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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Showing posts with label School Boards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label School Boards. Show all posts

Monday, August 19, 2024

Education in America is a Dark Hole of Ignorance and Corruption

By Rich Kozlovich

Equal justice under the law is a constitutional principle.  No one, whether they're elected officials, citizens, or institutions, no matter how important or powerful, should be above the law.  Yet what we're seeing is the ruling class doing everything possible to cover up its corruption and criminal behavior, even using the the Department of Justice to target constitutional conservatives because they threaten their continued criminal behavior and their radical agenda to destroy America. 

The FBI's targeting parents, calling them domestic terrorists, (more here and here) for speaking out about the indoctrination of their children on the gay agenda among other outrages.

  • Speaking truth to school boards March 13, 2024 by Pete Colan An 11-year-old girl speaks to the school board after being forced to share a locker room with a boy. 

One thing seems clear, entirely too many Americans are ignorant of the concept of equal justice; ignorant about the rule of law; ignorant regarding the balance in government created by the Constitution!  Why?   The biggest reason for that is America's children are deliberately being ill-educated, misled, and philosophically corrupted by our institutions of education, turning out illiterate undisciplined thugs, and the violence being perpetrated by these thugs is cultural.

Note to Black Lives Matter: Literacy Made Civilization -Reading is white supremacy now. Good luck getting ahead. 

The lost generation(s)- Hitler desired to create young people who were consumed with violence and mindlessness. Are we seeing a similar trend today?

Nikole Hannah-Jones beclowns herself on Meet the Press -  The fact that Nikole Hannah-Jones has been honored with a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" and a Pulitzer Prize, and has had the New York Times backing her error-riddled and fundamentally mistaken 1619 Project as a curriculum throughout the United States, tells us that we live in an intellectually degenerate moment in history.  That she has been granted an endowed chair (despite no doctorate) and is heading a new center with $20 million in funding at Howard University bespeaks a collapse of standards.

Public education is a scam and a racket, and the teacher's unions, which are controlled by corrupt leftists, are undermining the traditional values that created Almeria.  They have turned our schools into a national disaster. Public education in America is a failure, and yes, it really "is" the teacher's fault. 

  1.  Education in America Has Become a Snare and a Racket: Part I  
  2.  Education in America Has Become a Snare and a Racket: Part II

Restoring excellence in public education, starting at the lowest levels is fundamental.  And  doing so in higher education has become critical.  In combination, that's Job One in America, and that needs to be addressed in five ways, for a start.

  1. Eliminate the Department of Education, after 45 years of failure, wasting billions of dollars that should be a no-brainer.
  2. End all federal funding to education at all levels.
  3. Create a voucher system.  
  4. The nation's Boards of Education seem to forget, the work for the parents, and have gotten totally out of control in so many areas.  Form a national group to act as watchdogs, and sue any board of education that fails to bring excellence to our schools.
  5. Eliminate public employee unions, and fire all the teachers, they can't be fixed.
  6. Make all universities for profit institutions, end all student loan programs, which is turning into a national disaster.  Tax and regulate them just like any other business.   It's long past time we put this idea out of our heads they're experts because they're educated.  If that was true, then why do we see so much exposure of plagiarism by these people
North Carolina drops STEM departments, keeps politically correct ones -  February 25, 2024 By Arnold Cusmariu -The University of North Carolina system oversees 16 state universities. Campus locations include Chapel Hill, Wilmington, Charlotte, Asheville, and Greensboro.  UNC-Chapel Hill, originally called the University of North Carolina, was founded in 1789 and is one of the oldest public universities in the United States. According to Wikipedia statistics, some 245,000 students attended UNC system universities in 2021......

Here's an article I published in 2014, Before There Was Common Core!, and in this article I posted a picture of the eighth grade test for Bullitt County, Kentucky.....in 1912.

This is a test I would like to see all of America's teachers, their union leaders, and the professors in our universities take.  And any who fail would be fired.  Go here for a list of answers.  

You might also wish to review this 8th grade test from Salina Kansas....... 1895, and I'm willing to bet 99% of America would fail it, including me, but these two tests are a clear demonstration of how far our system of education nationwide has plunged down into a dark hole of ignorance.  But it's fixable.

John Droz, Jr. graciously allows me to publish his work.  John has been writing about, and testifying about, what's wrong with American education for many years.  In the two articles below John has done an excellent job of outlining what the fixes are, and they must be put in place, and I emphasized the word "must". 

  1. ) Saving American Children - Part 1 
  2. ) Saving American Children - Part 2

 Make sure to read his solutions and observations.  They're deep, wide ranging, and far seeing.  

 

Monday, July 24, 2023

School board prohibits students from dressing like animals…and progressives pounce

July 22, 2023 By Eric Utter

Florida’s Brevard County school board recently passed a new dress code policy that prohibits students from dressing like animals. Citing complaints by fellow students about "furries," the board forbade attire emulating "non-human characteristics.” Cat ears and dog collars, for example.

