EDUCATION Comments turned off

Canceling Honors Classes in the Name of Equity Reducing humankind to the lowest common denominator of the least competent. Jason D. Hill

Posted By on June 13th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/canceling-honors-classes-name-equity-jason-d-hill/

Like ineradicable fungi spreading across a diseased body devoid of inoculants to fight it off, there is a growing educational malfeasance taking root in many of our nation’s public schools that few seem to have the moral courage to speak out against. Honors Programs are being eliminated or are being considered for elimination on the premise that they discriminate against the non-gifted, most of whom fall into minority groups. The elimination of such programs is being defended in the name of equity and recognition.

The theory behind the “deleveling” of subjects such as English, social studies, biology, math and science, and history is to give all students the opportunity to engage in rigorous instruction. In the highest-performing school district in Rhode Island, Barrington High School has been in an uproar over the cancelation of such courses. Many of them have since been restored.

The school had been moving into a “one universal design for learning,” or one curriculum for students of varying abilities. The “universal design” is seen as a way to offer equal access to a rigorous curriculum to traditionally under-represented groups.

In San Diego at the Patrick Henry High School, more than 150 parents protested the school’s decision to eliminate eight advanced and honors courses from its offerings, including advanced English, History and Biology. The school’s principal, Michelle Henry, announced a more equitable program that will be part of a district pilot of “Honors for All.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Democrats’ Politicized Gun Control Script There’s far more at stake than gun-control laws. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on June 13th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/democrats-politicized-gun-control-script-bruce-thornton/

For those of us of a certain age, we know that every time some psychopath shoots up a school and murders students, the Democrats will respond with their clichéd demagogic script. Exploiting the natural horror and pathos of such events, the Donks will trot out all the usual gun-policy suspects, the majority of which would not have prevented most of the attacks.

But that’s not really the point for Dems. Their aim is to smear Republicans and conservatives for political gain. With a mid-term shellacking looming, the recent attacks in Buffalo and Uvalde have the Democrats shamelessly politicizing those tragedies more than usual in order to distract voters from the Biden administration’s manifold failures.

Such attempts must be called-out and vigorously countered, for there’s more at stake than gun-control laws: the long progressive program to weaken our unalienable rights, especially the Second Amendment.

The roster of “solutions” to the problem of school shootings is a catalogue of failure and irrelevance. Background checks are a favorite, but if, like the Uvalde school shooter, there is no criminal record or paper-trail documenting that a purchaser poses an immediate danger, a background check is useless. Moreover, according to a National Institute of Justice’s mass shootings database, most mass killers steal their weapons––80% of them from family members––instead of legally buying them.

HUMOR AND SATIRE Comments turned off

Biden Administration To Provide Grief Counselors At All Gas Pumps

Posted By on June 13th, 2022

https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-administration-to-provide-grief-counselors-at-all-gas-pumps

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a move to help alleviate pain at the pump, the Biden Administration has announced a $1 billion initiative to provide grief and trauma counselors to stand by at all gas pumps across the nation.

The plan will fund licensed therapists and psychiatrists to stand at the ready at gas pumps from New York to California to comfort people mourning the loss of hundreds of dollars every time they fill up their tanks.

“There, there. It’s gonna be OK,” said one grief counselor as a woman filled up her VW at a gas pump in California. “Times like these can be difficult to cope with, but we can survive Putin’s Price Hike if we look deep within ourselves for strength and guidance. Now, let’s try some breathing exercises.”

Another woman in Ohio burst into tears after paying over $3 for gas for the first time in her life.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s OK, honey,” said one therapist, stroking her hair. “You’re going through the stages of grief. Soon, you’ll learn to live with $10 gas. You literally won’t even remember when gas was as cheap as it was during the Trump administration.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Is It Unethical To Buy A Vehicle Powered By A Lithium Battery? Ronald Stein

Posted By on June 13th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/13/is-it-unethical-to-buy-a-vehicle-powered-by-a-lithium-battery/

With numerous State Governor’s having issued executive orders to phase out the purchasing of gasoline driven cars within the next decade or so, and the automobile manufacturers efforts to phase into only manufacturing EV’s here’s some food for thought about the lack of transparency about “Clean Energy Exploitations”.

