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November 2022

EDUCATION Comments turned off

School Choice Tremors Too many children are still stuck in government-run schools – with few options. by Larry Sand

By on November 28th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/school-choice-tremors/

The election on November 8th was good for the school choice movement. As Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, explains, 76% of candidates supported by his organization won their election. Govs. Kim Reynolds (IA), Chris Sununu (NH), Kevin Stitt (OK), Bill Lee (TN) and Greg Abbott (TX) were victorious after making school choice a centerpiece of their campaigns.

In Florida, where there are four different private options for families, Gov. Ron DeSantis annihilated Charlie Crist, who drew a distinct line in the sand when he chose the president of Miami’s teachers union as his running mate. DeSantis not only won by almost 20 percentage points, he outperformed Crist by 13 points with Latino voters, according to exit polls. This should not come as a surprise, as 38% of students using the state’s largest private-school choice program are Hispanic.

While the above governors are all Republicans, some victorious Democrats had become education freedom advocates. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro was elected governor after campaigning hard for school choice. Also, Illinois J.D. Pritzker found religion and supported his state’s tax credit scholarship program during his campaign.

But the choicers weren’t the only ones claiming success on November 8th. After the election, the National Education Association crowed, “Educators, Parents, Students Won Big in Historic Midterm Elections.”

NEA President Becky Pringle triumphantly asserted, “Parents and voters explicitly rejected extreme politicians who engaged in the politics of division, politicizing our classrooms, banning books, dragging their culture wars into our public schools, and pushing failed privatization schemes.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Former CIA Analyst on CNN: ‘This Freedom of Speech is Just Nonsense’ Revealing yet again what leftist elites really think of our Constitutional freedoms. by Robert Spencer

By on November 28th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/former-cia-analyst-on-cnn-this-freedom-of-speech-is-just-nonsense/

Former CIA analyst and current CNN intelligence and security analyst Robert Baer appeared on CNN on Friday in order to explain to us all how very terrible it is that Elon Musk is beginning to restore the freedom of speech on Twitter. As it turns out, rolling back Twitter’s usefulness as a tool for the Leftist establishment’s propaganda and allowing dissident voices once again to be heard is just playing into the hands of the Left’s all-purpose bogeyman, Vladimir Putin. That’s right: if the Left loses its hegemony over the American public discourse, Ukrainians will die. That’s what passes for analysis today on CNN, and apparently in the CIA as well.

Maintaining a straight face, Baer declared: “Putin is going to be all over Twitter if there’s no regulations on this, fake accounts, spoofed accounts, the rest of it. This is a great opportunity for him. And so when he’s talking about the popular voice, Musk, he’s really talking about Russian intelligence. Um, you know, the Russians are waiting for something like this. They need a propaganda campaign against the United States and against our support for Ukraine, and they’re gonna be all over Twitter. I guarantee this. Supporting the far right, plans, demands to stop arming Ukraine. Just wait.”

Asked about how to discern truth from “disinformation,” Baer answered: “Well, that’s why the pre-Musk Twitter had 7,000 people going through these accounts. You can pick ‘em out with algorithms, you can pick ‘em out by looking at ‘em, uh, you can check IP’s and the rest of it. And you simply block ‘em. And it’s, it’s, it’s not right. And you know, this freedom of speech is just nonsense ‘cause you can’t go into a movie theater and yell ‘fire.’ It’s against the law. And what Putin’s gonna to do and the Russians, is they’re going to use this as a vehicle to, to save himself in Ukraine. And, y’know, whether it’s gonna work or not, I don’t know, but we’re gonna see, as soon as these restrictions come off, we’re gonna see the Russians all over, as I just said.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Trump Special Counsel is Another Clinton Payback Biden’s DOJ picks a career hack with a record of going after conservatives. by Daniel Greenfield

By on November 28th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-trump-special-counsel-is-another-clinton-payback/

When Bruce Wasserstein, a billionaire backer of the Clintons, provided a $25 million donation to Harvard Law, future Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, then serving as dean, welcomed it. The gift built on the Wasserstein Fellows Program already established at Harvard Law which brought “outstanding public interest lawyers” to Harvard and provided them stipends of up to $24,000 to meet with and influence students toward social justice at the prestigious law school.

When Jack Smith became a Wasserstein Fellow, even while, unironically, serving as head of the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section, seemingly soliciting and accepting a

grant funded by a leftist billionaire (but who watches the integrity of the head of the Public Integrity Section) he joined a list of leftist activist lawyers working for the ACLU, Earthjustice, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Soros’ Open Society, Catholic Charities and the UN.

The mission of the Wasserstein Fellows was to gather “a diverse group of accomplished public interest lawyers who are enthusiastic about sharing their passions with law students on how to utilize their legal education to promote social justice.” Those passions included illegal migration, letting criminals get away with committing crimes and dismantling America.

How the DOJ’s Jack Smith would go about promoting social justice was a question that was answered twice. At least twice in public view where everyone could see and hear it.

