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Ruth King

Vast Majority of Incidents Cited by School-Board Group to Justify Federal Intervention Didn’t Involve Threats By Caroline Downey

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/vast-majority-of-incidents-cited-by-school-board-group-to-justify-federal-intervention-didnt-involve-threats/

In a memorandum issued this week, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the FBI to collaborate with state U.S. attorneys and federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies to probe and potentially prosecute violent threats against teachers and administrators in school districts nationwide.

The notice comes after the National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter to the Biden administration, asking it to investigate and determine whether the increasing number of confrontations between angry parents and school boards qualify as domestic terrorism under the Patriot Act.

“Threats and acts of violence have become more prevalent — during public school board meetings, via documented threats transmitted through the U.S. Postal Service, through social media and other online platforms, and around personal properties,” the organization claims, citing what it considers egregious episodes in 23 school districts over the last several months.

However, the vast majority of incidents referenced by the NSBA don’t qualify as threats of physical violence, according to local news reports cited in the group’s letter — nor is it obvious what the federal government’s role would be in responding to them.

Out of 24 incidents cited by the NSBA, 16 consisted of tense verbal exchanges between parents and school-board members that did not escalate to threats of physical violence. In many of these cases, the aggravated parents disrupted school-board meetings by angrily objecting to their districts’ mandatory masking policies and/or embrace of critical-race-theory curricula.

In other cases, parents picketed outside school-board meetings, wielding signs and chanting politically charged slogans. In some instances, the angry parents shouted over school-board members or exceeded their allotted speaking time during the meeting’s public-comment period. In some of these incidents, the police intervened to eject parents who refused to wear masks or were being otherwise unruly. In none of these cases was a threat of physical violence issued.

Why Are High Schoolers Afraid to Speak Up in Class?By Sanda Balaban & Samuel J. Abrams

https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2021/10/08/high_schoolers_say_they_are_afraid_to_speak_up_in_class__110645.html

Whether it’s climate change, criminal justice, immigration, the global pandemic, or government reform, there is often little agreement on how to manage the most pressing issues of our time. Though differences on these issues are often intense, we can create positive civic change only by discussing and debating them across multiple perspectives.

Unfortunately, this kind of broad-ranging dialogue too rarely happens in our high school classrooms. Viewpoint diversity is not alive and well, and students often lack the ability to speak openly and question freely without worrying about repercussions. Politically correct speech codes have had a chilling effect on open discourse in many high schools, public and private, in New York City, where the two of us live and work. 

As educators, we are very concerned about young people’s development and identities being stunted by the suppression of their ability to express ideas outside a narrow orthodoxy. While one of us identifies as liberal and the other as more conservative, we agree that narrowing of speech is harmful to everyone.

It was from this concern that Balaban worked with high school students to create Next Generation Politics (Next Gen Politics) in the spring of 2017, in the wake of a divisive presidential election and in recognition of the need for dialogue across political, socioeconomic, and cultural divides to strengthen a fraying social fabric. Next Gen focuses on high school, a time of peak identity formation when it is of vital importance to be exposed to the broadest possible range of ideas.

If we don’t want to replicate the polarization playing out among older adults today, putting teens in dialogue with peers whose points of view they might not otherwise share – and enabling them to listen to, argue with, and learn from one another – is of vital importance to creating the increase in civility we deeply need. 

As such, Next Gen Politics brings diverse high school youth together to grapple with complex civic issues and current events to help them become informed, engaged citizens. Participants focus on perspective-taking, critical thinking, and civil discourse, striving to build a cross-partisan movement of young people committed to building bridges through deliberative dialogue. 

The Federal Hammer, Parents and Critical Race Theory By John Kass

https://johnkassnews.com/the-federal-hammer-parents-and-critical-race-theory/

Wasn’t it just yesterday that the corporate, legacy media was busy gaslighting parents about racist Critical Race Theory being taught in taxpayer funded government (public) schools?

Angry parents were told they were fools for objecting, that CRT was just a fever dream of the right. And, if CRT did exist, it was just some obscure, dusty stuff locked away in a few law schools and college graduate courses.