However, some claim that the county’s new dress code violates President Joe Biden’s proposed Title IX regulations. The controversy over the proposed regulations apparently centers on the redefinition of "sex" to mean "gender identity." What, exactly, does "gender identity" mean?.........To Read More....

My Take - Another excellent reason to eliminate the Department of Education, and dump Title IX regulations.  

Friday, January 27, 2023

Major Victory for School Choice in Iowa

January 25, 2023 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Since I’ve repeatedly written (and spoken) about the momentum for school choice, I’m naturally a big fan of this video from John Stossel.

It’s not just libertarian-oriented people who recognize that school choice is gaining ground across the country.

The union bosses at the National Education Association have bitterly complained that their under-performing monopoly is being threatened as parents get more options.

Given the malignant role of teacher unions (especially with regards to disadvantaged students), that definitely warms my heart.

Now we have more good news to share – assuming you are a good person who puts the interests of kids above those of union bosses (unlike someone who happens to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue).

After getting comprehensive statewide school choice in West Virginia in 2021 and Arizona in 2022, the Hawkeye State has now enacted its own version.

Here are some of the details of this remarkable development from Iowa, as reported by Jeremiah Poff for the Washington Examiner.


Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) signed new legislation Tuesday…to establish a universal school choice program. Hours after the state legislature approved the Students First Act to establish a statewide education savings account program for all K-12 students , Reynolds, surrounded by children, triumphantly affixed her signature to the legislation… The new program will provide students with more than $7,000 in annual funds through an education savings account that can be used to cover all sorts of education-related expenses, including private school tuition and private tutoring. …Reynolds said in a statement after the legislature approved the bill. “Parents, not the government, can now choose the education setting best suited to their child regardless of their income or zip code. With this bill, Iowa has affirmed that educational freedom belongs to all, not just those who can afford it.”

This is good news. It means better results for students at lower cost for taxpayers.

By the way, here’s another excerpt that is worth sharing.

The Governor not only is a supporter of school choice, she took the very unusual step of going after Republican state legislators who were siding with union bosses rather than families.

Reynolds, a Republican, had sought to enact a school choice program in the state’s previous legislative session but encountered opposition from members of her own party that doomed the bill. She later took the unusual step of endorsing primary opponents for several of her party’s own incumbents who opposed school choice.

She didn’t just endorse primary opponents.

Many of those candidates actually defeated incumbent Republicans who opposed choice.

And that’s been happening in other states as well, which arguably can be considered the best political news of 2022.

I’ll close with an upbeat prediction that Iowa won’t be the only state to adopt comprehensive school choice this year. So I fully expect big, positive changes in next year’s version of this map.

And I’ll also predict the list of school choice hypocrites will expand.

P.S. Depending on how you rank the importance of different issues, what’s been happening with school choice may be only the second-most important development at the state level in recent years.

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Mom, denied ethnicity and gender class course materials, will appeal judge's FOIA ruling

By Bruce Walker @ The Center Square

(Editor's Note:  I've not requested nor received permission to publish this in full, but I feel this is indicative of what's going on in a great many school districts where these nitwits think they're the power, and not just hired help, and needs wide distribution.  If Center Square of the author object I will break this down to a link.  RK)

Carol Beth Litkouhi is suing the Rochester Community School District for failure to honor her Freedom of Information Act Requests to obtain teacher training and course materials pertaining to a class titled 'History of Ethnic and Gender Studies.' Her request has been denied, and she's appealing the decision.

Unhappy with the board of the Rochester Community Schools in Michigan, she won election to a six-year seat with them in November. On Monday, she told The Center Square last week’s ruling by an Oakland County Circuit Court judge denying her Freedom of Information Act request for the district’s ethnicity and gender class course materials will be appealed.

“I thought my case was pretty straightforward,” Litkouhi told The Center Square. “I always knew it was a possibility that the judge would side with Rochester Schools, but I fully believed he would come down on the side of transparency.”

The Freedom of Information Act request was related to obtaining course materials for a class titled “History of Ethnic and Gender Studies.” She sued in March. Judge Jacob James Cunningham agreed with Rochester Schools’ argument that Michigan’s FOIA law covers only school districts and not individual teachers.

Mackinac Center Legal Foundation Attorney Steve Delie, representing Litkouhi, disagrees with the judge's ruling. He warned that Cunningham’s decision establishes a dangerous precedent for transparency requests submitted to publicly funded institutions.

“If this decision stands, the implications would be staggering,” Delie wrote in an email to The Center Square. “Should the reasoning of this case be applied to its fullest extent, it’s questionable whether records created by local government or university employees would be subject to FOIA, even if they clearly relate to a public function. We will appeal this decision to ensure that parents, citizens, and journalist continue to have access to the records needed to hold government accountable and fully participate in the Democratic process."

As reported by The Center Square last March, Litkouhi submitted a FOIA request to the school district in late 2021 to collect information on course materials. She paid $418 to see a unit plan for the course but was restricted to perusing them on district property and forbidden from copying the materials allegedly due to copyright concerns. Litkouhi was denied access to other materials she had requested in her FOIA and was told by the school district they weren’t obligated to obtain those materials from the teacher.

