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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

A Plea For Copping After school police are cut back, violence rises. By Larry Sand

https://amgreatness.com/2021/11/26/a-plea-for-copping/

In June 2020, the United Teachers of Los Angeles passed a motion to eliminate school police, and replace them with counselors and mental health programs. The union asserted, “Police presence in schools leads to negative outcomes for Black and Brown students, who are arrested and disciplined at higher rates than their peers.” Then, like an obedient puppy, the Los Angeles Unified School District board decided in February of this year to cut 133 or about 40 percent of its school cops in favor of kinder and gentler “climate coaches.” It was also decided that police will no longer patrol campuses, and will only be called upon to respond in-person during emergencies.

Interestingly, George McKenna, the only black L.A.U.S.D. school board member, protested the move. “The school police were never a danger to the students,” he said. “Are you under the assumption that there are no Crips, no Bloods, no gangs out there, and we’re going to do this with social workers?”

It’s worth noting that L.A. isn’t the only city to give cops the boot. Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Pomona did the same. Caroline Lucas, a youth organizer who advocated for the removal of officers at her school, Pomona High, encapsulates the spirit of the day. “For me, it means that leaders can experiment with what transformative activists have been trying to do.”

Well, the school districts have learned, like Dr. Frankenstein, that not all experiments turn out well. Pomona got a wake-up call after a shooting near Pomona High School left a 12-year-old injured by broken glass and debris. Seeing the light, the school board reversed course, and in a unanimous vote brought back the police after a four-month hiatus, stating that student safety is paramount.

Additionally, there has been a rise in violence in Los Angeles schools since the police were cut back. Using data from the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, CBS News reports that between August and October of this year, there were 108 assaults, with 16 students requiring hospitalization. Police sources add that 44 weapons recovered, including five handguns and 32 knives.

On November 18, in school police-free Sacramento, several teachers were injured while trying to quell a student brawl that had broken out. The Sacramento Police Department had to be called in to restore order.

Critical Race Theory Destroys American Justice Although Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted, none of us is safe, so long as “critical race theory” and other Marxist ideas pollute our law schools, our judges’ minds, and our legal system.  By Christopher Roach

https://amgreatness.com/2021/11/26/critical-race-theory-destroys-american-justice-2/

The George Floyd riots, conveniently shut off this past summer, were as much theater as reality. They were designed to associate Donald Trump with police abuses and disorder, while painting Democrats and their notions of “racial justice” as the path forward. 

Ordinary citizens standing up for themselves interfere with this guerilla theater indoctrination; after all, there are a lot more normal people who do not want their towns burned down than there are maniacs willing to do street violence. This is why individuals like Kyle Rittenhouse and citizen self-defense groups are dealt with so harshly by the government and the media. 

Government Did Not Protect Us Last Summer

Consider that there were dozens of fires and beatings and a significant number of killings in Minneapolis, Kenosha, Chicago, Portland, St. Louis, and Seattle in the summer of 2020. Hardly any Antifa and BLM rioters have been brought to justice. Federal authorities have made no significant effort to roll up these groups.

In the cities worst hit by the riots, there appears to be a semi-cooperative relationship between the rioters and prosecutors. In the Rittenhouse trial, prosecutors presented Gaige Grosskreutz as a blameless victim, even though he illegally carried a concealed gun and pointed it at Kyle Rittenhouse after chasing him down. Grosskreutz also escaped responsibility for a subsequent DUI. 

But if Rittenhouse’s presence was provocative and illegal, why was Grosskreutz’s pursuit and brandishing a gun not a more serious crime?

Worse, one of the surprising revelations during the trial was the late production of FBI aerial footage. The high-definition footage had inexplicably disappeared, and the FBI kept news of this all to itself until a media leak. But the infrared, night vision footage remains, supporting Rittenhouse’s narrative and also providing a means to identify the various left-wing criminals who ran amok. Presumably, similar videos were secretly taken during other riots in 2020. 

But, so far as we know, in spite of an impressive surveillance capability, as well as signals intelligence and other resources at its disposal, the FBI has made no significant effort to identify and suppress the leaders, organizers, funders, and foot soldiers of Antifa and BLM responsible for the 2020 riots. 