But this week President Joe Biden picked up that federal hammer of his named Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Garland’s  job? To use reports of threats at angry school board meetings as a means to silence those dissenting parents into silence. The parents were likened to domestic terrorists.

Parents had opened the rotten Trojan Horse in their children’s schools during the pandemic, when they looked inside the classrooms, at those laptop screens on the kitchen table, when their kids were engaged in at-home remote learning. They could see what was burrowing into young minds in schools they paid for.

Those who objected to their kids’ wearing those flimsy masks that don’t work, or to children being separated by race into groups of oppressors and oppressed,  brought their grievances to meetings of elected local school boards. They brought passion, because the minds of their children, and the nation, were at stake.

Naturally, given the stakes, some school board meetings became quite heated. For decades educators have been asking parents to become more involved.  So, they involved themselves on CRT and masks.

Parents who dared object publicly to their children being treated differently based on race or who dared complain about kids in masks—even those special needs children who, like all kids need to see faces to learn—now have a public response from the Biden White House:

They see their own federal agencies weaponized against them. To the White House, objecting parents are likened to violent actors, perhaps even Isis Terrorists, and as such, they are to be threatened into silence before the 2022 mid-term Congressional elections.

Our greenwashed cognitive emergency Boris Johnson’s clowning scarcely competes with the farcical imbecilities of his net-zero agenda Melanie Phillips

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/our-greenwashed-cognitive-emergency?token=

At the very moment that Britain’s prime minister was indulging himself with his callow vaudeville act at the Conservative party conference, gas prices were going through the roof.

The immediate cause was the blackmail tactics being deployed by the Russian president Vladimir Putin, with state-owned Gazprom supplying the bare contractual minimum of gas supplies to Europe to force it to approve the Nordstream 2 pipeline from Germany. 

But as I wrote here and here, the obsession with “climate change” by Britain and the EU has destroyed the crucial resilience of their energy supplies to any such all-too predictable unforeseen shocks.

In Boris Johnson’s conference speech, one of the few allegedly serious passages was his commitment to the net-zero carbon agenda in which he waxed lyrical about the “aquatic forest of white turbines towering over the water” in the Moray Firth.  “Allegedly,” because this obsession with “doing something to save the planet” is no less clown-like than his stream of gags. 

For renewables, in which so much greenwashed investment is being sunk, are the weak link in the energy chain. Renewable energy currently accounts for around 40 per cent of Britain’s electricity generation — a fourfold increase over the last decade. But when the wind drops, as it did over the past few months, the amount of power that the “aquatic forests” of turbines generate drops too. 

This is hardly rocket science. Indeed, you’d have to be an imbecile not to grasp this. And yet all kinds of folks with important jobs — including in the energy sector — seem to be wholly impervious to this somewhat elementary process of cause and effect.

A.R.T. for All & Sundry: Sterile Social Progress and Sexless Equality Nidra Poller

https://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=190868&sec_id=190868

[This article is translated from the original French by the author. The article is a response to the debate in France on legislation that will extend access to PMA, Procréation Médicalement Assistée (or ART, Assisted Reproduction Technology) to lesbian couples and single women in France.]

Isn’t it heartless to block the flow of such tender desires? Where is the “why” strong enough to answer the “why not?”

        Society is about to assume divine powers to compensate for the stinginess of a God who’s lost His glory. Enthusiasts only count the positive side of the calculation: the 1 + 1 = 2 love of the same-sex couple + their love for the wanted child cancels the minus-one of the father. And the absent mother of the child born by gestation pour autrui, known as GPA (inevitable authorization of surrogate motherhood) will be compensated by the sweet tale of the sperm-donator and the womb-lender, venerated like the mythical genitors of an ancient people.

        How should we calculate the deliberate deprivation for the child born of these equations, of splendid male/female dynamics? Militants of the cause write it off as a sustainable loss. The father or mother of a “conventional” couple can disappear by accident or by choice, n’est-ce pas? So, it’s doable. No room for old-fashioned sexual differentiation hang-ups. Move over, buddy!

        Transgenderism helps erase the father + mother = child formula by positing a range of possibilities that denies the essential difference between a man and a woman. An ill-defined aberration—dysphoria—becomes a sort of state of mind that will be soothed by “medical treatment” (that has nothing to do with healthcare), boosted by a proselyte ideology that seeps into society as a whole.