“What’s being taught in Rochester Schools is becoming less concerning to me than a judge concluding FOIA law in Michigan can cover public employers but not employees, in this instance school administrators but not teachers, and also that instructional materials used in classrooms are considered private,” Litkouhi said.

Cunningham concluded Michigan’s FOIA law covers only school districts and not individual teachers.

Cunningham wrote in his opinion, “[S]ince the Court finds that public school teachers are not ‘public bodies,’ therefore their papers and work product are not ‘public records’ under FOIA.”

He continued, “Even assuming, arguendo, that public-school teachers are ‘public bodies,’ for the purpose of FOIA requests, a review of the court file, pleadings, briefs, and evidence offered show RCSD has not prepared, owned, used, possessed or retained the documents requested by Plaintiff’s December 14, 2021, FOIA request.”

The original suit filed by the Mackinac Center contained a complaint regarding a second FOIA filed by Litkouhi seeking district teacher diversity, equity, and inclusion training materials from 2020 to 2022. According to Delie, that issue was resolved by the two parties.

Litkouhi was one of four winners in November’s election, picking up 16,980 votes. Incumbent Jessica Gupta led (19,837 votes) and won the other six-year seat. She was more than 900 votes clear of the nearest competitor; two others won two-year seats on the board.

Thursday, December 1, 2022

This Is How You Take Over a School System

"School boards pushed out three superintendents in November alone"

Powered by parent groups, takeovers of school boards are a rising trend. What’s interesting here is the coordination between a governor and school board members to create systemic change. The Left does this all the time. Everything is coordinated from the top down. Conservative school board members however are often on their own in supposed ‘red’ states.

This is just the beginning, but it’s an interesting model.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis put his weight behind dozens of conservative school board candidates across Florida during the midterms. Now they’re in office — and are purging some educational leaders who enforced Covid-19 mandates.

World’s smallest violin plays. Also can we stop calling school officials and assorted government officials, “leaders”? Presidents are leaders. A school superintendent isn’t.........To Read More

My Take - Daniel hits the nail on the head, and hit's it hard.  These superintendents style themselves as "leaders" and it's they who should decide what children will do and learn, irrespective of what the parents want.  

Well, they're finding out they're not leaders, they're hired help, and their bosses decided to remind them of that and are either fired them or going to fire them, and I hope this spreads, but Daniel asks a most pertinent question:  

The only question here is why did it take so long. And why do so few state Republican parties pursue a similar integrated model for taking over the school system?

Good question, don't you think.   Now we need an answer.  Make no mistake, fixing education in America is Job One. 

Thursday, June 9, 2022

Best Political News of 2022

June 8, 2022 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

When I shared the best and worst news of 2021, I expressed happiness about how school choice is spreading across the nation.

But it’s not spreading as fast as it should because some establishment Republican state legislators would rather kowtow to teacher unions rather than promote better educational opportunities for the kids in their districts.

But parents are beginning to notice.  In a closely watched primary contest yesterday in Iowa, the Republican Chairmen of the House Education Committee (and a lackey of the teacher unions) was being challenged by a supporter of school choice.

 https://freedomandprosperity.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Jun-8-22-Corey-Tweet.jpg

Needless to say, it’s very difficult to defeat an incumbent politician. But, as Corey DeAngelis shared in a tweet, the challenger prevailed in a stunning outcome.

And if you peruse the press release from the American Federation for Children, that was just one of many victories in the Hawkeye State. Indeed, it’s just one of many victories in primaries across the country. Corey wrote an article last week for National Review, co-authored by Jason Bedrick, that analyzed primary results in other states this year.

They start with some good news.


DeSantis made school choice a centerpiece of his campaign, and voters rewarded him. In a race decided by fewer than 40,000 votes, his unusually high level of support among black women (18 percent, or about 100,000 votes), who chose him over an anti–school choice black Democrat, Andrew Gillum, proved decisive. …Republicans began wrapping themselves in the mantle of parental rights and school choice, but the fulfillment of their promises has been mixed. States such as West Virginia and New Hampshire enacted bold new education-choice policies in 2021, while Florida, Indiana, and more than a dozen other states expanded existing choice policies.

They then share some bad news.

Nevertheless, choice initiatives stalled this year in Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Utah, with some Republicans casting the deciding votes.

But they close with the best news of all.

In recent primaries, GOP voters threw their support to candidates who supported choice, even if it meant tossing out otherwise conservative incumbents. …Representative Phil Stephenson, an incumbent backed by the teachers’ union, lost to school-choice supporter Stan Kitzman, who secured 58 percent of the vote despite spending less than half of what his opponent spent… 

Likewise, school-choice champions Ellen Troxclair and Carrie Isaac both defeated candidates who were endorsed by the Texas affiliate of Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers. In all, eleven of 14 Texas House of Representatives candidates endorsed by the pro-school choice Texas Federation for Children PAC won their primary runoffs. … 

in Kentucky, an incumbent known to be the leading opposition to school choice in the Republican caucus, Representative Ed Massey, suffered a devastating primary defeat by school-choice champion Steve Rawlings, who garnered 69 percent of the vote despite being significantly outspent. 