The latest came when Attorney General Garland picked Smith as the Special Counsel to go after Trump. But before that anyone wondering what Jack Smith did to be chosen as a social justice lawyer would have had to be paying close attention to the IRS scandal that took place a year before he was made a Wasserstein Fellow.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Crowd angered by lockdowns calls for China’s Xi to step down Huizhong Wu

By on November 28th, 2022

https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-health-fires-social-media-50d7515e5fae00f5054062209e9306cc?utm_

SHANGHAI (AP) — Protesters angered by strict anti-virus measures called for China’s powerful leader to resign, an unprecedented rebuke as authorities in at least eight cities struggled to suppress demonstrations Sunday that represent a rare direct challenge to the ruling Communist Party.

Police using pepper spray drove away demonstrators in Shanghai who called for Xi Jinping to step down and an end to one-party rule, but hours later people rallied again in the same spot. Police again broke up the demonstration, and a reporter saw protesters under arrest being driven away in a bus.

The protests — which began Friday and have spread to cities including the capital, Beijing, and dozens of university campuses — are the most widespread show of opposition to the ruling party in decades.

In a video of the protest in Shanghai verified by The Associated Press, chants against Xi, the most powerful leader since at least the 1980s, and the Chinese Communist Party sounded loud and clear: “Xi Jinping! Step down! CCP! Step down!”

Three years after the virus emerged, China is the only major country still trying to stop transmission of COVID-19. Its “zero COVID” strategy has suspended access to neighborhoods for weeks at a time. Some cities carry out daily virus tests on millions of residents.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

How the Biden admin quietly converts illegal immigrants into legal ‘parolees’ By Stephen Dinan

By on November 28th, 2022

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/nov/27/how-biden-converts-illegal-immigrants-legal-parole/

Maria Esperanza Diaz Ruiz had expected to pay a smuggler to get across the U.S.-Mexico border. Then she learned that the Biden administration’s new program would let her walk into the country at no cost as long as she had a tale of woe from back home.

She is one of the migrants taking advantage of a Biden policy that is converting illegal immigrants into legal “parolees,” a status that offers a work permit and a foothold in the U.S., according to the Center for Immigration Studies, which observed Ms. Diaz Ruiz and others.

“This is real,” she told the center’s Todd Bensman. “This is not a magic trick.”

Her justification for gaining parole, she said, is that she worked for a Nicaraguan government official who was homosexual. Her ex-husband threatened her and her boss, she told Mr. Bensman.

“I had to leave because I would be killed,” she said.

Armed with documents and a criminal background check, she joined a group of roughly two dozen migrants who were entered into the U.S. border authorities’ system, driven to the border crossing between Mexicali and Calexico, California, and turned over to federal authorities.

Mr. Bensman got unfettered access to Mexico’s side of the processing and published his findings last week.

He said crossings are not just at ports of entry along the border. Some immigrants are flown from Cancun or Monterrey directly into U.S. airports.

“This looks to be part of a purposeful strategy to create workarounds to court-ordered expulsion policies but also to reduce politically painful illegal crossing statistics by channeling ever more people through these legalized crossings,” he said. “While neither DHS nor the White House has publicized this legalized entrance program, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has repeatedly telegraphed it in his oft-stated intentions to create ‘legal pathways’ as part of the administration’s overarching ‘safe, orderly, and humane’ vision for southern border immigration.”

The program relies on Mr. Mayorkas’ power of “humanitarian parole.” The secretary can admit people into the U.S. outside of the usual systems for temporary or immigrant visas.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

After Getting In Bed With TikTok, Will Biden Ignore Its National Security Threat?

By on November 28th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/28/after-getting-in-bed-with-tiktok-will-biden-ignore-its-national-security-threat/

‘I think Donald Trump was right, I mean, TikTok is an enormous threat.”

That was Sen. Mark Warner — a Democrat — talking about the popular Chinese-owned social media app. Warner, along with an increasing number of national security experts, says that the innocuous-seeming video-sharing service poses the dangers to national security that Trump warned about years ago.

“The ability for China to have undue influence is, I think, a much greater challenge and a much more immediate threat than any kind of actual, armed conflict,” Warner said.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress earlier this month that he’s “extremely concerned” about TikTok’s threat.

“Under Chinese law, Chinese companies are required to essentially — and I’m going to shorthand here — basically do whatever the Chinese government wants them to do in terms of sharing information or serving as a tool of the Chinese government,” Wray said.

Last week, the FCC banned China’s Huawei and ZTE Gear because those could spy on military sites. Before that, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr called for a ban on TikTok.

Even the reliably liberal NPR is suddenly starting to sound Trumpian on this issue, noting that “there are concerns about China’s ruling Communist Party using this broad authority to gather sensitive intellectual property, proprietary commercial secrets and personal data.”

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Public Distrust of Health Officials Is Anthony Fauci’s Legacy He presented his judgment as beyond reproach, while consistently flip-flopping and silencing dissent:By Allysia Finley

By on November 28th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-distrust-of-health-officials-is-anthony-faucis-legacy-covid-pandemic-chinese-lab-mask-mandates-misinformation-disinformation-11669566642?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Anthony Fauci gave his final press conference last week as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a post he has held since 1984. Regrets about how he handled the Covid-19 pandemic? He had a few, but too few to mention.