        In one of the more grotesque variations on the theme, we have the “man” that claims to be the father and/ or mother of the child carried in the uterus she kept, at least temporarily, during the male-to-female transition.

Islamic/Arab terrorists bite the hands that feed them Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

https://theettingerreport.com/islamic-arab-terrorists-bite-the-hands-that-feed-them/

The extension of US gestures and concessions to Islamic terrorists, and the waiving of a US military option while negotiating with Iran’s regime of terror, are perceived as weakness by terrorists, adversaries and allies of the US. 

Such a policy ignores, or takes lightly, the objective and well-documented 1,400 year old past track record of Islamic terrorism, while emphasizing the subjective and speculative future track record of terrorists.

Such a policy erodes the US posture of deterrence, which is a prerequisite to the minimization of global turbulence, undermining US interests in the international arena, while bringing the threat of Islamic terrorism closer to the US mainland.

Such a policy is based on the assumption that Islamic terrorism is driven by despair, and the need to dwell on the despair (diplomatically and economically) rather than dealing with terrorism (militarily). However, Islamic terrorism has been driven – since the 7th century – by the imperialistic religious vision to establish a universal Islamic society, dominating the world and subordinating the “infidel” to Islam, peacefully or militarily.

Such a policy is based on the assumption that Islamic terrorism is driven by US policy. However, Islamic terrorism has haunted the US since the late 18th century, during Democratic and Republican Administrations (e.g., the Obama and Trump Administrations).
For example:

*During the 1980s, it was US diplomatic, financial and military assistance which enabled the Mujahideen to drive the USSR out of Afghanistan. But, Mujahideen-related Islamic terrorists reacted in an anti-US terrorist offensive, which has persisted since 1996, culminating on September 11, 2001.

KIRK COUSINS, NFL QUARTERBACK LOVES ISRAEL

https://www.facebook.com/StandWithUs/videos/nfl-quarterback-kirk-cousins-loves-israel/781457105723506/

NFL Quarterback Kirk Cousins talks about his love for the
Jewish people and Israel while congratulating graduates of the Jewish Student Union.

Turkey’s Airstrikes in Syria, Iraq by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17839/turkey-airstrikes-syria-iraq

Turkey appears to be maneuvering to expand an Islamic state in Syria and Iraq.

The same Turkish government that claims to counter “terrorism” through its fight against the Kurdish PKK has supported ISIS in the region for years.

“The ability of ISIS to become a functioning state so quickly is largely due to its relationship with President Erdoğan in Turkey.” — Dr. Mordechai Kedar, BESA Center, October 11, 2020.

The Turkish government — a member of NATO — clearly seems to feel itself on a jihadist roll.

Since the Taliban’s violent takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, Turkey has increased its expansionist military activities in the Middle East in a way that is significantly impacting the lives of minorities.

Turkey appears to be maneuvering to expand an Islamic state in Syria and Iraq.

Turkey has so far been using its fight against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) as an excuse to justify its military aggression, destruction and casualties of persecuted minorities. Among those communities affected by Turkish military actions in Iraq and Syria are Yazidis, Assyrians and Kurds — communities previously targeted by ISIS and al-Qaeda.

On August 17, in Iraq, the Turkish military carried out an airstrike on a hospital in Sinjar Province, where the Yazidi minority had already been victim of a genocide in 2014 at the hands of ISIS.

The raid, consisting of three drone strikes, “totally destroyed” the makeshift hospital in the village of Sekaina. A doctor in Sinjar said that at least three people had been killed and five others wounded. A senior Iraqi army officer told AFP that the raid had been carried out by Turkey’s military. Another Turkish air strike on August 16 targeted and killed a senior Yazidi leader, Hassan Saeed.

Assyrian Christians, another persecuted indigenous minority in Iraq, are also suffering from Turkish airstrikes. In a 2021 report , “Caught in the Crossfire: Assyrians and the Turkey-PKK Conflict in Iraq,” by the Assyrian Policy Institute, reported:

“Turkish strikes in northern Iraq have caused irreparable and costly damage to civilian properties and agricultural lands… The destruction to private property and farmland caused by Turkish airstrikes effectively robs Assyrian farmers of their livelihoods and immediately threatens their ability to stay in their homes and villages.”