Candidates endorsed by American Federation for Children Action Fund and its affiliates won their primaries or advanced to runoffs in 38 of 48 races Texas, Arkansas, Idaho, Georgia, and Nebraska so far this year.

Actually, the best news of all is not what happens in elections. Instead, the best news is when legislation is approved that expands school choice. Like we saw last year in West Virginia and other states.

 

I’ll close with some political analysis.

I’m a big fan of the no-tax-pledge organized by Americans for Tax Reform.

Why? Because it is a way of targeting politicians who are sympathetic to tax increases.

Signing the pledge does not guarantee that a candidate is good (they can vote for debt-financed spending without violating the pledge).

But a candidate who does not sign the pledge almost certainly is bad. And voters now have a way of identifying – and rejecting – those politicians.

We need something similar for school choice. Maybe that’s a pledge. Maye it’s simply endorsements by the American Federation for Children.

All that matters is that politicians learn that there are negative consequences if they side with teacher unions instead of children.

P.S. Politicians who oppose school choice often are reprehensible hypocrites, as noted by Democratic state senator Justin Wayne of Nebraska.

 

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

America’s Fight: Conservative School Board Member Blows the Lid off Inner Workings of the Left’s Monopoly on Education

Hannah Bleau

The battle over the nation’s children – from flagrant indoctrination to forced masking – has emerged in the national spotlight during the last two years, becoming a widely-known issue as parents take matters into their own hands after years of the left maintaining a monopoly on the educational system, doing their best to keep the leftist agenda moving forward...........

When you get up there and are elected, you’re automatically part of this association and they tell you that your job is to support the superintendent. [It’s] not about protecting, supporting, representing taxpayers or focus on financial stewardship or … it as very much about no dissenting, very much groupthink, get in line,” she said, as this same tactic appears to be the common theme in school boards across the country. Many people, she continued, subscribe to it, even though they claim to be “conservatives.” But when they get on these boards, they “lose their backbone.”..............

And then you have the media that plays that role and protects the progressive left agenda that are being pushed in there, and also everyone wants to hide the — you know we can’t say anything negative about the school because then you’re anti-public school. It’s not about correcting issues,” she said.  “It’s about, your job as a school board member is to be a cheerleader, not to be someone that serves the public,”................However, that could soon change...........To Read More....

My Take - This isn't just about education, it's about corruption and the corruption of the leadership nation wide including corporate boards, industry associations, the military and every element of government.   So-called conservatives, like John Kasich, Mitt Romney and Liz Chaney, get there and crawdad, back peddling to keep their jobs or to be "someone".  But maybe, just maybe, they weren't really conservatives in the first place.  I see that same kind of crawdadding everywhere. 

My Rules For Leadership.

  1. Heterodoxy isn't for the faint of heart.  But it's essential for real leadership.  A real leader must be willing to stand up and say, "you're all wrong, and I'm going to tell you why".  It's that willingness, and persistence, to stand up to the massed forces against what's right that will ultimately win the day.
  2. Real leadership requires the willingness to be unliked, and for long periods of time in order to overcome these seeming insurmountable forces.   
  3. Being "reasonable" never overcame insurmountable obstacles.

So, are you a leader, or merely a manager who's organizing the direction everyone wants to go? I'll have more on this piece later this week, in the meanwhile, here's one of my favorite quotes from one of my heroes, Thomas Sowell.  

"Life is all about tides. There are those who catch the tide and those who row against the tide. Those rowing against the tide will always go in that direction no matter which way the tide is moving. The rest have no direction and will simply follow the tide. Those who row against the tide are in better shape than those who go with the tide. Not only physically, but intellectually, emotionally and psychologically! When the tide changes direction, and it will, guess who will be in the lead?"  Thomas Sowell

 

 

Friday, March 4, 2022

Insane: A School District Spied on Parents and Reported Social Media Activity to Their Employers

Matt Vespa Matt Vespa @mvespa1 Mar 03, 2022

 Who the hell are these people? Where do they get the stones to do something like this? You’re a school district. You’re not the Stasi. You’re not special. You’re a bunch of overpaid education bureaucrats that don’t work hard. If you have time to conduct this sort of operation, there are massive gaps in the workday. Apparently, we have a school district that spied on parents, compiled a dossier of their social media activity, and reported such activity to the employers of these problematic parents. And by ‘problematic’, I mean, they were politically conservative. This little spy game was conducted by Rochester Schools, which is located outside Detroit.............A To Read More.....