Instead, we are lately told there is an explosion of “white supremacy” in a country that elected Barack Obama fewer than ten years ago, and that Antifa is only an “ideology,” not a terrorist group. 

Thanksgiving Day: Another Front in the Leftist War on America Guess who wants to “reconsider” and “reevaluate” America’s day to give gratitude? Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/thanksgiving-day-another-front-leftist-war-america-bruce-thornton-0/

For going on a century, the international Left has been seeking to discredit and undermine the United States. One front in this war comprises attacks on American history, monuments, and the traditional holidays that recognize and celebrate this country’s exceptional institutions, especially political and economic freedom, and the unalienable rights of individuals.

Having failed serially and ruined every country it has governed, the Left has a deep hatred for the nation and principles that achieved what socialism could only promise. Defending our national traditions, then, is not about time off from work, shopping, overeating, and binging on football, but about our being grateful for our freedom, and the importance of the history of our nation’s beginning.

Given the Left’s long animus, there’s no surprise in a story about several American universities gathering at an event that asks whether Americans should “reconsider” and “reevaluate”  Thanksgiving. According to the event’s advertising,

Starting in 1970, many Americans, led by Indigenous protesters, believed that Thanksgiving should be rededicated as a National Day of Mourning to reflect the centuries-long displacement and persecution of Native Americans. The recent shift from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day reflects a changing national mood. . . .  “Should Americans reconsider Thanksgiving when wrestling with our country’s complicated past?”

Such thinking reflects leftist revisionist history of the Howard Zinn and 1619 Project ilk, which in fact doesn’t correct the alleged partial and partisan historical record of America’s birth and scrub away its self-justifying myths, but rather simply replaces that history with an even more egregiously mythic one that violates every historiographical canon, especially the requirement that we avoid presentism––judging the past by the ideologically tainted standards of today.

Diana West on RFK Jr. in Milan: Resist, Resist, Resist, Resist

https://www.conservativehq.org/post/diana-west-on-rfk-jr-in-milan-resist-resist-resist-resist

Our friend Diana West, author of several must-read books, including American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character and The Red Thread, A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy, just posted this article alerting us to an astonishing speech Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. delivered in Milan, Italy.

We share Ms. West’s column with her kind permission because Kennedy’s remarks have received no coverage in the establishment media and, as she observed, are “unique among national American figures, sizes up the pandemic response for what it is: a coordinated assault on liberal democracy all over the world, which has nothing to do with public health, but which, in the USA, gutted our Bill of Rights and thus robbed us of our constitutionally protected liberties.”

Ms. West’s column begins:

News media have failed to cover any of the above, which is actually solid evidence of the importance of these events. But why do I call Kennedy’s speech historic?

For its scope, wisdom and passion, this address, which I’ve transcribed below, is certainly memorable. Kennedy, unique among national American figures, sizes up the pandemic response for what it is: a coordinated assault on liberal democracy all over the world, which has nothing to do with public health, but which, in the USA, gutted our Bill of Rights and thus robbed us of our constitutionally protected liberties. He easily dispatches with the C19 clot shot by using Pfizer’s own research data, which tell us that for every one life Pfizer claims to have saved with its “vaccine,” four lives were lost to heart attacks. (This data, Kennedy says, is to be found in a table of Pfizer research filed with the FDA.)

But it is Kennedy’s courage in giving this speech that is epic.

Losing Confidence in the Pillars of Our Civilization Conservatives now have lost their former traditional confidence in many of the pillars of our civilization. And with good reason. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2021/11/24/losing-confidence-in-the-pillars-of-our-civilization/

Millions of citizens long ago concluded that professional sports, academia, and entertainment were no longer disinterested institutions, but far Left and deliberately hostile to Middle America. 

Yet American conservatives still adamantly supported the nation’s traditional investigatory, intelligence, and military agencies—especially when they came under budgetary or cultural attacks. 

Not so much anymore. 

For the first time in memory, conservatives now connect the FBI hierarchy with bureaucratic bloat, political bias, and even illegality. 

In the last five years, the FBI was mostly in the news for the checkered careers of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Robert Mueller, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok. Add in the criminality of convicted FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith. 

