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June 2022

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Pro-Abortion Extremists Vandalize Michigan Pregnancy Center By Isaac Schorr

By on June 24th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pro-abortion-extremists-vandalize-michigan-pregnancy-center/

Vandals targeted the Lennon Pregnancy Center in Dearborn, Mich. earlier this week, smashing its outdoor windows and doors and spray-painting threatening messages on the facility’s walls.

The pro-life Lennon Center provides free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, parenting classes, and counseling to the surrounding community. Police found and informed the nonprofit’s board of directors of the damage on Monday.

On the center’s website, it describes its mission as helping parents “to choose life for their unborn children and to raise their children in loving families…  by offering enrichment, advice, education, material assistance and other non-judgmental support.”

In a letter to staff and volunteers, Lennon director Mariann Bolton relayed that it is “clear that the perpetrators oppose our mission to provide counseling and support to women who are pregnant and parenting.”

“The damage is extensive, but we remain steadfast and committed to our mission and our work….  Senseless incidents such as these do not frighten nor dissuade us. Quite the contrary, they embolden us to do more and stay the course!” wrote Bolton.

According to Bolton, the Lennon Center provided assistance to over 100 women and their families in May. “We live in a country that is based on the freedom to express opposing opinions in a non-violent manner. This vandalism is an ugly example of unprovoked violence, ignorance, and hatred,” she argued.

The attack comes ahead of the anticipated release of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Last month, a draft of a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that overturned the holding of Roe v. Wade was leaked to Politico. It’s unclear to what extent the holding in Dobbs will look like Alito’s draft.

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You Won Your Gun Case. You’re Fired. Kirkland & Ellis tells Paul Clement and a partner to dump their Second Amendment clients. They refuse and resign.

By on June 24th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-won-your-gun-case-youre-fired-11656024233?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

“Kirkland’s invertebrate abdication illustrates how progressive ideology dominates the commanding heights of American law, business and culture. If you want to know why a groundswell of opposition against this woke conformity is building in the provinces, this is it.”

A 6-3 victory at the Supreme Court vindicating a constitutional right is usually cause for congratulations, but not these days at Kirkland & Ellis, the giant white-shoe law firm. The firm has rewarded partner Paul Clement for his triumph Thursday in the big New York gun-rights case (see nearby) by telling him to drop his gun clients or leave the firm.

As Mr. Clement and his litigation partner, Erin Murphy, explain nearby, they’re leaving the firm rather than dump their clients. That’s the honorable and ethical decision.

But it’s worth noting how extraordinary it is for a law firm to fire its victorious clients whose rights have been upheld by no fewer than six Justices. It’s as if the law firm representing Clarence Gideon had told him to get lost after the Supreme Court upheld his right to legal counsel in his famous 1963 case, Gideon v. Wainwright.

“Kirkland & Ellis announced today its decision to no longer represent clients with respect to matters involving the interpretation of the Second Amendment,” the firm said in a press release, without explanation. It added that Mr. Clement and Ms. Murphy “will be leaving the firm in order to continue their full range of existing representations.”

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Other Inflation Inflated grades and lowered standards, often in the name of “equity,” are destroying educational excellence from kindergarten through college. Wai Wah Chin

By on June 24th, 2022

https://www.city-journal.org/grade-inflation-equity-and-educational-integrity

People these days worry about the rising prices of gasoline and milk, but there’s another destructive inflation that has gone unchecked for years: grade inflation. Just like monetary inflation, which makes your bank account look great until you’re rudely awakened by the reality that you can’t buy as much as you used to, grade inflation makes your transcript look great, until you discover that you haven’t learned as much as you thought. And though grade inflation is not new, its recent intersection with “equity” bodes ill for the integrity of our schools.

It’s hard to deny the reality of grade inflation at America’s colleges. As Times Higher Education reported in 2016, “A is by far the most common grade on both four-year and two-year college campuses (more than 42 per cent of grades). At four-year schools, awarding of As has been going up five to six percentage points per decade and As are now three times more common than they were in 1960.” Three years later, Forbes reported that “in the early 1960s, 15 percent of all college grades nationwide were A’s. Today, that number has tripled—45 percent of all grades are A’s. The most common grade awarded in college nationwide is an A.” As a sign of how deeply entrenched grade inflation has become, note that two prestigious institutions—Princeton University and Wellesley College—that put the brakes on grade inflation in 2004 have since been forced to rescind their efforts (Princeton in 2014, and Wellesley in 2019). No other universities had followed their lead, and they did not want to continue bearing the brunt of student complaints.