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Wokester bloodbath: Blue San Francisco throws out three Board of Education leftists by monster margins

February 16, 2022 By Monica Showalter 

It wasn't even close. San Francisco Democrats turned hard on three far-left Board of Education members who kept public schools on lockdown, focused on changing the names of storied old schools to wokester specifications, and told Asians to go to hell on merit-based admissions to the few remaining good ones.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

San Francisco voters overwhelmingly supported the ouster of three school board members Tuesday in the city’s first recall election in nearly 40 years.

The landslide decision means board President Gabriela López and members Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga will officially be removed from office and replaced by mayoral appointments 10 days after the election is officially accepted by the Board of Supervisors.

The new board members are likely to take office in mid-March. The three were the only school board members who had served long enough to be eligible for a recall.

The margins, according the Chronicle, were 79% to 21% to boot Collins; 75% to 25% to oust Lopez, and 72% to 28% to kick Moliga to the curb. As the Chron notes, they were on the ballot because they could be on the ballot -- the rest likely would have been thrown out too, were they eligible. The city will hold new elections in seven months, but San Francisco voters couldn't wait even that long to let these particular leftists know.

The only word for this is 'bloodbath.' It's Gotterdammerung time for the wokester leftists who've turned the city into a dump. Looking at you, Chesa Boudin -- whose recall vote comes on June 7.............To Read More....

Thursday, January 6, 2022

It’s Time to Politicize School Board Elections

by | Jan 4, 2022 | @ America Out Loud

A prominent bright spot in today’s political scene is the movement to take the education of our children out of the hands of the influential school boards operating with little input from parents. It’s time that parents know the political desires of these candidates. The secrecy behind party affiliation on school boards must end.

Andrew Atterbury and Juan Perez Jr. writing at Politico news, say Republicans across America are pressing local jurisdictions and state lawmakers to make typically sleepy school board races into politicized, partisan elections in an attempt to gain more statewide control and swing them to victory in the 2022 midterm elections.

Tennessee lawmakers, last October, approved a measure allowing school board candidates to list their party affiliation on the ballot. Arizona, Florida, and Missouri legislators are weighing a similar measure. It is likely to spread to other states and increase voter turnout. Kenneth Marcus, the Education Department Civil Rights Chief under former Secretary of Education Betsy Devos, has called for school board elections to be part of an effort to “end critical race theory in schools.”

This latest effort to thrust school board elections into partisan affairs come as education was a primary issue in the significant upset election of Glenn Youngkin as Governor of Virginia. He campaigned on the promise to give parents more say in their children’s education, including classroom lessons in history and race.

Republicans are openly embracing parental rights as a key factor shaping policy in DC and many statehouses. There has been a significant underestimation of parental frustration with their leftist school systems.

Including political party labels in school board elections seems like a common-sense reform, say, Atterbury and Perez Jr., that would give voters more information and likely enhance voter participation and local accountability. While all of this is good news, the Democrats are mounting a greater effort to literally destroy the democracy we have known here for almost 250 years.

The Democrat Party has challenged the legitimacy of every presidential election in this century. They blamed a corrupt Supreme Court for their 2000 year defeat, they blamed crooked voting machines in 2004 and Russian interference in 2016. Left-wing news outlets such as NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and others lie to Americans that democracy is under siege when in fact it is under siege by them.

These people embrace a dark view of the American people, which is not unique in our history. J. Peder Zone writing in RealClearPolitics (12/29/21), said the Democrat Party’s 19th-century roots show Southern planters and Northern political machines ran them. Today their current status is as the party of global elites. The Democrat Party has long been a hierarchical outfit where those at the top promised to act in the best interest of those below them.

The Democrat Party has kept votes in line by playing on the fears of the population. Today it should be obvious to everyone that they are playing the climate change card and the pandemic card most effectively.

In the years following World War II, the Democrats gradually changed the groups they pretended to speak for, says Zone. Working-class whites were out once marginalized groups were in, but their DNA remained the same.

“They continued their uneasy relationship with the give and take of American democracy; convinced that their policies were unassailable, they argued that moral failings-stupidity, racism, and greed explained why we have two parties.” It should be obvious now that they are doing everything to be the only party as they have hoped to stack the Supreme Court and pass legislation to take all state voting under the control of Washington DC through now dormant HR 4.

We admit that Republicans have not always performed admirably, but their constant embrace of limited government power always restrained any impulse to run every aspect of our lives. The gigantic falsehood of the Democrat Party that Republicans dislike Black Americans is belied by the GOPs strong support for racial justice and the fact that America is by every measure less racist than it has ever been despite the outrageous claim the Marxist Democrats promoting Critical Race Theory, Black Lives Matter, the 1619 project and Wokism in general.

It should be evident that in the Democrats’ quest for power, they have no qualms about destroying the country as it was originally founded. These topics, along with our position in International relations, will be discussed in our weekend radio program The Other Side of The Story on America Out Loud Talk Radio on January 8 and 9 at both 11 am and 8 pm with Robert Kasten, former two-term Senator from Wisconsin who worked closely with Ronald Reagan during his years as President.

