The Systemic Racism of the Teachers Unions Trying to save race-based admission policies. by Larry Sand

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-systemic-racism-of-the-teachers-unions/

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could reverse the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision, in which SCOTUS asserted that the use of an applicant’s race as a factor in an admissions policy of a public educational institution does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The current case specifically cites the use of race in the admissions process at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions, maintain that Harvard violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, “which bars entities that receive federal funding from discriminating based on race, because Asian American applicants are less likely to be admitted than similarly qualified white, Black, or Hispanic applicants.”

One of the glaring outrages of the case is that the two national teachers unions – the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers – filed amicus briefs in which they pound the racial bean counting drum. The unions insist that “diversity” must remain a factor in choosing who gets to be admitted into a given college.

The NEA brief claims that “elementary and secondary schools remain heavily segregated. In the 2019–2020 school year, the average White student attended a majority White school. By contrast, students of color are far more likely to attend schools where the majority of students are also students of color.”

The irony of the teachers unions’ deploring racism in education is glaring, because it is the very same unions that essentially imprison children – notably poor children of color – in substandard public schools. Specifically, the union-mandated collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), in place throughout most of the country, bring to light why government-run schools fail so many kids.

2022 Midterms: Voters Prefer Sanity Trump’s reverse Midas touch. The rise of Ron DeSantis. Abortion and the new culture war. And other takeaways from a surprising night in American politics. Bari Weiss

https://www.commonsense.news/p/2022-midterms-voter-prefer-sanity?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

EXCERPT

So why did Republicans perform so badly?

Here’s one theory: Trump.

Trump is poison. Trump lost in 2020 and on Tuesday night he helped lose at least 23 elections.

Think of the candidates Trump endorsed:

Dr. Mehmet Oz. Oz was handpicked by Trump for the Pennsylvania Senate race over David McCormick, a West Point graduate who served in the Gulf War. It’s not as if McCormick, a hedge funder, was anti-Trump; his wife, Dina Powell, was Trump’s deputy national security adviser. But he did condemn the January 6 storming of the Capitol, so Trump endorsed Oz—who ran against John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor of the state who had a stroke in May and could barely make it through the single debate he agreed to. And still won. 

Doug Mastriano. The Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate was endorsed by Trump (and in league with the antisemites over at Gab). He lost his race for governor to the moderate Democrat Josh Shapiro by 13 percent and a whopping 600,000 votes. 

Don Bolduc. Bolduc—who claimed during the primary that Trump had won the 2020 election before later reversing his position—ran against incumbent Maggie Hassan for a New Hampshire Senate seat, but lost to Hassan 53 percent to 45 percent.

John Gibbs. Trump denounced the incumbent in Michigan’s 3rd congressional district, Peter Meijer, the only Republican freshman who voted to impeach him over January 6. Then, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee doubled down by funding John Gibbs, Meijer’s MAGA challenger, who lost on Tuesday by 13 points to Hillary Scholten—who turned the seat Democratic for the first time in nearly 50 years.

Tudor Dixon, who ran for governor of Michigan, was endorsed by Trump and said his election was stolen. She lost on Tuesday night to Gretchen Whitmer, the incumbent who called women “people with periods” in a recent TikTok video and had been roundly criticized for her handling of Covid.

Then there is Herschel Walker, who Trump endorsed, apparently unconcerned about Walker’s history of domestic violence, child neglect, and the question of Walker’s basic competence. (Walker’s thoughts on the Green New Deal: “So what we do is we’re going to put, from the ‘Green New Deal,’ millions or billions of dollars cleaning our good air up. So all of a sudden China and India ain’t putting nothing in there—cleaning that situation up. So all with that bad air, it’s still there. But since we don’t control the air, our good air decide to float over to China, bad air.”) The race was so close—a difference of just over 35,000 votes—that it’s headed to a runoff.

Kari Lake was meant to be the new GOP star, and she sang right from Trump’s hymnal on the 2020 election. Her gubernatorial race in Arizona is also too close to call, but she’s 13,000 votes behind Katie Hobbs—the unpopular Democratic secretary of state, who refused to debate Lake—with 70 percent of ballots counted. (It’s impossible to say with certainty who’s going to win. But it’s noteworthy that Maricopa County—by far, the biggest county in Arizona, which Trump lost by two points in 2020—has yet to be counted. What technology does Florida have that Arizona lacks?)

