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March 2021

POLITICS Comments turned off

It’s Joe Manchin’s Moment Will the West Virginia Democrat sink Xavier Becerra’s nomination as health secretary? by William McGurn

By on March 2nd, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-joe-manchins-moment-11614641678?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Will Sen. Joe Manchin nix President Biden’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services?

In a Senate split 50-50 along party lines, the Democrat from West Virginia already doomed Neera Tanden’s nomination as director of the Office of Management and Budget when he came out against her. Mr. Manchin’s opposition to a $15-an-hour minimum wage likewise helped force it off the Covid-19 relief bill. The question now is whether he really means to serve as a check on the Biden administration, or whether bringing down Ms. Tanden was a token act designed to buy him a pass for supporting more-extreme picks such as Xavier Becerra, the California culture warrior tapped for health secretary.

As usual Mr. Manchin isn’t saying much, beyond a simple statement a week ago that he hasn’t yet made up his mind. Without his support Democrats can’t force the tie needed to allow Vice President Kamala Harris to cast the deciding vote. Unless of course a Republican senator—say, Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins—broke ranks too.

At the moment the anti-Becerra campaign is leading with the argument that at a time of pandemic he isn’t a doctor and has no experience in healthcare. But this isn’t much better than the argument that Betsy DeVos wasn’t qualified to be education secretary because she had no education degree or experience as a public-school teacher. What cabinet secretaries most need isn’t a particular expertise—they have many experts at their disposal—but leadership and judgment.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

A Trojan Horse for Woke Education  The Educating for American Democracy project’s “action civics” is the latest in the Left’s efforts to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.”  By John Fonte

By on March 2nd, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/28/a-trojan-horse-for-woke-education/

A massive new national project called “Educating for American Democracy” will be launched on Tuesday with the explicit aim of “redefining” and then “harmonizing” American civic education nationwide.

From the days of Thomas Jefferson, Noah Webster, Horace Mann, and the McGuffey readers to Ronald Reagan’s farewell address and the controversy over national history standards, citizenship education (broadly understood) has always been a vital function of American schools for the perpetuation of the American way of life. That’s about to change for the worse.   

Educating for American Democracy (EAD) is a coalition of educators that aims “to transform teaching of civics and history to sustain our constitutional democracy and meet the needs of a diverse 21st century K-12 student body.” EAD in 2019 received start-up funding of $650,000 from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). 

Under a cooperative agreement with the federal agencies, iCivics will lead an EAD collaboration in partnership with four other organizations: Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics; Tufts’ Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE); Tufts’ Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life; and Arizona State University’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership.     

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Fauci’s Failures Are Firing Offenses

By on March 2nd, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/03/02/faucis-failures-are-firing-offenses/

Dr. Anthony Fauci has impressive credentials and a lengthy tenure as a top-level government health official dating back to 1984. But his performance during the COVID-19 pandemic has been abysmal, with politicized non-science-based edicts and frequently reversed “medical advice” that have confused and frightened Americans.

Just a week ago, Fauci made what to some was a stunning admission: “We’ve done worse than most any country” in managing the outbreak, he said. We say “stunning” because Fauci, as head of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is the official most responsible for the U.S. response.

His 2019 pay of $417,608 makes him the nation’s highest paid federal official. As a scientist, he’s held in very high esteem by many, particularly those on the left, who see his sweeping powers – lockdowns, masking, social distancing – as a nifty means of social control. It’s control of 330 million people via social isolation and nonstop browbeating of those who dare to diverge from the oppressive “new normal” we all now experience on a daily basis.

The big problem has been Fauci’s pronunciamentos are often nonsensical, not supported by science or contradictory. “These are my principles,” Groucho Marx once said. “If you don’t like these, I have others.” That’s Fauci.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Making Every Election Like 2020 H.R.1 mandates ballot harvesting and limits voter verification.

By on March 2nd, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/making-every-election-like-2020-11614641809?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

If you thought the 2020 election ran like a finely oiled machine, you’ll love what Democrats plan next. The Senate and House reserved their first bills, H.R.1 and S.1, for voting changes that would make mail balloting in a plague year seem buttoned up. We’ve gone through some details already, but it’s worth another word as the House prepares to vote this week.

Advocates present the legislation as a good-government reform that won’t favor either party. But H.R.1 is packed with provisions that would federalize election rules to dubious result; unsettle longstanding practices; end security measures that local officials think prudent; undermine public confidence; and increase the odds of contested outcomes.

Start with permanent pandemic rules. H.R.1 would create a federal right to a mail ballot, no excuse necessary. Registered voters couldn’t be made to submit “any form of identification as a condition of obtaining an absentee ballot,” except a signature or “affirmation.” State laws requiring mail votes to be notarized or signed by witnesses would be trumped. Late-arriving ballots, if postmarked on time, would be valid nationwide for 10 days after Election Day.

In other words, the bill would entrench last year’s emergency experiment, further turning Election Day into Election Quarter. H.R.1 would give Americans endless opportunities to relive the fun in New York’s 22nd Congressional District, which didn’t have a victor for 97 days. Out of Pennsylvania’s 10,097 late-arriving ballots last year, an alarming 6.6% did not have legible postmarks. A state Senate seat outside Pittsburgh turned on whether or not to count mail ballots that voters neglected to date. One county tallied them. The county next door did not. What if the White House were in the balance?

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A New Crime Wave—and What to Do About It New York City rejected the policing lessons that led to its success, and violence is surging. Heather Mac Donald

By on March 2nd, 2021

https://www.city-journal.org/new-york-city-violence-surging

For two decades, many New Yorkers had assured themselves that a return to the crime and squalor of the early 1990s was unlikely. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who presided over a 62 percent drop in major felonies from 1994 through 2001, proved that violence was not an urban inevitability. His successor, Michael Bloomberg, drove crime down further, through the 2008 recession and beyond. Both mayors set a benchmark for what was possible, preemptively discrediting any future mayor’s excuse that crime was beyond his capacity to overcome.

That assumption about the permanence of the crime drop was wrong. New York City in 2020 experienced an unprecedented one-year increase in homicides and shootings. Through December 27, 2020, the number of murders was up 41 percent from 2019 and 53 percent from 2018. Shooting victims were up 103 percent from 2019 and 109 percent from 2018; shooting incidents rose 97 percent and 104 percent. In gang-ridden precincts, the spike was even more startling. In Brooklyn’s Brownsville and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods, there were 170 percent more shooting victims in 2020 than in 2019 and 151 percent more shooting incidents. Murder was up 94 percent in these parts of Brooklyn.

It wasn’t just gang areas that were afflicted. On December 29, a roving pack of young bicyclists in midtown Manhattan attacked a BMW, smashing a bike on top of the car and jumping on its windshield. The same group went after a cab minutes later. Office workers in the area have been chased by similar flash mobs.

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