Dr. Jay Lehr is a Senior Policy Analyst with the International Climate Science Coalition and former Science Director of The Heartland Institute. He is an internationally renowned scientist, author, and speaker who has testified before Congress on dozens of occasions on environmental issues and consulted with nearly every agency of the national government and many foreign countries. After graduating from Princeton University at the age of 20 with a degree in Geological Engineering, he received the nation’s first Ph.D. in Groundwater Hydrology from the University of Arizona. He later became executive director of the National Association of Groundwater Scientists and Engineers.

Tom Harris is Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition, and a policy advisor to The Heartland Institute. He has 40 years experience as a mechanical engineer/project manager, science and technology communications professional, technical trainer, and S&T advisor to a former Opposition Senior Environment Critic in Canada’s Parliament.

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Texas School Board President says Parents should be ‘Ashamed’ for Protesting Pornographic Books in School Libraries

By November 10, 2021

The president of a school district’s board of trustees in Texas is facing backlash after criticizing parents who protested against the inclusion of pornographic books in their children’s libraries, as reported by the Daily Caller.

Ruthie Keyes, a retired teacher and president of the Keller Independent School District (KISD) board of trustees, defended the inclusion of Maia Kobabe’s book “Gender Queer” in the district’s libraries. In a Facebook post about the controversial book’s removal from the district, a parent rhetorically asked how “with so much beautiful literature available to enrich the mind and human spirit, THIS is what is offered for our youth to read??? KISD should be ashamed.”

In response, Keyes commented that the book was just one of “589,000 in the district,” and that “the only reason hundreds of people saw it is because people started distributing out on social media.”......To Read More...

Scottsdale School Board Member Publicized Parents Social Security Numbers, Divorce Proceedings, Financial Records In Effort To Track Out spoken Parents -  Chrissy Clark - November 10, 2021 - .......The folders housed within the dossier are labeled “SUSD Wackos,” “Press Conference Psychos,” and “Anti Mask Lunatics,” among others. Included under “Press Conference Psychos” was a video that shows parents calmly holding signs that read “CRT is Racist” and “SUSD We Demand Transparency.”......

My Take -   I know anyone can sue for anything, but that doesn't mean a lawsuit will work.  I'm curious, does anyone think this is litigable? Whether it is or not, "the process is the punishment." This is another example of when barbarians fight with wimps the barbarians win every time, and so I hope these, “SUSD Wackos,” “Press Conference Psychos,” and “Anti Mask Lunatics,” turn into warriors and take serious action to crush the credibility of these people so they're not in a position of public trust ever again.  


 

Wednesday, November 3, 2021

The Earthquake Next Time

Parents around the country have awakened to the fact that the far Left, largely via the teachers’ unions, is running our public schools. And they don’t like it. The Virginia governor’s race is the marquee contest this year, but the same issues–Critical Race Theory and whose schools are they, anyway?–are in play in school board races across the country.

In many areas, interest in school board elections is at an unprecedented high. In my state, a school board election in an odd-numbered year would historically draw turnout in the single digits, with few voters other than members of the education cartel having any idea who the candidates are. This year is different. We got texts this morning from our Senate District GOP, identifying the three candidates to vote for and urging us to tell our friends. (I paid for those texts via a modest contribution.)

My wife and I voted at 8:00 this morning; she was voter #65 in our precinct. There was nothing on the ballot except the school board, for which there were sixteen candidates with no identification of incumbents. It is a nonpartisan race, so there was no party identification, either. Who knows, the three conservative rebels might have a shot..........To Read More....


Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Over 60 GOP Members of Congress Demand Answers From DOJ For Targeting Parents

Madeline Leesman Madeline Leesman Oct 09, 2021 

This week, over 60 Republican Members of Congress sent a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) demanding answers as to why the Department is targeting parents who oppose Critical Race Theory (CRT) and mask mandates in schools.

As Spencer covered, this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland sent a memo to the FBI announcing a “partnership among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement to address threats against school administrators, boards members, teachers and staff” as well as “a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel” in response to a National School Board Association letter claiming parental opposition to school mandates, like mask mandates, and ideology, such as CRT, "could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes." ........To Read More....

 


 


The World As I See It: Tyranny in America Will Not Stand

By Rich Kozlovich

One of the things driving me to distraction is the amount of outrageous things going on with Biden and his band of misfits.  Every day there's a new list of insane actions that all should be written about. 

I've been absolutely sure the 2020 election of Joe Biden was totally fraudulent, and that was from day one.  Here are my files on

A new Rasmussen poll highlighted in the Washington Examiner reports that 56% of Americans surveyed believe It's likely that cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, including 41% who say it's very likely.  This is a significant increase from April, Paul Bedard notes, when 51% of respondents said it was ˜likely that cheating took place in the presidential election. Thus, the mass censorship of Americans who question the election, including former President Donald Trump himself, only appears to be exacerbating doubts.
 