The other big race in Arizona was the Senate contest, in which astronaut Mark Kelly leads Trump-endorsed Blake Masters by nearly 100,000 votes. Masters was backed by Peter Thiel and received assistance from Trump’s super PAC—at least $1.8 million—after Mitch McConnell’s Leadership Fund cut spending in Arizona to divert resources elsewhere.

Now, think about the candidates Trump trashed.

The Incumbents’ Election Despite public dissatisfaction with the state of the country, sitting officeholders of both parties won big. Chris Pope

https://www.city-journal.org/the-incumbents-election

The past two years have seen a pandemic, the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the resurgence of urban crime, and a revival of inflation. Democrats and Republicans invested $16 billion in the midterm elections, expecting to profit from these upheavals. Yet astonishingly little about American voters’ preferences appears to have changed. Congress was balanced on a knife’s edge following the 2020 election, and it seems set to remain that way. Despite deep public dissatisfaction with the state of the country, incumbents of both parties appear to have enjoyed record rates of electoral success.

In fact, if Democratic senators Catherine Cortez Masto and Raphael Warnock hold their seats, 2022 will be the first Senate election cycle in which no incumbent of either party has been defeated since the 17th Amendment requiring the direct popular election of senators came into effect in 1914. (In that year, Democrats picked up two open seats from retiring Republicans, plus another from a Republican who had been defeated in a primary.)

This remarkable outcome was not due to an absence of pick-up opportunities for either side. The Senate was split 50-50 going into November 8th, with 21 Republican and 14 Democratic senators up for reelection. Yet the only gain for either party has been made by Democrat John Fetterman in Pennsylvania—filling an open seat, following Pat Toomey’s retirement.

Time To Apologize To Georgia

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/11/time-to-apologize-to-georgia/

Major League Baseball moved its 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta because the Legislature passed an election law that the Democrats and media claimed was designed to suppress the vote, especially that of minorities. Yet somehow Georgia voters turned out in higher numbers earlier this week than they did in the two previous midterm elections. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred owes Atlanta, the entire state of Georgia, the Braves, and, in fact, the entire nation an apology.

On April 2, the day after the 2021 baseball season began, Manfred announced that he had “decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star Game and MLB Draft.” Major League Baseball, Manfred explained, “fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box.”

Making Manfred’s cowardly capitulation to social justice bullies even more infuriating was the fact that the game was moved to Colorado, where voting laws are similar to Georgia’s new rules. Unlike Georgia though, Colorado has a Democratic governor and practices blue state electoral habits. So it was judged differently.

Republican communicator Brian Robinson reminds us that Manfred’s naked exhibition of wokeness carried a financial as well as reputational cost. Businesses, many of them minority-owned, were counting on the game to generate revenue but were shut out by his cold-blooded decision. As much as $100 million was robbed from them by the commissioner.

This Week’s Red ‘Waves’ Republicans did well in places where they showed leadership and competence. Kimberley A. Strassel

https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-weeks-red-waves-ron-desantis-election-midterms-donald-trump-voters-gop-republicans-leadership-inflation-crime-border-11668121031

You might have heard that Tuesday’s election produced only one red “wave”: in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republicans rocked. There were in fact several red waves in key states, and they combine to hold an age-old lesson for a whupped GOP. Want to win elections? Run competent leaders.

There’s no shading a miserable GOP night. It’s unclear if Republicans will take control of the House, much less the Senate, and its margins in either chamber will be razor thin. The GOP should have swept a country wildly unhappy with inflation, the economy, high crime, education, the border, you name it. It didn’t, and in many of the races the losses came down to two words: candidate quality.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made that point in August, only to be booed by pundits who disparaged it as another example of “establishment” ignorance of the brilliance of candidates endorsed by Donald Trump. Who’s looking brilliant now?

Pennsylvanians preferred to elect a recent stroke victim rather than take a chance on an untested TV doctor. New Hampshire returned the generally disliked Maggie Hassan to the Senate rather than roll the dice on Don Bolduc, who couldn’t decide two years later if the 2020 election was stolen. Arizonans appear not to have been sold on an unknown venture capitalist named Blake Masters. Georgians have sent scandal-plagued Herschel Walker to a Senate runoff, but he ran behind every other statewide GOP candidate. TV personality Tudor Dixon got crushed in the Michigan governor’s race. Doug Mastriano got routed in Pennsylvania.