The top image below is an oil well, where 100% organic material is pumped out of the ground, taking up around 500 to 1000 square feet. Then it flows in pipelines safely transporting the oil to refineries to be manufactured into usable oil derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 products for society, and into transportation fuels needed by the world’s heavy-weight and long-range infrastructures of aviation, merchant ships, cruise ships, and militaries.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Most Americans Skeptical That Democrats’ Jan. 6 Investigation Seeks The Truth: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

Posted By on June 13th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/13/most-americans-skeptical-that-democrats-jan-6-investigation-seeks-the-truth-ii-tipp-poll/

Fewer than half of all Americans are convinced that the Democrats’ Jan. 6 Commission is making an honest attempt at discovering the truth about the mostly peaceful political demonstrations that took place on Capitol Hill that day, the latest data from the I&I/TIPP Poll show.

Some 44% of Americans said they were either “very confident” (21%) in the committee’s investigation or “somewhat confident” (23%) that the Democrat-dominated Jan. 6 Commission “will make a genuine effort to uncover the truth.”

The online poll of 1,310 adults was taken from June 8 to June 10. It has a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points.

Fully 40% in June’s poll said they weren’t confident, with equal parts saying they were “not at all confident” (20%) and “not very confident” (20%). As the pie chart below shows, another 15% said they were “not sure.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Costly Contradictions of Biden’s Crusade for Green Energy The assault on fossil fuels distorts or undermines many other domestic and international priorities. By Thomas J. Duesterberg

Posted By on June 13th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-crusade-for-green-energy-oil-venezuela-saudi-arabia-solar-panels-cost-emissions-11655038751?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

President Biden’s energy program is crystal clear: an all-of-government assault on the domestic fossil-fuel industry to further a green agenda. But its economic and political fallout is a muddled contrast. The Biden plan distorts or undermines so many other domestic and international priorities that it is in dire need of a midcourse correction.

The administration’s efforts, led by climate czar John Kerry and propelled by the progressive wing of Mr. Biden’s coalition, have included curtailing new leases for drilling, preventing new pipeline development, and expanding the areas off-limits for production. The Securities and Exchange Commission has discouraged new financing of fossil-fuel projects. New automobile mileage standards and increased mandates for ethanol blending in gasoline are part of the program. Pressure to phase out coal-fired electricity production and thwart new mining projects also contribute to the higher prices deemed the best tool to force the transition to a green-energy infrastructure.

To avoid the political brunt of historically high consumer energy prices, the administration apparently is considering allowing more exports of oil by Iran, as it is for Venezuela. It is also tolerating the somewhat inconsistent application of oil and gas embargoes on Russian supplies and increased purchases by China and India.

Despite the urgent global need to displace supplies of Russian oil and gas, encouraging domestic production of these fuels isn’t part of the administration’s response to Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. And pressure on domestic production undermines other administration initiatives, such as rebuilding the manufacturing sector, creating jobs, strengthening supply-chain resilience, and weakening dictatorial adversaries such as Iran and Venezuela.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Permanent Pandemic Means a Huge Medicaid Expansion The need for an official emergency is long past, but the Administration keeps it going to retain 14.4 million more people on the rolls. By Joel Zinberg and Gary D. Alexander

Posted By on June 13th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/permanent-pandemic-means-medicaid-expansion-rolls-remove-health-care-public-health-emergency-covid-biden-welfare-government-spending-11655057229?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

Covid is now endemic, yet the Biden administration keeps extending the public-health emergency. Its goal is to preserve the expansion of the welfare state through Medicaid, even though large and growing numbers of enrollees are ineligible for the benefit.

Medicaid, the federal-state entitlement that provides health insurance to nearly 1 in 4 Americans, ballooned during the pandemic. Enrollments had declined in 2018 and 2019, but jumped by 15.9 million—about 25%—between February 2020 and February 2022. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the increase was “due, in large part, to the continuous enrollment condition” in Congress’s March 2020 Covid relief package, which encouraged enrollments by temporarily increasing the federal government’s share of total Medicaid costs by 6.2% while prohibiting states that accepted Washington’s help from redetermining Medicaid eligibility and removing ineligible people from the rolls until the emergency ended.

In other words, so long as the emergency persists, so too does the expansion of the welfare state. More than two years later, the Biden administration is intent on making permanent what were meant to be emergency measures.

