Displaying posts published in

June 2021

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

With Juneteenth, Federal Employees Now Get 44 Paid Days Off Each Year Adam Andrzejewski

By on June 19th, 2021

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/06/17/with-juneteenth-feder

With the stroke of his pen Thursday, President Joe Biden signed legislation giving millions of federal employees Friday off to celebrate Saturday’s new federal holiday, Juneteenth.

This makes 44 paid days off for the average federal employee annually, which is nearly nine full weeks of paid-time off each year.

Juneteenth is celebrated on June 19 to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. The Civil War was America’s bloodiest war, with between 752,000 and 861,000 soldiers dying on the battlefield. 49 states have already recognized Juneteenth as a holiday (South Dakota is the only holdout), though only a handful give it as a paid holiday to state employees.

On Wednesday, the U.S. House passed the bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, after the U.S. Senate passed it the day before.

Signing it into law on Thursday, Biden made Juneteenth – observed this year on Friday, June 18 — a federal holiday for which “most” federal employees will have off.

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

A Grad Student Tried to Correct a Misleading COVID Narrative. Rebekah Jones Tried to Ruin His Career for It By Jack Crowe

By on June 19th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/a-florida-graduate-student-wanted-to-correct-the-record-on-covid-deaths-rebekah-jones-tried-to-ruin-his-career-over-it/

Jon Taylor had a disagreement with Jones over COVID data, so she falsely accused him of sexual harassment.

Jon Taylor’s desire to help Floridians understand a pandemic that was remaking their lives nearly cost him his career.

Taylor, a 37-year-old Ph.D. candidate at the Florida Atlantic University College of Business, waded into the world of COVID data analysis last spring after being informed that he had been in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus. When he looked at the data for himself, what he found disturbed him: The way the Florida Department of Health was presenting the pandemic death toll was confusing members of the media who lacked a background in data analysis.

News outlets, local and national, were conflating the actual number of Floridians who had died of COVID on a given day with the number of COVID deaths that had been entered into the system on that day — a total that included deaths that had occurred days and sometimes weeks before the entry date.

The misunderstanding was a dream come true for news editors eager for attention-grabbing headlines detailing Florida’s “record-setting” daily COVID deaths.

Taylor, an affable and apolitical mathematician, thought he could clear things up by presenting the data in a more transparent way, so he and his academic adviser created their own COVID tracker, which relied on the state’s data but presented it on a timeline that accurately captured the number of deaths in the state each day.

Unbeknownst to Taylor, who studiously avoids political media, he had just stepped on a hornet’s nest.

By creating a tracker that showed the situation in Florida to be somewhat less dire than enemies of Governor DeSantis preferred to believe, he had left the staid world of academia and entered the world of politics, where facts are subordinated to the question of whom those facts might help and whom they might hurt.

And in Florida, the foremost enforcer of the dire COVID narrative was a woman named Rebekah Jones, the former COVID dashboard manager for the state health department.

“In the process of building the tracker, of course I found Rebekah Jones. You can’t do Florida COVID work without running into her,” Taylor told National Review.

Continue reading →
ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Georgia Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger’s Own Election Monitor Details Serious Election Integrity Issues in Newly Released Memo By Debra Heine

By on June 19th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/18/georgia-sec-of-state-brad-raffenspergers-own-election-monitor-details-serious-election-integrity-issues-in-newly-released-memo/

A contractor handpicked by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to monitor election counting in Fulton County submitted a report back in November outlining the “massive” election integrity failures he witnessed in Atlanta-area election centers.

Incredibly, even after receiving the explosive 29-page memo describing repeated mistakes, and possible fraud in Fulton County,” Raffensperger continued to insist in public that Georgia had “safe, secure, honest elections.”

Just the News’ John Solomon obtained the memo from the contractor, Carter Jones, a consultant for Seven Hill Strategies. The report is written like a minute-by-minute diary detailing everything Jones witnessed from Nov. 2 to Nov. 7, 2020.

As Solomon notes, the report includes serious voter integrity issues, such as “the double-counting of votes, insecure storage of ballots, possible violations of voter privacy, the mysterious removal of election materials at a vote collection warehouse, and the suspicious movement of ‘too many’ ballots on Election Day.”

In one notation written around 4:00 p.m. on Election Day, for instance, Jones warns of what “seems like a massive chain of custody problem,” after observing absentee ballots arriving at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena “in rolling bins 2k at a time.”