Asked how “dubious” public-health advice from the Trump White House affected progress during the pandemic, Dr. Fauci boasted: “Well, you remember, if you were around, that at this podium I contradicted those, which set off a whole series of things in my life.”

He added: “The people who have correct information, who take science seriously, who don’t have strange, way-out theories about things but who base what they say on evidence and data need to speak up more, because the other side that just keeps putting out misinformation and disinformation seems to be tireless in that effort.”

“Strange, way-out theories”? You can only guess whom he had in mind—those who argued Covid likely leaked from a Chinese lab, opposed lockdowns in favor of focusing protection on the most vulnerable, questioned the “science” of mask mandates, and said schools should remain open since children were at low risk of illness.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden’s Dirty Oil Deal With Venezuela Caracas gets a sanctions reprieve while the U.S. vetoes a loan to Guyana, a rare U.S. ally in the region. By Mary Anastasia O’Grady

By on November 28th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-dirty-oil-deal-with-venezuela-free-elections-guyana-environmental-reparations-strategic-value-pdvsa-11669579238?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

At the United Nations climate conference in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, the U.S. agreed to pay environmental reparations to developing countries. Days later it emerged that the Biden administration would issue a new license to Chevron to resume operations in joint ventures with Venezuela’s oil company, PdVSA.

The U.S. government thinks you’re a fool, dear reader. And not only because it waited until Americans were en route to grandma’s house for Thanksgiving to let news slip of a deal to increase heavy-crude output from joint ventures controlled by a dictatorship allied with Iran. Or that it expects you to believe that Venezuela is considering a return to free elections in exchange.

Presumably you also haven’t noticed Team Biden’s effort to impede the development of huge reserves of light sweet crude from Guyana, a U.S. ally.

Washington policy makers occasionally make miscalculations that help American enemies, undermine development in a poor country, or harm U.S. economic interests. But to nail the trifecta requires a special blend of ideological blindness and incompetence that is mercifully rare. Still, as the administration’s treatment of Guyana demonstrates, it does happen.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Gaslighting is No Small Matter by Linda Goudsmit

By on November 28th, 2022

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/26581/gaslighting-is-no-small-matter

lindagoudsmit.com http://goudsmit.pundicity.com

When politicized medical absurdities are accepted as medical science, atrocities are committed in the name of science. Changing the names of things does not change the objective reality of that thing, it changes the minds and hearts of individuals responding to that thing. So, when parents surrender their authority and common sense to the “experts,” and are convinced that biological sex is fluid and gender is a choice (absurdities), the parents commit atrocities against their children with the help of their doctors and therapists who are ideologues, not doctors or therapists.

If parents understood that this is psychological warfare, they would be empowered to hold onto their common sense, their authority, and protect their precious children. They would reject any ideology that denies objective reality, because its purpose is destruction. Bertrand Russell articulated the plan in 1952 in his book The Impact of Science on Society:

Education should aim at destroying free will so that pupils thus schooled, will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished. . . . Influences of the home are obstructive; and in order to condition students, verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. . . . It is for a future scientist to make these maxims precise and to discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen. – Bertrand Russell

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Medical ‘experts’ struggle to explain Africa’s very low Covid vaccination and death rates By Thomas Lifson

By on November 28th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/11/medical_experts_struggle_to_explain_africas_very_low_covid_vaccination_and_death_rates.html

Even in the face of data showing that Covid “vaccines” do not prevent transmission of the virus but do cause extremely high rates of adverse events to be reported, the US (and much of the world’s) medical establishment remains fully committed to pushing universal vaccinations. The G20 meeting recently included plans for a global vaccine passport that would prevent international travel by those who have resisted the pressure to receive the spike protein-laden jabs, and many august institutions of higher learning such as Yale and the University of California demand that their young and (mostly) healthy students receive the spike protein dosages as a condition of study on campus.

If there is one dramatic case study that seems to upend the vaccination absolutists, it is Africa, many of whose countries are too poor to have mass vaccination programs, yet which has the lowest death toll from Covid in the world. The AP reported last year: Scientists mystified, wary, as Africa avoids COVID disaster

[T]here is something “mysterious” going on in Africa that is puzzling scientists, said Wafaa El-Sadr, chair of global health at Columbia University. “Africa doesn’t have the vaccines and the resources to fight COVID-19 that they have in Europe and the U.S., but somehow they seem to be doing better,” she said.

Fewer than 6% of people in Africa are vaccinated. For months, the WHO has described Africa as “one of the least affected regions in the world” in its weekly pandemic reports.

Some researchers say the continent’s younger population — the average age is 20 versus about 43 in Western Europe — in addition to their lower rates of urbanization and tendency to spend time outdoors, may have spared it the more lethal effects of the virus so far. Several studies are probing whether there might be other explanations, including genetic reasons or past infection with parasitic diseases.

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