ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Election integrity storm brewing in PA: Over 250k ballots sent to voters with unverified By Natalia Mittelstadt

Posted By on October 29th, 2022

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/brewing-election-integrity-storm-pa-over-250k-ballots-sent-voters
More than 250,000 ballots have been mailed to Pennsylvania voters without their identities being verified, according to state data collected by election integrity group Verity Vote.

On Tuesday, 15 Pennsylvania state legislators sent a letter to acting Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Leigh Chapman regarding unverified ballots sent to voters. As of Thursday, state data show that more than 250,000 ballots have been mailed to voters without verifying their identification.

The legislators noted that during a state House of Representatives committee meeting in September, Deputy Secretary for Elections and Commissions Jonathan Marks testified that there is no identification requirement for voter registration in the state but that it is required for mail-in ballots.

Marks was asked by state Rep. Francis Ryan about “the large number of requests submitted to the Social Security Administration Help America Vote Verification (HAVV) system.” Marks explained that the HAVV systems were being used to verify Social Security numbers for mail ballot applications.

However, the deputy secretary added that if someone submits an invalid Pennsylvania Department of Transportation ID number or if the last four digits of their Social Security number cannot be verified for a mail ballot application, then the counties must still send the ballot to the voter without the ID verification. Marks also said that “the ballot doesn’t count unless the voter provides a valid form of ID.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Fate of the Nation Rests on Fixing Public K-12 The current system cannot continue. By John Conlin

Posted By on October 29th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/28/the-fate-of-the-nation-rests-on-fixing-public-k-12/

The latest Nation’s Report Card is out and, once again, it shows the appalling state of government-run education in America.

There will be much hand wringing over the devastating impact of foolish COVID-19 policies on student learning. Don’t believe the B.S. It wasn’t COVID that caused these unprecedented declines, it was the public policy response to COVID that drove this destruction.

The cries that “we must do something!” will soon fill the airwaves—with “doing something” generally meaning writing bigger and bigger checks to the public K-12 educational leviathan. They will do this, despite the fact that no correlation between public K-12 spending and student achievement has ever been found.

But it’s clear to anyone who cares to look that public K-12 education has been doing a lousy job for decades. It’s not really a secret. Every single president since at least John Kennedy has had some plan to improve this country’s K-12 public education system. That’s over 60 years and the problem not only persists, it’s gotten worse.

We’ve had “blue ribbon” panels and loads of smart people telling us what must be done for over half a century.

In 1983, “A Nation at Risk” exposed the failures of the public education system. It was supposed to be a wake-up call:

Our society and its educational institutions seem to have lost sight of the basic purposes of schooling, and of the high expectations and disciplined effort needed to attain them . . . If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves . . . We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament . . . Each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy, and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Proof that Critical Race Theory is being taught in schools By Carole Hornsby Haynes

Posted By on October 29th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/10/proof_that_critical_race_theory_is_being_taught_in_schools.html

Across the nation, war rages between parents who charge that schools are teaching their children race-based Marxist Critical Race Theory and school boards and educators who deny their accusations. 

Finally, we have definitive proof that students actually are being taught these dangerously divisive concepts.

The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a New York  City–based free-market think-tank, commissioned a study of a national sample of 1,505 18- to 20-year-olds who were still in high school or had just graduated.  (Of these, 82.4% reported attending public schools.)

The participants were asked whether they had ever been taught in class, or heard from an adult at school, these following six concepts, of which four are central to Critical Race Theory.  The percentages are those who answered “yes.”

1. America is a systemically racist country.  (62%)

2. In America, white people have white privilege.  (69%)

3. In America, white people have biases that negatively affect non-white people.  (57%)

4. America is built on stolen land.  (67%)

5. America is a patriarchal society.  (53%)

6. Gender is an identity choice, regardless of the biological sex you were born into.  (51%)

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Toxic English Departments and the Students Who Now Avoid Them By Henry P. Wickham, Jr. and George P. Harbison

Posted By on October 29th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/10/toxic_english_departments_and_the_students_who_now_avoid_them.html

The decline in the study of undergraduate English proves the proposition that the Left ruins everything it touches There has been a precipitous drop in the number of English majors across the country, and our “progressive” professors have only themselves to blame.

The National Center for Education Statistics publishes its annual Digest of what undergraduates study. In 1970 there were roughly 840,000 undergraduate degrees conferred in the United States. Of these approximately 64,000 were degrees in English Literature and Language. This made it the fourth most popular major across the country.

Since 1970 there has been a vast increase in the number of undergraduate degrees conferred: over two million in 2020. Yet, despite this huge influx of students, the number of degrees in English has dropped to just over 38,000 in 2020.

If confronted with this decline in student interest, the professors would no doubt point to economic and vocational concerns and to our crass American culture. The unstated premise for this rationale, which is ludicrous on its face, would be that there were no economic or vocational concerns then, and that American culture was somehow less crass in 1970. The professors would shrug their shoulders and say, “It’s not our fault.”