When you see massive organized efforts to shut down evidence of massive irregularities, surely indication voter fraud, as has been uncovered in Arizona, people start realizing there's something being hidden, and no one in the Democrat Congress is going to let anything come before them that confirms something stinks over all this, including how one home in Arizona had 75 people vote for Biden, which Arizona audit volunteers wanted to testify before Congress about.  They were prevented, so they went rogue with this video.   
Now we have Mollie Hemingway's new book, Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.. which Michael Patrick Leahy
 
.........details how a mismanaged election in Fulton County, a corrupt and incompetent Secretary of State's office, millions of dollars from Mark Zuckerberg-backed nonprofits, and more than 10,000 illegal votes provide compelling evidence for a person to question the legitimacy of Joe Biden's narrow victory in Georgia over Donald Trump in the November 2020 election.

Chris Wallace of Fox News, who I think is as big a disgrace as was his father, loves to try and force people to admit there was no voter fraud or make then say there was so he can rip into them claiming there's not one iota of evidence of massive voter fraud.  Well, Chris, have Mollie Hemingway on you show and ask her.  How much do you wanna bet that doesn't happen?  She's not like Wallace, she follows the facts to wherever they lead, she's smart, tough, and she has the facts, and the ability to present them in an overwhelming manner. 

Then we have the Pope meeting with Nancy Pelosi, and the video shows a seemingly warm greeting.  And this is how a supporter of abortion, which is an offense worthy of excommunication, is treated by this Pope?    Apparently she was to give a reading at an Italian mass.  The church may have been willing but apparently Italian Catholics weren't.

These tyrannical efforts to force everyone to get vaccinated are disgusting. Here's one circumstance I find contemptible, criminal and litigable if this person dies. Two Ohio Hospital Systems Say They Will Require Transplant Patients to Be Vaccinated. 

Now, first we have to understand there are transplant protocols, and rightly so because there just aren't enough organs to go around and not all organs are biologically compatible to recipients, so they create valid restrictions.  As an example, a drunkard can't get a liver transplant, and so on.  Age, general health also play into the decision making.  In short, they want patients that will have a positive long term result. But this case is outrageous as they're refusing to do transplant surgery on a patient because they've not been vaccinated for Covid 19.  However:

.........the recipient has already had covid. In other words has natural immunity. And yet they are still requiring her to be vaccinated to get the kidney transplant when the kidney is not one that would be available to anybody else anyhow. This makes little sense to me. It's also really asinine that the medical systems seem to be totally ignoring natural immunity...........The news follows the controversial decision of Colorado’s UCHealth, which is refusing transplants to people who are unvaccinated. It reportedly rejected Leilani Lutali, a woman suffering from stage five renal failure, because both she and her donor are unvaccinated.

In the Colorado case this kidney was going to be donated to her by a friend.  It wasn't available for any other use, just her friend, so any protocol they may claim they were using would be fallacious.  As one of those in Our Group, and e-mail group to which I belong noted:

Okay, so this woman was not on the waiting list to get simply the first matching kidney. This was to be a kidney donated specifically to her by a friend. In other words it's not a kidney that will go on to somebody else who may be perceived as taking better care of themselves and therefore better care of a donated organ. This is a matter of either this woman gets this kidney, or no one gets it. Considering this factor, I find it extremely hard to see how they can justify refusing to transplant the organ.

Why won't they get vaccinated?  I have no idea, and quite frankly, I don't care because what we should be asking is this: Why is that part of the equation? It's their choice, and they're not suffering from this virus, so it shouldn't be a part of the equation. 
 
One of the things about the foundational values of American culture for the most part is this: Americans are a live and let live people, and as a result can be pushed pretty hard before they react. But once that happens, it hits the fan and things change. These tyrannical outrages are not going unanswered.  

Let's start with this Epoch Times piece by Petr Svab,  NYC’s Unvaccinated Teachers Need to Waive Right to Sue for 1 Year of Health Benefits, saying:

Aside from being put on unpaid leave, New York City teachers who’ve declined to get the COVID-19 vaccine won’t be allowed to keep their health benefits for another year unless they give up their right to sue the city over its vaccine mandate.

This condition was the result of an arbitration invoked by the city’s largest teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). The union touted the arbitration verdict as a victory that forced the city to acknowledge medical and religious exemptions to the vaccination. It also allowed the teachers to take a year of unpaid leave with continued health care coverage or voluntarily resign with unused sick days paid out and a year of continued health insurance.


This draconian mandate mentality by these large medical groups is taking a toll on staff, as his piece,   Thousands of Kaiser Permanente Workers Vote to Authorize Strike over Staff Shortages by Paul Bois shows:
 
 Amid the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers in Southern California and Oregon have voted to authorize a strike, citing staff shortages. With nearly 96 percent voting in favor of the strike, the United Nurses Assns. of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), have entered into talks with Kaiser Permanente to avert what could affect hospitals in over a dozen Southern California cities, according to the Los Angeles Times.  
 