Here’s a guy who didn’t get a Trump endorsement this year: Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor stormed to re-election by nearly 20 points, and exit polls show he won practically every demographic: Hispanics, women, white men, older voters, independents, married voters. He won the rural vote (69%), the suburban vote (58%) and the urban vote (55%). His GOP overall had a stunning night. Sen. Marco Rubio won re-election by more than 16 points as his party picked up four U.S. House seats, took supermajorities in the state House and Senate, and locked Democrats out of statewide office.

VIDEO: Biological Male Wins Miss America in New Hampshire Teen Beauty Pageant

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2022/11/09/video-biological-male-wins-miss-america-in-new-hampshire-teen-beauty-pageant/

Brían Nguyen, a biological male who identifies as female has won Miss Greater Derry 2023 in New Hampshire, making Nguyen the first transgender titleholder within the Miss America Organization.

“In the 100 year history of Miss America, I have officially become the FIRST transgender titleholder within the Miss America Organization,” Nguyen said in an Instagram post.

Watch Below:

“No words can describe the feeling of having the opportunity to serve my community and represent my community for the very first time at Miss New Hampshire,” Nguyen added. “I am so honored to be crowned your new Miss Greater Derry 2023, and I am thrilled to show you all what I have up my sleeves. This will be an amazing year.”

Along with the crown and title, Nguyen has also earned a scholarship.

The Miss Greater Derry Scholarship Program touts itself as an entity that has been “providing scholarship opportunities to young women in the greater Derry area since 1987,” according to its website.

The Miss Greater Derry pageant is also “part of the Miss New Hampshire and Miss America family,” the program adds.

Over the past few years, biological males have been increasingly dominating in areas traditionally held by women.

Last summer, Kataluna Enriquez, a biological male who identifies as a woman, won the title of Miss Nevada USA. Transgender models Valentina Sampaio and Leyna Bloom have both appeared in Sports Illustrated‘s annual Swimsuit Issue.

Biological males are also destroying women in sports.

President Herzog’s hot-mic moment By Ruthie Blum

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-722050

During the course of the coalition consultations that kicked off on Wednesday, President Isaac Herzog had a hot-mic moment that has been causing pundits to wonder whether the “faux pas” wasn’t actually intentional. 

At the end of his meeting with representatives of the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi Shas party, when the video of the televised broadcast was paused yet the audio remained on, he was heard saying: “There’s one issue I didn’t talk about, because I don’t want to shame anyone. You’re going to have a problem with the Temple Mount. That’s a critical issue.”

He was referring, as his office later confirmed, to the controversial stance of Otzma Yehudit MK Itamar Ben-Gvir, No. 2 on the Religious Zionist Party list, which – like Shas – is slated to occupy a prominent place in the next government. 

But Ben-Gvir “has become more moderate,” one of the Shas members mumbled. Nevertheless, Herzog continued, “You have a partner that the entire world is anxious about. I told him that, too. Between us, this isn’t for publication. I don’t want to cause trouble. But I think you have a responsibility.”

The journalists gathered outside the conference room at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem couldn’t help laughing when the words “not for publication” reverberated loudly through the sound system set up for their benefit. They were possibly amused, as well, by Herzog’s choice of audience for his admonition about Ben-Gvir, the success of whose “right-wing-religious extremism” at the ballot box has turned the firebrand activist lawmaker into an international household name.

Circumstantial Evidence of Vote Fraud? Selwyn Duke

https://canadafreepress.com/article/circumstantial-evidence-of-vote-fraud

A “red wave” was expected by virtually all analysts, partially, but not completely, because Republicans enjoyed polling advantages that had been increasing for weeks prior to the election. What’s more, given that the GOP tends to under-poll — one study estimated by five points this election cycle — robust Republican gains seemed reasonable to most observers.

Yet curiously, if we’re to believe Tuesday’s results, something perhaps unprecedented in modern elections happened: The GOP had over-polled — in most places but not all.