When we were undergraduates at Kenyon College, it had an English Department as formidable as any. The professors were serious about literature, its criticism, and the quality of our written expression. They weren’t interested in nurturing resentment, grinding axes, psychotherapy, or the creation of like-minded political cadres. The materials were chosen based on what Mathew Arnold called “the best that has been thought and said in the world.” We read the best and worked to understand the authors as they understood themselves. English was a very popular major.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Will GOP Let Biden Nominate an Extremist IRS Boss to Terrorize Americans? The pressure will be on to appoint and clear a new commissioner as soon as possible. by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on October 29th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/will-gop-let-biden-nominate-an-extremist-irs-boss-to-terrorize-americans/

Biden’s illegal Inflation Increase Act has prepped the IRS to act as a weapon of political terror. But it needs someone at the top to run the machine.

Here’s the stage being set.

Looming Leadership Void at I.R.S. Raises Concerns Over $80 Billion Overhaul – New York Times

Former commissioners warn that delays in nominating a new commissioner raise the prospect that transformation efforts will fail.

You know the kind of transformation they have in mind.

Last month, we were told that the Biden regime had narrowed its list of candidates. And based on the track record, we’re likely looking at a Warren person, someone with a background in advocating political crackdowns on conservative organizations and finding new ways to bend the tax code to pursue leftist agendas. As a plus, it’s likely to be a woman and a member of a minority group.

Now, Commissioner Rettig is officially stepping down.

The Treasury Department on Friday announced the departure of IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, an appointee of former President Trump whose term is set to end in mid-November.

Before Congress approves a new permanent IRS head, the agency will be headed by deputy commissioner Douglas O’Donnell as acting chief, the Treasury said.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Russia and Iran, New “Axis of Evil,” Emboldened by Biden Administration by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on October 29th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19051/russia-iran-evil-emboldened

Despite this escalation [Iran supplying suicide drones to Russia], the European Union would not admit that the Iranian regime was entrenched in the war on Ukraine: EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wanted “proof”….

Iran’s regime, apparently even more emboldened, then began sending troops to Crimea to assist Russia in its attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure and civilian population and to increase the effectiveness of the suicide drones.

“Ukraine currently doesn’t have effective air defense systems against ballistic missiles,” Ukraine Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat pleaded. “Iran will likely supply those (to Russia), unless the world finds a way to stop it”.

There is still clearly a need in Ukraine to “close the sky,” a request that Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi rejected.

So, as a result of the Biden administration, the new “Axis of Evil,” Russia and Iran, are becoming more empowered and emboldened than ever. It is now time to abandon the “nuclear deal” with Iran permanently, “close the sky” over Ukraine, and quickly defeat Putin. At least it will show the other aggressors there is no way they can win.

Thanks to the Biden administration’s leadership, or remarkable lack thereof, the ruling mullahs of Iran have become a key player in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Iranian regime and Russia are ratcheting up their military cooperation and adventurism.

On March 2, Iran abstained from the United Nations General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1 condemning Russia’s invasion and demanding Moscow’s withdrawal from Ukraine. Tehran then voted against UN General Assembly Resolution ES-11/3, which suspended Russia’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Sacheen Littlefeather and the rise of the race fakers Why do so many white people pretend to be indigenous? Frank Furedi

Posted By on October 29th, 2022

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/10/26/sacheen-littlefeather-and-the-rise-of-the-race-fakers/

When Sacheen Littlefeather died earlier this month, obituaries celebrated her as a brave Native American activist who dared to take on the Hollywood establishment. Since then, she has been exposed as an imposter.

Littlefeather achieved international fame and notoriety at the 1973 Academy Awards, when she refused an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando. Dressed in buckskin and with traditional hair-ties, she denounced the American film industry’s treatment of Native Americans. At the time, the audience was outraged and her speech was booed.

By the time Littlefeather died, America had changed substantially. No one in Hollywood would dare boo an activist in this way for making allegations of racism. Had she delivered the same speech today, she would have been applauded. In fact, just last month, the Academy organised an ‘evening with Sacheen Littlefeather’. And it issued a formal apology for the ‘unwarranted and unjustified abuse she received’ following her 1973 speech.

Now, after her death, members of her family have come forward to tell the world that Littlefeather has no Native American ancestry. It turns out that her birth name is Marie Louise Cruz. She was born to a white mother and a father of Mexican descent.

Littlefeather’s case is not a one off. In the US and Canada it has become fashionable to fake a Native American or First Nations identity. And in Australia, there has been an explosion of white people identifying as indigenous.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Elon Musk and the great fear of free speech Why even the hint of more liberty sends the woke set into meltdown. Brendan O’Neill

Posted By on October 29th, 2022

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/10/28/elon-musk-and-the-great-fear-of-free-speech/

So he’s done it. The richest man in the world and self-styled ‘free-speech absolutist’ has taken over Twitter. The bête noire of illiberal liberals has got his hands on social media. Cue meltdown. Listening to the woke set you’d be forgiven for thinking that the gates of hell had been flung open and every manner of evil and blasphemy will now pour forth. Twitter could become a ‘soap box for hate speech’, fretted one media outlet yesterday. It really is extraordinary how much some people fear freedom.