States routinely redetermine Medicaid recipients’ eligibility. As the program grows, so too do the chances for improper payment. Medicaid’s national improper-payment rate, which includes payments to ineligible beneficiaries, soared under the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion. The most recent rate, which incorporates three years of data through the first five months of the pandemic, reached an all-time high of 22%, a cost of $99 billion.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Meet Your Fact-Checkers: AP Report Includes Quote From Radio Host Who Has Been Dead Since 2020 By Robert Spencer

Posted By on June 12th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2022/06/12/meet-your-fact-checkers-ap-report-includes-quote-from-radio-host-who-has-been-dead-since-2020-n1604928

On Thursday, the Associated Press (AP), one of the most trusted names in news (as another Leftist propaganda outfit claims about itself), published a story about how some Cubans in Miami oppose a Democrat Party effort to buy up Spanish-language radio stations in South Florida. The article said that one Trump supporter insisted that this would not lead to editorial changes, but added that “Martha Flores, who hosts an evening show on Radio Mambi, isn’t sure about that. She attended the news conference but declined to speak.” The article continued: “‘Look at this,’ Flores said, pointing at her eyes watering. I know I would just cry.’” This was touching, but there was just one problem: Martha Flores was not actually at the news conference. She died in 2020. This is AP: the people who claim the ability and authority to tell you what news is accurate and what isn’t.

In response to AP’s massive error, conservative pundit Giancarlo Sopo was savage, tweeting: “I’m so confused by this article. The AP says it interviewed Miami Radio host Martha Flores on Wednesday, but she’s been dead for two years. How the hell did they pull this off? Séance? An ouija board? Did they hire a babalawo to talk to her?” He added a screenshot of a July 19, 2020 article announcing Flores’ death with the caption: “Context: Martha Flores was considered Miami’s ‘Queen of Radio.’ She was a pioneer of Spanish talk radio and died two years ago at the age of 92. It was widely reported at the time.” Sopo concluded: “All I’m going to say is that if you saw Martha at a press conference this week, don’t call your editor. Call these guys…,” and he attached a gif of the main characters from the movie Ghostbusters.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Jan. 6 Committee Called Out for Altering Evidence and Lying About It By Matt Margolis

Posted By on June 12th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/06/12/jan-6-committee-called-out-for-altering-evidence-and-lying-about-it-n1605016

The Jan. 6 Committee has a well-established credibility problem. The committee released various text messages that have actually exonerated Donald Trump, but they falsely characterized the messages as incriminating. And when the truth wasn’t incriminating, they doctored text messages to make them look so.

Now Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is calling out the committee for its deceptions, and he promised an investigation during an appearance on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo.

“I want to see all the depositions,” Rep. Jordan said. “I want to see all the documents. And ranking member Rodney Davis has already sent a preservation letter to the committee, saying, preserve all this information, so we can look at it, and the American people can get the full story, not just this one-sided, choreographed presentation we got — excuse me — we got the other night. But when you think about what this committee has done, never in the history of this country, in the history of the House of Representatives, has a minority leader not been able to put on a select committee that [sic] individuals he or she has selected.”

“We also know that this committee has altered evidence and lied to the American people about it, so much so that they had to issue a statement which says ‘we regret the error,’ which is government-speak for, we got caught lying,” Jordan continued.

BOOKS Comments turned off

How Secret Soviet Killings Led to COVID Tyranny By Janet Levy

Posted By on June 12th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/06/how_secret_soviet_killings_led_to_covid_tyranny.html

As the mournful notes of the cello brought the four minutes of The Dying Swan to a close at The Hague on January 24, 1931, the audience was in tears.  Throughout the performance, there had been no dancer — only a moving spotlight emphasizing the absence of Anna Pavlova, the ballerina the world loved.  She had died the day before, of a mysterious lung infection that began almost immediately after her train had left Paris.  She’d told doctors she suspected she’d been poisoned.  Unable to reach a diagnosis, they treated her symptoms but failed to save her.

For Soviet émigrés of the time, the empty stage, the melancholic music, and the spotlight sans performer were poignant symbols of the hundreds of thousands of “liternoye” killings — secret, disguised liquidations staged as natural deaths or suicides — ordered by Joseph Stalin.  His targets were not just rivals in the USSR, but also dissident writers, intellectuals, artists, and performers living abroad.  In fact, from the 1920s to the outbreak of World War II, while Stalin was carrying out purges in the USSR, the émigré community witnessed several mysterious deaths and disappearances.

Stalin worked by the dictum “communism must eliminate what it cannot control.”  “Liternoye” killings were different from the genocides and massacres he oversaw: the liquidation of kulaks, the Holodomor — deaths caused by famine-related decisions in Ukraine — and the purge of nationalities.  Unlike those, “liternoye” killings resulted in deaths from seemingly natural causes.  They would be followed by hasty disposal of bodies and either advantageous glorification (as for  Lenin, a presumed victim of Stalin) or damnatio memoriae (complete erasure from the records and history).  Quite often, hard-to-detect poisons and bioweapons were used for these murders.