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On education, the tide is turning in favor of parents: Hugo Gurdon

By on June 24th, 2022

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/community-family/education-flows-for-parents-ebbs-from-the-left

Democrats are fighting on behalf of their teacher union paymasters to prevent parents from choosing the right education for their children. The party of the Left, of course, seeks to limit freedom across a wide policy spectrum, but the salience of education as a political issue is being sharply underscored with midterm congressional elections drawing near. Fortunately, it is a debate the Left is losing.

An overwhelming majority of parents , 82%, say they’ll consider switching allegiance on Election Day to vote for candidates of a party that shares their views on education. This includes 79% of Republicans, 81% of Democrats, and 88% of independents. Whatever lessons they think should be taught, parents agree that the decision is theirs to make. They don’t want to be dictated to or have their children taken as ideological hostages.

This shows once again that people who are willing to brush aside many issues as “just politics” that they can safely ignore do not take the same laissez-fair attitude on the question of their children’s learning. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) demonstrated the political potency of this distinction when he knocked off Terry McAuliffe to win last year’s election in Virginia.

But President Joe Biden refuses to learn the lesson. Just three months ago, long after the implications of the Virginia parental rebellion should have sunk in, his administration issued a new rule that could force some public charter schools to close by denying them federal funds if they contract operations to for-profit educators.

The practice is widespread, and Robert Eitel, president of the Defense of Freedom Institute, said at the time, “This is confirmation that the Democratic Party has shifted hard to the Left on education … it would have a chilling effect on new charter schools and make it difficult for existing ones to continue.”

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Just How Much Federal Pork And Waste Are Your Tax Dollars Funding? Exposing the continued fleecing of America Adam Andrzejewski

By on June 24th, 2022

https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/just-how-much-federal-pork-and-waste

The ever-rising national debt just surpassed $30 trillion this year – at least $91,613 for every person in the U.S. So, just how much federal waste, silliness, weird or unnecessary spending are your tax dollars funding?

Delving into the trillions of dollars in annual spending, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com, recently examined Washington’s discretionary spending—beyond such big-ticket items as health, welfare and defense.

We found staggering examples and highlighted some of the worst in our new oversight report, Where’s The Pork?

Dead people paid billions: 2.2 million deceased people received $3.6 billion in economic stimulus checks. The government asked for it back, but dead people are notoriously bad about paying up. The federal government is equally bad about clawing it back.

How did this happen? Well, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) didn’t check the Social Security Administration’s “deceased persons” list. Why have a deceased persons list if you don’t check the list before cutting the check?

The Do Not Pay list–Got Paid: The Small Business Administration (SBA) doled out 57,000 Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) forgivable loans to entities on the Do Not Pay list housed at Treasury. Again, why have a do not pay list if you are not going to check it. Cost to taxpayers? $3.6 billion.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Iranian octopus predator at the US’ backyard:Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

By on June 24th, 2022

https://bit.ly/3xPrZIF

Iran’s Ayatollahs – a clear and present danger to the US

The Saudi ArabNews reported that “the presence of Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Latin America is considered important by Iran, since it provides a base from which it could strike against American targets…  Iran has infiltrated not only Argentina, but also Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Guyana, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and Colombia…. In Foz do Iguacu, Brazil there is the largest Muslim community in the Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil Tri Border Area. Iran is able to infiltrate and manipulate that community…. Iran’s agents are potentially able to enter the US through legitimate border crossings, or among convoys of illegal immigrants….. Meanwhile Hezbollah continues its efforts to expand its terrorist activities [in Latin America]….

“[The Iranian proxy] Houthi militants transport weapons from Brazil to Yemen….  Hezbollah is involved in the illegal arms trade in Brazil, maintaining contacts with Brazil’s PCC (the most powerful criminal organization in Latin America)…. Brazil’s Forjas Taurus, the largest arms manufacturer in Latin America, is involved in sales of weapons to [pro-Iran] Yemeni arms dealer….”

According to the British E-International Relations, “Iran may well be the most important, and at the same time the most complex and the most volatile, of all the foreign policy problems with which the US must deal…. Iran continues to infiltrate [the US’] backyard….

“Iran’s foreign policy toward Latin America can be seen not only as antagonistic toward the U.S. and its national security interests. It fulfills Iran’s attempt to establish a greater presence in the US’ own backyard….

“Iran’s Latin American partners are part of the so-called ‘Pink Tide’ that came to power between the years of 1998 and 2009…. Despite the fact that the “Pink Tide” did not have a clear-cut ideology, they were united in opposition to Washington….”

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