“It is my understanding is that the ballots are supposed to be moved in numbered, sealed boxes to protect them,” he wrote, pointing out that these ballots weren’t.

Jones expressed concern over the sheer volume of absentee ballots flowing in. “Too many ballots coming in for secure black ballot boxes,” he wrote.

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

(From February 2020)Black law scholar explains how critical race theory is a ‘dangerous and destructive ideology’

By on June 19th, 2021

https://www.thecollegefix.com/black-law-scholar-explains-how-critical-rac

The following is written by Dr. Carol Swain, former political science and law professor at Vanderbilt University. Her essay is adapted from her contribution to the 1776 initiative, which aims to counter the flawed and divisive narrative put forth by The New York Times’ 1619 project.

I reached my formative years before critical race theory and cultural Marxism gained a dominant foothold. Even though I was born and grew up in rural southern poverty during the era of segregation, I was not taught to hate white people or to hate America. Instead, my black teachers stressed our need to work hard and excel. I grew up to be a proud American who never doubted she lived in the greatest country in the world. No one around me encouraged me to see myself as a victim. I never fixated on the fact that I was black, poor, and female. Had I done so, I doubt I would have achieved anything.

The 1619 Project is a misguided effort to keep open historical wounds while telling only half of the story. It is flawed because it is connected to critical race theory and the diversity-inclusion grievance industry that focuses on identity politics and division. Blaming today’s families for the mistakes of our ancestors is not a prescription for unifying the country or empowering racial and ethnic minorities.

Critical race theory is an analytical framework to analyze institutions and culture. Its purpose is to divide the world into white oppressors and non-white victims. Instead of traditional forms of knowledge, it uses personal narratives of marginalized minority “victim” groups (blacks, Hispanics, Asians) as irrefutable “evidence” of the dishonesty of their mostly white heterosexual oppressors. The ultimate goal of this theory’s proponents is to remake society so that the victim class eventually displaces the oppressors and becomes the new ruling class.

Within this framework, white privilege and its unearned benefits are responsible for economic, health care, and social disparities in minority communities. It advances a narrative of blame that declares white America guilty for the plight of blacks. When it comes to education, members of the victim classes do all the teaching. It is a worldview and narrative that commands white people to sit in obedience and listen quietly to the arguments about their unjust gains as well as their obligation to provide a remedy for — in this case, black Americans, whether they are descended from slaves or not.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Must-see TV: Black medical professional denounces CRT at school board meeting By Thomas Lifson

By on June 19th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/mustsee_tv_black_medical_professional_denounces_crt_at_school_board_meeting.html

Critical Race Theory opponents are the new Tea Party, a grassroots phenomenon all over the country, mobilizing both activists and people with a political background at all to oppose the teaching of race hatred.  There is nothing quite as powerful in exciting passions in adults as threatening their children.  And make no mistake: Critical Race Theory harms children deeply, teaching Blacks that they are victims and can’t succeed on their own, and teaching non-Blacks that they are born evil.

If you spend two minutes and forty-seven seconds watching the following cell phone video of a Black medical professional denouncing the teaching of Critical Race Theory at a school board meeting, you will understand the panic that is starting to hit Democrats and their media apparat.  The passion and the intelligence of this self-described holder of two medical degrees, a man who worked his way through college, “up from the streets,” are inspiring.  He told the mostly White crowd gathered there that he “gives orders” to people who look like them every day, so how can he be oppressed?

Continue reading →
ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Utter Uselessness of Climate Change ‘Science’ By Jack Cashill

By on June 19th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/the_utter_uselessness_of_climate_change_science_.html

As I have learned the hard way, the science behind climate change has no more predictive real-world value than the science behind COVID.  When put to the test, scientists cannot tell you what will happen next year, let alone next century, but that does not stop them from pretending they can.

Three years ago, my new neighbor here on Lake Erie asked if I wanted to go in with him on a seawall.  Having spent thirty summers on the Rust Belt Riviera, I politely declined.  As I explained, on only one occasion during those years had waves lapped against even the base of my heavily vegetated ten-foot bank.  Besides, walls cost a lot of money.

Although I have never trusted it, the science of climate change was on my side.  In 2002, National Geographic published a scary, much cited article titled “Down the Drain: The Incredible Shrinking Great Lakes.”  Someone seems to have pulled the plug on this article, as I learned about it only from reading a 2012 National Geographic article by Lisa Borre that identified the culprit for this shrinkage as climate change, “Warming Lakes: Climate Change and Variability Drive Low Water Levels on the Great Lakes.”

