the inflation story is impossible to ignore. 

But the fact that any one of these “news” outlets is willing to blame Biden for the inflation spiral is a truly stunning development, given they’d spent months blasting out “fact checks” that aggressively slapped down any such claim.

In April, for example, a USA Today “fact check” told readers that COVID-19 was “to blame for spike in lumber prices, not Biden.” In June, it ran another saying that “Rising gas prices due to high demand and low supply, not Biden’s policies.”

The next month, AP declared that “House GOP falsely blames Biden for gas prices.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Illegal Immigrants Would Get $10.5 Billion From Reconciliation Bill By Steven Camarota

Posted By on November 17th, 2021

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/11/16/illegal_immigrants_would_get_105_billion_from_reconciliation_bill_146739.html

The budget reconciliation package pushed by Democrats creates a new expanded child tax credit (CTC) that would pay illegal immigrants some $10.5 billion next year. All immigrants with children are eligible, regardless of how they got here and whether their children are U.S.-born. This includes the roughly 600,000 unaccompanied minors and persons in family units stopped at the border in FY2021 and released into the country pending a hearing. Cash welfare to illegal immigrants is not just costly; it also encourages more illegal immigration. 

Although it is referred to as a “refundable credit,” the new CTC, like the old additional child tax credit (ACTC) it replaces, pays cash to low-income families who do not pay any federal income tax. The new program significantly increases the maximum cash payment from $1,400 per child to $3,600 for children under 6, and to $3,000 for children ages 6 to 17. After 2022, the maximum payment would be $2,000 per child, but advocates hope the much larger payments will be extended. 

In an analysis conducted in October, my colleague Karen Zeigler and I estimated that illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children would receive $8.2 billion from the new CTC. However, we had assumed that the new program, like the old ACTC, would require children claimed as dependents to have Social Security numbers (SSNs).  But reconciliation (page 1452, line 14) would permanently repeal this requirement. 

Illegal immigrants are able to receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children, who are American citizens. In the case of the old ACTC, they simply acquired an individual taxpayer identification number, which is not hard, and then claimed their payment. In practice, only illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children could receive payments under the old system, since as American citizens those U.S.-born children receive SSNs. The permanent elimination of the SSN requirement means that even illegal immigrants whose children are also illegally in the country can receive the new expanded credit.  

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

China claims Biden denounced ‘Taiwan independence,’ but warns US is ‘playing with fire’ Interpretation differences on one-China policy could mean more trouble in South China Sea :Caitlin McFall

Posted By on November 17th, 2021

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/china-biden-denounced-taiwan-independence-warns-us-playing-fire

China claimed Tuesday that President Biden denounced Taiwanese independence from the communist nation, but warned the U.S. is “playing with fire” in the South China Sea.

The new round of threats arose following an hours-long virtual summit between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping that marked the most extensive talks the world leaders have engaged in since Biden took office.

In a read-out following the talks, Chinese officials said Biden reiterated U.S. support for the one-China policy and claimed the U.S. president “does not support ‘Taiwan independence’.”

Taiwan and China have shared a complex history since the government of the Republic of China (ROC) relocated to the island in the western Pacific in 1949 amid conflict with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

Taiwan identifies as a sovereign nation, but it is officially recognized by China, the United Nations and the U.S. as part of the one-China policy. 

China made it clear Tuesday that it has every intention of bringing the island under “complete reunification” with mainland China and threatened action if forces attempt to stop this.

“Should the separatist forces for ‘Taiwan independence’ provoke us, force our hands or even cross the red line, we will be compelled to take resolute measures,” the readout said. “On this question bearing on China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, there is no room for compromise.”

The U.S. and its western allies have backed the security of Taiwan and reports have shown the U.S. is working to shore up defenses in the Indo-Pacific as Chinese aggression in the region escalates. 

The White House did not contradict China’s claim that the U.S. continues to acknowledge the one-China principle, but the tone was far less placatory.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Admin Looking to Dump Kamala Harris? Fox Reporter Given Tip to ‘Familiarize Yourself With Confirmation Process’ for Replacing a Vice President by Kristinn Taylor

Posted By on November 17th, 2021

https://www.lucianne.com/2021/11/17/biden_admin_looking_to_dump_kamala_harris_

Fox News Congressional reporter Chad Pergram reported Tuesday evening that he had been given a tip about Kamala Harris several weeks ago that said he should familiarize himself with the nomination process for a vice president in the House and the Senate. Pergram’s report comes after a bombshell CNN report Sunday that the White House was rife with rumors about Joe Biden contemplating nominating the flailing Harris to the Supreme Court to get her out of his administration and out of the line of succession. Jill Biden was asking about using the 25th Amendment to sideline Harris.