Elon Musk hinted at his takeover of Twitter with a real-life pun. ‘Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!’, he tweeted on Wednesday, alongside a vid of him bringing a literal sink into the Twitter offices. But the Twitterati don’t need hammy rich-geek humour for Musk’s conquering of Twitter to ‘sink in’. The horrifying prospect of a Musk-run social media, of a tad more liberty online, of women being allowed to call men men, and of Trump being let loose once more to fire off spicy tweets, has been sinking into their minds since this was all first floated a few months ago. Twitter could become a ‘cesspool of hate speech and disinformation’, whimpered a writer for the New York Times in April. Cesspool! You say ‘freedom of speech’, they hear ‘cistern for the storage of human shit’.

‘The bird is freed’, Musk tweeted following his $44 billion takeover. He has reportedly started turfing out the old guard. Apparently the boss, Parag Agrawal, is gone, as are other chief execs. And even though he’s made it pretty clear that he’s not so absolutist on free speech after all – Twitter ‘obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape’, he said yesterday – still the freedomphobes are petrified. Musk’s ‘idea of “free speech”’ will help to ‘ruin America’, says a frantic writer at the New Republic this week. ‘The fascists will take over’, apparently. There you have it – freedom is fascism.

The most striking thing about Musk and Twitter is the demented reaction to it. Musk himself is not going to singlehandedly restore the hard fought-for liberty to utter. It will take more than online ventures by a contrarian billionaire to turn back the tide of censorship, cancellation and social shaming for wrongthink that have become such a key and horrid feature of Anglo-American political life. Musk’s plan for Twitter is sensible, not revolutionary. It is ‘important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence’, he said in his note of reassurance to advertisers yesterday. That town square should not be a ‘hellscape’, he said, where ‘anything can be said with no consequences’. A town square, you say? With people talking? Fetch my smelling salts.

Who could possibly be affronted by such a polite, classical-liberal vision? And yet affronted people are. Loads of them. Hysterically so. Their dread of Twitter without moderation is intense. ‘Twitter without content moderation… means lies and disinformation will overwhelm the truth’, says that New Republic piece. We’ve come a long way since John Milton’s 1644 cry against the censorship of the press: ‘Let Truth and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worst in a free and open encounter?’ Today’s woke set did. In their eyes truth will always be bettered by bullshit in an open clash. If only they knew how much this told us about the corrosion of their own faith in humankind, about the decay of their trust in ordinary people and our capacity for reason and goodness, I think they’d stop saying it.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

1.8 million more illegal immigrants living in the U.S. since the start of the Biden administration By Stephen Dinan

Posted By on October 29th, 2022

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/oct/27/18-million-more-illegal-immigrants-living-in-the-u/

New census numbers indicate that 1.8 million illegal immigrants have settled in the U.S. since President Biden took office, powering a surge in the ratio of foreign-born to native-born residents, according to a new report Thursday.

The Center for Immigration Studies says there are now 47.9 million immigrants — legal and illegal — now in the U.S.

That’s 14.6% of the total population, and if trends continue the country will set a record for the largest share of immigrants by the middle of next year. That will cross the previous high of 14.8% set around the turn of the 20th century.

All told, some 2.9 million more immigrants now live in the U.S. than did in January 2021, when Mr. Biden was sworn in. Among those are the 1,8 million illegal immigrants — a population larger than the size 12 states, including West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire and Maine.

“The new data reflects the ongoing crisis at the border created by the Biden administration policies that are encouraging so many illegal immigrants to come into the country,” said Steven A. Camarota, the lead researcher on the new study, which relies on numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau’s monthly Current Population Survey.

The numbers add depth to the ongoing chaos at the border.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Biden’s Border Crisis Is Much Worse Than You Think

Posted By on October 29th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/10/28/bidens-border-crisis-is-far-worse-than-you-think/

“The fact that Biden is either too inept, too mentally incapacitated, or too ideologically driven to care should be reason enough to have him and his top lieutenants removed from office.”

In a clumsy effort to hide the latest and altogether shocking data on illegal border crossings, the Department of Homeland Security released its latest report in the dead of night last Friday. Not that it mattered, since the mainstream press wouldn’t have covered it no matter what. But in this case, the numbers are shocking. The reality is even more shocking.

DHS’s Customs and Border Protection agency finally, after basically being forced into it, reported that it had “encountered” almost 2.8 million illegal border crossers in the past fiscal year (which ended Sept. 30). That’s up from 1.9 million last fiscal year And it’s more than four times the number in President Trump’s last year in office.

The CPB also reports capturing 98 people on terrorist watch lists at the border this year (up from 3 in Trump’s last year) and nearly 30,000 with criminal records. Border Patrol agents also had to go on more than 22,000 search and rescue efforts, up from 6,000 in 2020.