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November 2022

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As Shortages Persist Under Biden, It’s Time To Ask: Is This On Purpose?

By on November 22nd, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/22/as-shortages-persist-under-biden-its-time-to-ask-is-this-on-purpose/

Did the United States suddenly become a socialist basket case? It’s hard not to come to that conclusion after reading about the endless shortages plaguing the nation. Each of which President Joe Biden either seems clueless to resolve or determined to make worse.

Let’s start with the biggest one: the shortage of diesel fuel. While Biden was busy draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to tamp down gas prices before the midterm elections, the real worry was that supplies of diesel fuel have been running short.

Two years after the short-lived COVID lockdowns ended, diesel inventories continued to trend downward to their lowest levels since 2008. The cost for a gallon of diesel fuel is 46% higher than it was a year ago, according to AAA, and now costs more than $5 a gallon.

That affects every corner of the economy because, while passenger cars mostly use regular gasoline, diesel powers just about everything else that makes the economy move, and many homes, especially in the northeast, rely on heating oil – a related product – to keep their families from freezing to death.

The American Farm Bureau Federation tried to alert Biden to the scale of this problem weeks ago. “Our nation’s food supply is driven by diesel. High diesel prices are severely impacting our farmers and ranchers, causing increased costs to consumers, and adding to food insecurity.”

One big factor for all this: declining refinery capacity. After trending upward for years, it has fallen off each year since. A big reason: Biden’s war on fossil fuels.

“If you are a refiner forecasting billions in losses — and you require massive investments in order to keep your refinery operating safely and in compliance with the laws — you may very well simply make the decision to close down,” writes Robert Rapier in Forbes.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Elon Musk’s overturning of woke censorship is a wonderful thing. Brendan O’Neill

By on November 22nd, 2022

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/11/21/donald-trump-and-the-blue-tick-pricks/

So Elon Musk has done it. He’s brought back Trump. After conducting a Twitter poll on whether Trump should be unbanned – by far the most transparent thing the Twitter company has ever done – Musk and his minions pressed a few buttons and The Donald was back online.

Whether or not he’ll actually tweet again is another matter (he says he won’t). Regardless, Musk’s reinstatement of Trump’s account is a great blow against the tyrannical meddling of the worthy, woke, censorious fainthearts of Silicon Valley who have bizarrely come to exercise such extraordinary power over what may be thought and said in the 21st century.

The usual suspects are agog, naturally. There’s been a great relapse into Trump Derangement Syndrome. Trump’s return will ‘plunge Twitter deeper into chaos’, says CNN. Jack White has melodramatically fled the Twitter hellscape. ‘Absolutely disgusting, Elon’, wept this rocker who’s strangely scared of other people’s words.

Sadiq Khan, London’s pint-sized Torquemada, issued a statement saying Trump ‘must not be allowed to use social media’. Mate, who do you think you are? Mayor of the world? ‘Freedom of speech is vital’, said Khan, ‘but’ – there’s always a massive, unsightly but – ‘it must be balanced against keeping other people safe to protect our democracy and society’. Do we really need to remind folk, in 2022, of Benjamin Franklin’s words, about how those who would ditch liberty for safety deserve neither? Khan would have banned Franklin, too. A free-speech extremist? Deplatform.

Against all these unhinged demands to keep Trump banned – forever, one presumes – we should remind people of just how undemocratic and outright imperious Silicon Valley’s banning of Trump was in the first place. It was the most sinister act of social-media censorship to date. And that’s saying something.

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BOOKS, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Debunking the grievance industry in our schools A new book shows how the 1619 Project is being taught to students Casey Chalk

By on November 22nd, 2022

https://spectatorworld.com/book-and-art/debunking-1619-project-exposes-the-grievance-industry/?utm_source=Spectator+World+Signup&utm_

City Journal last month released a survey that asked eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds whether they had been taught six concepts related to critical race theory. These included: “America is a systemically racist country,” “White people have white privilege,” “White people have unconscious biases that negatively affect non-white people,” “America is built on stolen land,” “America is a patriarchal society,” and “Gender is an identity choice.”

Each of these was answered in the affirmative by a majority of participants, of whom more than 80 percent attended public schools.