This is interesting because polling “systems” are the same in every state — but voting systems aren’t.

This raises a question: Does this point to polling problems, or voting system problems?

Consider Florida, which did experience a profound GOP wave (all figures are from RealClear Politics’ polling averages and election result data). Governor Ron DeSantis led his challenger, Charlie Crist, by 12.2 points on average in the polls but actually won by 19.5. So he under-polled by 7.3 points. Senator Marco Rubio led his challenger, Val Demings, by 8.8 points in the polls but won by a whopping 16.5, a 7.7 point improvement.

(Republicans are also expected to increase their margin in Florida’s 120-member House to 85 seats, their largest majority in history.)

Yet the picture was very different in most of the rest of the country. Consider the following Senate races (all numbers are as of early 11/9):

Democrat Michael Bennet had a 5.7 point polling lead in Colorado but won by 12.4.
Democrat Maggie Hassan had a 1.4 polling lead in New Hampshire but won by 9.9.
Democrat Patty Murray had a 3.0 polling lead in Washington but won by 14.
Democrat John Fetterman had a 0.4 polling deficit in Pennsylvania but won by 2.3.
Republican Ted Budd had a 6.2 polling lead in North Carolina but won by only 3.6.
Republican J.D. Vance had an 8.0 polling lead but won by 6.9.

“Changing Demographics and Brief Thoughts on the Election” Sydney Williams

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

No “red wave” appeared on election day. While my immediate response was one of dismay, on reflection I think it may have been a “blessing in disguise.” Our nation has been divided – and still is – but it has not been the division that has been harmful, but the lack of respect for differing opinions. Mr. Trump, repudiated in this election, has been one cause. His ego-centric self-promotion engulfed what good his administration had accomplished. And he has become more disagreeable in his post-presidency. But also responsible for the division are the “goody two-shoes” who hypocritically call for diversity, equity, and inclusion. They see differences only in race and gender. Their calls have never considered diversity of opinions, inclusion of those who do not think as do they, or that both liberals and conservatives should be treated equitably.

As well, the election highlighted changing demographics of our two political parties. On October 20, at a campaign event for John Fetterman, President Biden spoke a truth: “This is not your father’s Republican Party.” He spoke correctly; it is not, but neither is the Democrat Party the same one Mr. Biden joined almost sixty years ago. Mr. Biden’s words were intended as a slap at “MAGA” Republicans, who he claims are a “threat to democracy.” But is that fair? Our democracy is protected by our Constitution: separation of powers, an independent judiciary, states’ rights, due process, personal freedom, and rule of law. When those principles are threatened, democracy is threatened. When government is seen as the answer to all problems, democracy is at risk. When citizens are complacent, democracy is in danger. Agencies in Washington, when manned by men and women who forget they are servants to the people, become threats to democracy.

CIRCLING THE WAGONS A prominent academic society defends a professor who advocated destigmatizing pedophilia. Chris Rufo

Last year, Old Dominion University professor Allyn Walker was forced to resign after an uproar about his campaign to destigmatize pedophilia, which included the suggestion to rebrand the word “pedophile” as “minor-attracted person” and to provide child pornography to offenders to appease their illicit desires.

Many considered the case open and shut. But this month, the American Society of Criminology, a professional association housed at Ohio State University, published an unequivocal defense of the embattled professor. They suggest that Walker should never have been forced to resign and lay blame on what they call a “hate and trolling attack” motivated by “misinformation” targeting Walker’s “non-binary, transgender and Jewish” status.

“Our friend and colleague lost their job [Walker is a female-to-male transgender and uses “they/them” pronouns] because they were defined as the problem instead of the transphobic, antisemitic hate,” wrote Old Dominion professors Ruth Triplett and Mona Danner. “Dr. Walker is a real live person with family, friends, pets and a home, who was on the path to obtaining tenure at an institution they were committed. Little concern is given to the harm done to them when the university rejected them just when they needed the support of a strong community.”

This is becoming a common defensive technique on the Left. Activists defend any transgression—even a campaign to destigmatize pedophilia—with the shield of “misinformation,” “transphobia,” and “harassment.” And, unfortunately, in many cases, it is enough. After resigning from Old Dominion, Walker quickly found new employment at Johns Hopkins University, where he works at a research center on child sex abuse.