Republican Lawmakers Demolish Democrats’ ‘Big Lie’ That Arizona Audit Proved Biden Won the Election By Debra Heine

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/07/republican-lawmakers-demolish-democrats-big-lie-that-arizona-audit-proved-biden-won-the-election/

Ever since the final report of the Arizona audit was released last month, Democrats and their allies in the corporate media have pushed a false narrative alleging that the results of the Maricopa County recount proved that Joe Biden won because he received more votes than former President Donald Trump.

During a House Oversight and Reform Committee held a hearing examining the Arizona’s election audit on Thursday, Republicans on the committee decisively shot down that persistent lie.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) demolished the false narrative during an exchange with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).

Raskin demanded to know if Biggs accepted the results of the audit, claiming that “it showed that Joe Biden won, and indeed with more votes than—”

“That is not what the audit concluded Mr. Raskin, you know better than that,” Biggs interjected. “Have you read the whole audit, or [did you just] cherry-pick the line which talks about the recount versus the tabulation machine? That, we would have expected to be very similar, and it was,” he explained.

In an attempt to pigeonhole Biggs as 2020 election conspiracy theorist, Raskin again asked if he believed Joe Biden won the election in Arizona.

“We don’t know!” Biggs exclaimed in response. “Because as the audit demonstrates very clearly Mr. Raskin, there are a lot of issues with this election that took place.

In an attempt to smear Trump supporters as Nazis, Democrats and their media allies have repeatedly characterized allegations of fraud in the 2020 election as “the Big Lie,” in reference to a German expression that was coined by Adolf Hitler to describe the use of a lie so colossal, no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”

The Arizona Republican threw the term back in the Democrats’ faces. “Speaking of ‘the Big Lie,’ you can continue to perpetuate it as long as you want!” he said.

Man Accused in Sicknick Case:  ‘We’ve All Been Destroyed’ Confronting a biased Beltway legal system is only half the battle for January 6 defendants; the court of public opinion is far less judicious. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/07/man-accused-in-sicknick-case-weve-all-been-destroyed/

George Tanios’ fiancée encouraged him to go to Washington on January 6 to hear President Trump’s speech. “You’re gonna regret it if you don’t go,” she said, hoping he could take a break from working 100-hours-a-week to run his popular sandwich shop in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Tanios and I both laughed after he told me that during a two-hour interview this week. (I was in contact with his fiancée, Amanda, as she cared for their three young children while he was incarcerated for five months.)

But there is nothing funny about how Joe Biden’s Justice Department is trying to ruin Tanios’ life to maintain the myth that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died at the hands of Trump supporters on January 6. 

Tanios, 40, was arrested in front of his five-year-old son at home on Sunday, March 14 around 9 p.m. “I was about to get in the shower and had my robe on when I heard crazy banging on my front door,” he said. “Then I heard ‘put your fucking hands up!’” 

About 15 FBI agents and the acting head of the U.S. Capitol Police raided his home, interrogated Amanda, and took Tanios into custody.

“I had no idea what I was being arrested for,” Tanios said. “No one would answer me. Some of the agents seemed to feel bad about it. One [agent] said they had been arresting people all over but they had never arrested anyone without a criminal record like this.”

Tanios was held in jail for four days before his attorney arrived and informed him of the charges related to Sicknick, including one count of conspiracy to injure an officer and three counts of assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon—chemical spray.

“I almost had a heart attack,” Tanios said. “I begged them to take the handcuffs off me because my heart dropped. ‘I am not a cop killer,’ I said.” Tanios had heard an officer had been killed on January 6, but that’s all he knew.

What Tanios also did not know at the time was he and his friend, Julian Khater, would become the scapegoats for one of the biggest lies about the Capitol protest; the claim that Trump cultists killed a cop in cold blood on January 6.

Reports of Sicknick’s death in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol protest served two purposes: to bury the news that a Capitol Police officer had killed an unarmed female Trump supporter in the building on January 6, and to fuel more public outrage about a “deadly insurrection.”