That’s curious given that public educators and their defenders in corporate media have been claiming for years that CRT is not taught in schools. “Teaching critical race theory isn’t happening in classrooms, teachers say in survey,” reported NBC in July 2021. The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson in June 2021 called the controversy over CRT “manufactured,” while his colleague Karen Attiah the same month called it “hot air.”

Since then, the narrative has evolved into “well, various themes associated with CRT may be taught in public schools, but not CRT itself.” A November 2021 report from PBS, for example, explained, “There is little to no evidence that critical race theory itself is being taught to K-12 public school students, though some ideas central to it… have been.”

That’s naïve if not disingenuous. Few high-schoolers know the names of the philosophical schools of utilitarianism and scientific materialism, but most of them are trained in their premises.

There’s an added dimension to this, given that the 1619 Project’s curriculum has been disseminated across the country to public schools responsible for teaching millions of students. There are other CRT-friendly public school curricula: the Southern Poverty Law Center for years has been pushing its “Teaching Hard History” program, which has been adopted by many school districts, including in my home state of Virginia.

Concerned parents need guides to effectively respond to these anti-racist curricula, and thankfully scholar Mary Grabar has written one, called Debunking The 1619 Project: Exposing the Plan to Divide America.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

RADICAL GENDER THEORY IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS My investigative reporting establishes the facts. Christopher Rufo

By on November 22nd, 2022

https://christopherrufo.com/support/?mc_cid=569a7c5199&mc_eid=9bde3e8efb

I’ve finished my investigative reporting series on radical gender theory in America’s schools. These stories had a dramatic impact on the national conversation, driving nearly 500 million direct media impressions and changing the national debate. But, more than anything, they established the facts: America’s public education system has taken the most destructive principles of academic Queer Theory and injected them into the public school curriculum—starting in kindergarten.

Here is a summary of the stories:

The War on Innocence: A Kentucky summer camp teaches “sex liberation,” “BDSM,” and “self-pleasure” to minors.
Radical Gender Lessons for Young Children: The Evanston–Skokie School District adopts a curriculum that teaches K-3 students to “break the binary” of gender.
“Banging Beyond Binaries”: The School District of Philadelphia encouraged teachers to attend a conference on “kink,” “BDSM,” “trans sex,” and “masturbation sleeves.”
The Gender Variant Universe: A consortium of publicly funded nonprofits wants to “decolonize gender” and normalize male genitalia as a form of authentic womanhood.
Sexual Liberation in Public Schools: Los Angeles Unified School District adopts radical “trans-affirming” programming and instructs teachers to work toward “the breakdown of the gender binary.”
In Portland, the Sexual Revolution Starts in Kindergarten: The city’s public schools teach K-5 students to subvert the sexuality of “white colonizers” and begin exploring “the infinite gender spectrum.”
The Dismantlers: San Diego public schools want to overthrow “heteronormativity” and promote “genderqueer,” “non-binary,” “pansexual,” and “two-spirit” identities.
Soldiers for the Gender Revolution: Left-wing activists have smuggled radical gender theory into more than 4,000 schools.
How Gender Radicalism Conquered Sacramento Schools: Sacramento City Unified School District instructs teachers to “normalize gender exploration” and promotes such identities as “genderqueer,” “polysexual,” and “two-spirit.”
Radical Gender Theory Comes to the Heartland: A Missouri school district promotes the idea that “gender is a universe.”
Unholy Alliance: In Chicago, local school administrators and the city’s largest children’s hospital promote “kink,” “BDSM,” and “trans-friendly” sex toys for minors.
Concealing Radicalism: Michigan’s Department of Education encourages teachers to facilitate child sexual transitions without parental consent.
Sexual Disturbance: The teachers union promotes a how-to guide for “anal sex,” “bondage,” “sadomasochism,” and “fisting.”
Pronouns Unbound: San Francisco Unified School District facilitates secret child sexual transitions and allows students to identify as “it.”
The Real Story Behind Drag Queen Story Hour: Aimed at children, the phenomenon is far more subversive than its defenders claim.
My work on radical gender theory is shaping the national agenda. Please support it with a $5 or $10 monthly contribution here.

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