According to Ms. Barre, “Down the Drain” documented “declining lake levels and the potential economic and ecological consequences for the region.”  Ten years later, Barre tells us, “[t]he story continues to unfold, as water levels remain lower than normal.”  Barre’s article features several alarming images of stranded boats and sandy stretches where water once flowed.  On a dozen occasions in the article, Barre cites “climate change” as the likely explanation for the shrinking lakes.

A lengthy 2013 article by Dan Egan of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the shrinking Great Lakes affirmed that the debate was over.  “This is not a story about climate change,” Egan wrote.  “It is a story about climate changed.”

Citing various climate scientists, Egan described the reason for the shrinking trend this way: “[w]ith little to no protective ice cap, chilled air whooshing over relatively warm water leads to more cold-weather evaporation.  The result of this thermal avalanche triggered by just a tiny bump in air temperatures: the surface of the lake is literally going poof into the sky.”

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Biden Administration’s Iran Policy: All Carrots, No Stick by Majid Rafizadeh

By on June 19th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17470/biden-iran-policy-carrots

Secretary of State Antony Blinken… stated at his inauguration hearing that he had “deep concern about the designation” of the Houthis as a terrorist organization, in that “at least on its surface it seems to achieve nothing particularly practical in advancing the efforts against the Houthis and to bring them back to the negotiating table….” One wonders if the same thinking would apply to Al Qaeda or Islamic State.

In yet an additional form of appeasement, the Biden administration has been strenuously ignoring the Iranian regime’s aggression and destabilizing behavior….. now, [Iran] is sending a destroyer… and a support vessel… to Venezuela.

“If the boats [seven Iranian high-speed missile-attack craft] are delivered, they may form the core of an asymmetrical warfare force within Venezuela’s armed forces. This could be focused on disrupting shipping as a means of countering superior naval forces. Shipping routes to and from the Panama Canal are near the Venezuelan coast.” — H I Sutton and Sam LaGrone, USNI News, U.S. Naval Institute, June 1, 2021.

Tehran has not only been using Venezuela for military cooperation, but also, it seems, to advance its nuclear program…. Iran’s ruling mullahs, in fact, appear to have been using Venezuela as part of a larger agenda for increasing Iran’s influence and the presence of its proxies in Latin and North America.

Instead of confronting Iran’s predatory regime, the Biden administration, has been forging ahead with the failed 2015 “nuclear deal” — which permits Iran to become a legitimate, full-blown nuclear power in just a few years. The Biden administration is also turning a blind eye to the regime’s alarming and increasing human rights violations.

Since the Biden administration assumed office, it has been increasingly appeasing the Iranian regime, which in return, is further emboldening and empowering the mullahs.

The first appeasement came when the administration changed the previous administration’s policy of maximum pressure to a policy of appeasement toward the Iran’s proxy militia group, the Houthis. Even as evidence — including a report by the United Nations — showed that the Iranian regime is delivering sophisticated weapons to the Houthi militia group in Yemen, the Biden administration suspended some of the sanctions against terrorism that the previous administration imposed on the Houthis. The previous US administration had designated Iran’s proxies, the Houthis, a terrorist group.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The tide is turning against the woke-liberal blob that misrules us By Glenn H. Reynolds

By on June 19th, 2021

https://nypost.com/2021/06/17/tide-turning-against-the-woke-liberal-blob-that-misrules-us/

For the past year, liberals unleashed on the nation an avalanche of ideological nonsense, coupled with brutal pressure to conform. Those who bucked the party line found themselves canceled and unpersoned and had their opinions subjected to mockery and claims of delusion and “anti-science” prejudices.

Until now. Because the tide is turning. And sometimes the break from the party line comes from surprising places. 

Late-night comics are usually reliable parroters of the message of the day. So it says something that last week, Bill Maher launched an impassioned critique of “woke” culture, while this week, Jon Stewart went on Stephen Colbert’s show to say in no uncertain terms that it looks like the Wuhan coronavirus came from … the Wuhan lab.

Using a term from Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, Maher accused liberals of “progressophobia” — “a brain disorder that strikes liberals and makes them incapable of recognizing progress.”