The colossal FBI-driven “Russian collusion” hoax was marked by leaking of confidential FBI memos, forged documents, improper surveillance, and serial disinformation. 

Prior heads of the CIA and FBI, as well as the director of national intelligence, have at times either not told the truth under oath or claimed amnesia—without legal repercussions. 

Mention the military to conservative Americans these days, and they unfortunately associate its leadership with the disastrous flight from Afghanistan. Few, if any, high-ranking officers have yet taken responsibility—much less resigned—for the worst military fiasco of the last half-century. 

Instead, Joe Biden and the top generals traded charges that the other was responsible for the calamity. Or both insisted the abject flight was a logistical masterpiece.

Never in U.S. history have so many retired four-star admirals and generals disparaged their president with charges of being either a traitor, a liar, a fascist, or a virtual Nazi. 

Corrupted science: The Left’s Machiavellian bludgeon By Michael J. Maxwell

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/corrupted_science_the_lefts_machiavellian_bludgeon.html

“For all intents and purposes, today’s science is steeped in politically charged leftist manipulation, propaganda, and skullduggery. ”

Science is a noble human endeavor with the goal of discovering, examining, testing, explaining, harnessing, and preserving physical nature for the benefit and advancement of humankind. Moreover, the virtuous pursuits of science serve to augment our understanding of the previously unknown.

In its purest application, science is never truly settled. Science is not suited to reach concrete conclusions on the how, when, where, or why of the cosmic mysteries of the material universe, its creation, or Creator. For science, in its historically accepted proper application, is not based on conjecture alone. Scientific theories must be proven factually, through exhaustive experimentation and testing, to become relevant, applied, and useful.

The publishing of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity in 1916 was followed by extraordinarily frustrating, peer-generated attacks on his groundbreaking science. A booklet was published in 1931 titled A Hundred Authors Against Einstein, featuring many ill-informed contributions. In total, 121 authors are identified as opponents to Einstein’s vaunted Theory of Relatively.

Today, Einstein’s gravitational theory has withstood all the frontal attacks by his peers, many of whom were seemingly jealous, egotistical scientists who forever tarnished their own reputations, becoming infamous naysayers of Einstein’s genius.

Did Einstein relish these inferior peer reviews? Of, course not! But did they serve to prove the validity of his theory beyond a reasonable doubt? Absolutely!

In the current state of scientific inquiry, even Einstein would be shouted down and classified a heretic had he stood up to and challenged the murky, politically correct, unchallengeable, “settled science” of climate change or COVID-19 mandates. Why? Because, the vacuous term “settled science” is now a sacred cow of the tyrannical, propagandizing, leftist crusaders, no matter how ambiguous and errant it is.

Thanksgiving Day: Another Front in the Leftist War on America Guess who wants to “reconsider” and “reevaluate” America’s day to give gratitude?Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/thanksgiving-day-another-front-leftist-war-america-bruce-thornton-0/

For going on a century, the international Left has been seeking to discredit and undermine the United States. One front in this war comprises attacks on American history, monuments, and the traditional holidays that recognize and celebrate this country’s exceptional institutions, especially political and economic freedom, and the unalienable rights of individuals.

Having failed serially and ruined every country it has governed, the Left has a deep hatred for the nation and principles that achieved what socialism could only promise. Defending our national traditions, then, is not about time off from work, shopping, overeating, and binging on football, but about our being grateful for our freedom, and the importance of the history of our nation’s beginning.

Given the Left’s long animus, there’s no surprise in a story about several American universities gathering at an event that asks whether Americans should “reconsider” and “reevaluate”  Thanksgiving. According to the event’s advertising,

Starting in 1970, many Americans, led by Indigenous protesters, believed that Thanksgiving should be rededicated as a National Day of Mourning to reflect the centuries-long displacement and persecution of Native Americans. The recent shift from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day reflects a changing national mood. . . .  “Should Americans reconsider Thanksgiving when wrestling with our country’s complicated past?”

Such thinking reflects leftist revisionist history of the Howard Zinn and 1619 Project ilk, which in fact doesn’t correct the alleged partial and partisan historical record of America’s birth and scrub away its self-justifying myths, but rather simply replaces that history with an even more egregiously mythic one that violates every historiographical canon, especially the requirement that we avoid presentism––judging the past by the ideologically tainted standards of today.

How Democrats Ruin Everything: The New York Times By Kyle Smith

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/how-democrats-ruin-everything-the-new-york-times/

This New York Times video doesn’t exactly shout, “Vote Republican” because everyone involved in it, and everyone it is aimed at, is a Democrat. But if Democrats can mess things up this badly, what other conclusion are we supposed to draw? Democrats make things worse is the resounding message here. I agree, except unlike the production team of the video, I don’t find this baffling.

The message of the video is that Democrats are hypocrites who don’t live up to their values. Of course they don’t! But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that they make everything worse. Watch the video. It’ll knock you out that this came from the Times.

Five Moderate Dem Senators Reject Biden’s Pick for Top Bank Watchdog By Caroline Downey

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/five-moderate-dem-senators-reject-bidens-pick-for-top-bank-watchdog/

Five prominent moderate Democratic senators have vowed to reject President Biden’s nominee, Saule Omarova, for the nation’s top bank watchdog role over her aggressive approach to regulating the financial sector.

Democratic members of the Senate Banking Committee Jon Tester, Mark Warner, and Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.), as well as Democratic Senators John Hickenlooper and Mark Kelly have all declared their opposition to Omarova as head of Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Biden officials still endorse Omarova, even though her confirmation is increasingly unlikely given these lawmakers’ disapproval.

“The White House continues to strongly support her historic nomination,” a White House official told Axios.

“Saule Omarova is eminently qualified for this position,” the official added. “She has been treated unfairly since her nomination with unacceptable red-baiting from Republicans like it’s the McCarthy era.”

The former law professor drew criticism from Republicans during a congressional hearing last week for her past academic works in which she advocated to “end banking as we know it.” Her position would preside over lenders holding an extremely high value of assets. Senator Kennedy grilled her over her purported praise of a number of economic practices exercised by the Soviet Union.

Voting Is For Citizens New York City’s latest effort to extend the franchise to legal permanent residents would devalue citizenship and dilute the power of the vote. Seth Barron

https://www.city-journal.org/noncitizen-voting-devalues-citizenship

New York City’s political leaders are prepared to extend the franchise to noncitizens by creating a new class of persons called “municipal voters.” These new voters would include Legal Permanent Residents—LPRs, known familiarly as “green card” holders—and other noncitizens “authorized to work in the United States.” Municipal voters would be permitted to vote in all local elections, including primary, general, and special elections for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, city council, borough president, and in local ballot initiatives. They would not be permitted to cast ballots in state or federal elections.

About 37 percent of New York City residents were born abroad. The majority of these more than 3 million people are naturalized citizens, entitled to vote in any election, assuming they meet the requirements of being 18 years old and not currently in prison or on parole. The “municipal voter” legislation would apply to the 650,000 LPRs in New York City and approximately 150,000 others who hold employment-eligible visas, or who have received “deferred action” status under DACA.

New York City has about 5.6 million registered voters, 90 percent of whom are considered “active.” Expanding the rolls by another 800,000 voters would potentially create a major new voting bloc, though it is not clear that these voters would be especially motivated to go to the polls. Voter turnout in New York City, especially in local elections, is extraordinarily thin, with typically less than 20 percent of registered voters bothering to take the trouble; one imagines that noncitizens would have even less engagement in the process. The effects on some council races, however, could be meaningful: the noncitizen population is distributed unequally around the city, so districts in parts of Queens or the Bronx with populations more than 50 percent noncitizen could see a much greater impact than other areas of the city with higher concentrations of citizens.

Allowing noncitizens to vote was normal in the early years of the American republic, though New York State ended the practice in 1804. Arkansas was the last state to abolish alien voting in 1926. In the wake of the 1968 teachers’ strike, New York City opened voting for local school boards to all residents, on the premise that noncitizen parents of schoolchildren ought to have a say in how their schools were run. But school boards were abolished in 2002, when direct control of the Department of Education was concentrated under the mayor, and the city’s experiment with noncitizen voting ended then, too.