That is, they’re unwilling to admit that things have gotten better. To hear them talk about race, you’d think we were still in the era of Selma and Bull Connor. (My dad marched with Freedom Riders and at Selma; trust me, things have changed.) To hear them talk about women’s rights, you’d think it was still 1958. And gay activists, despite “Pride Month” being celebrated by pretty much every corporation, are still somehow stuck in the pre-Stonewall era.

Maher’s right.

Continue reading →
ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Georgia audit documents expose significant election failures in state’s largest county Records suggest more than 100 batches of absentee ballots in Fulton County could be missing. Some experts see “election tabulation malpractice” as state officials seek to remove county’s top election supervisors.By John Solomon and Daniel Payne

By on June 19th, 2021

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/georgia-audit-documents-show-unsecured-missing-ballot-batches-ballots

Documents that Georgia’s largest county submitted to state officials as part of a post-election audit highlight significant irregularities in the Atlanta area during last November’s voting, ranging from identical vote tallies repeated multiple times to large batches of absentee ballots that appear to be missing from the official ballot-scanning records.

The problems in predominantly Democratic Fulton County potentially impact thousands of ballots in a presidential race that Joe Biden was certified as winning statewide by fewer than 12,000 votes.

The memos reviewed by Just the News include the handwritten tally sheets for all absentee ballots counted by the county as well as a private report from a contractor hired by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to monitor the Atlanta-area election process. The report, which chronicled seven days of problems, recorded troubling behavior like the mysterious removal of a suitcase of sensitive election data known as polls pads, used to authenticate voters.

“Learn that Rick reprogramming poll pads earlier was setting up a new precinct for SC11 because someone took the wrong suitcase but only took one,” the contractor Seven Hills Strategy wrote late on Nov. 2, the night before Election Day. “Seems to be a mystery who this person was –> Should have chain of custody paperwork!! That means that a stranger just walked out with sensitive election materials?”

The contractor also observed that sensitive election materials were left on a dock at a warehouse without supervision. “Several cases (including SC11) were just left out on the loading dock outside the warehouse,” he wrote. “Thankfully the seals were intact.”

The revelations come as a state judge has taken the extraordinary step of ordering absentee ballots in the county unsealed so that a private audit led by lawyer Bob Cheeley can examine the actual papers and resolve discrepancies. Cheeley told Just the News on Wednesday the evidence he has seen so far points to “election tabulation malpractice.”

Private experts and state election officials differ on whether the evidence shows a pattern of potential fraud or simply gross incompetence in the county that encompasses Atlanta.

But they are mostly united for the first time that the top election supervisors in Fulton County should be removed. Some officials are even discussing a dramatic intervention like putting the county’s election system in conservatorship so it can be run by state, not local, officials.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Screamers When an ugly hatred arrives in your idyllic backyard, don’t say we didn’t warn you it was coming BY Kathryn WolfWOLF

By on June 19th, 2021

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-screamers

You think it’s over? It’s not o-ver,” my Great-Aunt Lee used to warn me, in a singsong voice, her forced smile wrapped up with some sort of awful knowing. “Antisemitism isn’t over. It’s never o-ver.”

My dear Aunt Lee was clearly crazy, I’d think. Superstitiously spitting-after-compliments crazy. What antisemitism?

Then the mayor and city council of my hometown of Durham, North Carolina, enacted a resolution in support of what Jewish Voice for Peace dubbed “Deadly Exchange,” a toxic campaign to spook well-intentioned people into blaming Israel for policing issues in the United States. Suddenly, Durham Jews found themselves having to deny that Israeli Jews were instructing local cops on how to torture Black Americans. And deny that hating people of color was a Jewish thing. And deny that we were the most sinister, vile people on the planet. Anyone feel like going to the Hope Valley Diner while wearing a Jewish star necklace tonight?

We began hearing rumors that similar campaigns were afoot in cities nearby. So I plunked down the $600 AIPAC registration fee and bought a long Tory Burch dress at T.J.Maxx, figuring a serious dress would help me get taken seriously. Surely someone, someone, among the twinkling constellation of Jewish muckety-mucks at that conference would listen to my story and then help me fix what left me sitting in numb disbelief on my cold bathroom floor night after night, once the kids were asleep.

My husband designed business cards for me. “Fight Back Now,” they said, with a Jewish star. We printed an optimistic 200 cards on flimsy stock at FedEx, and then to Washington, D.C., I went. I didn’t care that I’d be spending my birthday alone. It was 2019. The world was on fire.

Continue reading →