Concerns about safety at work have led nurses to strike across the country over the last year. In July, about 1,400 registered nurses at USC Norris Cancer Hospital in Los Angeles and Keck Hospital of USC staged a two-day strike, citing concerns such as long shifts, not enough staff, and an overreliance on contract nurses. Nurses at San Francisco’s Chinese Hospital and Riverside Community Hospital also went on strike earlier this year.

One could feel the tension at a Clark County School District board meeting as one fed-up dad spoke for a group of fourteen parents while serving a $200 million lawsuit over mask mandates. (video included) “This is segregation based off of your own fears and your own personal interests,” the unidentified father argued. “The people in this country have had enough, and we are fighting back.”

“I have something to give you,” he then said. “Security, would you do me a favor? Would you please hand those forms to the board members? You’ve been officially served a $200 million lawsuit with six complaints and violations or multiple amendments.” 

“Your job is not to be concerned with the children’s health,” he added. “You’re not nurses. You’re not doctors. You are not responsible for their health organization. Your only focus is on our children’s education, and the education system here is 50th in the state, and you make almost more money than anybody else.”..........“This is not a negotiation, we will have our freedom of choice, and we’re gonna see you in court,” he added to applause.

So where's the FBI?  As one friend involved with the FBI at the ground level said.  They have real work to do, and didn't sell their souls to the Devil as did those at the top.

The revolt begins!  Once this kind of thing gets started in America things change.  I hope the courts are filled with law suits.  I'm waiting to see how many school board tyrants become "common" citizens after November elections.

The article linked above has some interesting comments:
 
Local school board elections typically have been relatively quiet affairs where incumbents sail to reelection, often unopposed. This year, candidate training academies organized by national conservative groups and state-level recruitment efforts are encouraging challenges by right-leaning political newcomers. The results could have consequences for public education and coronavirus safety measures across the country...........In Wisconsin, a conservative legal institute is providing free legal advice on school board recalls to parent groups. In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, has taken the unusual step of endorsing a conservative candidate for a local school board seat. And in Colorado, a group calling itself MAD that opposes remote-learning during the pandemic and what it says are partisan leanings in curriculum is endorsing like-minded school board candidates.
 
Conservatives started organizing at the grass roots level some years ago, to the dismay of the Mitt Romney, John McCain,Mitch McConnell, John Kasich and all the RINO's, and it would appear grass roots conservatives are going to go after these school board misfits.  That doesn't bode well for Democrats or the Republican leadership.  It does bode well for America.
 
This is the future. There will be no more crawdadding no more crawling, no more apologizing, no more groveling before leftist in politics, the media, Hollywood or anywhere else.  And no more accepting those who are trashing America. 
 
Here's what conservatives, or at least traditional Americans who think America is special and where America is going: 

“I talked to folks out here who are simply just angry. They’re upset with the way the country is going right now, and frankly, they’re upset with the way the Republican Party is handling everything,” the reporter said. “Here’s what one woman had to say.” “I think the Republicans are about as weak as they possibly could be in Congress,” Iowa rally goer Lori Levi said. “You have maybe six that are worth their salt. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and two or three others. The rest of them are just the same as the Democrats. They’ve been there too long. They’re establishment. They don’t care about the American people because they’re in their elite little tower.”

Generally Americans are entirely too trusting, but once they realize they've been lied to, they don't react pleasantly.  I'm actually starting to feel a twinge of optimism. 
 
 

Friday, July 30, 2021

Minnesota Student Says Teacher Told Her to Hide ‘Equity Survey’ Questions From Parents

 

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Exposing the Cracks in Critical Race Theory

| Jul 13, 2021 |  

Are you a racist? You say you’re not, but have you checked your answer against proponents of Critical Race Theory (CRT)? Here’s disturbing news! According to CRT, if your skin color is white, then you’re either aware you’re a racist, or over decades of practiced racist denial, your true racism has retreated into your subconsciousness. Regardless, if you’re White, you’re a racist, whether you acknowledge it or not.

Critical Race Theorists contend America, a predominately White populated and socially dominated nation, must acknowledge its deep-seated discrimination against Black people. A pernicious bigotry they claim that pervades all American life, including all legal, social, and cultural structures.

Without an open acknowledgment of this long-practiced White bias and systemic discrimination, Blacks will continue to be wrongfully treated as second-class citizens and will continue to be denied their Constitutionally promised life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

But Critical Race Theorists want far more than just an acknowledgment of past wrongs and a review of alleged current systemic discrimination. 

First, CRT proposes turning America upside-down and inside-out by indoctrinating our children that Whites racists are, by nature, an unscrupulous class of “Oppressors” of Blacks. 

Second, Blacks are victims of centuries of White Privilege and White Supremacy that have made Blacks an “Oppressed Class” of victims. 

Third, all employers must also institute systems to acknowledge and train all employees in the tenets of CRT. 

Fourth, this Oppressor-Oppressed dichotomy is a permanent state of affairs.

Fifth, they claim the only remedy to this gross and immoral imbalance between Whites and Blacks is to sanction “open discrimination” against White people..........

Parents across the nation are banding together to confront School Boards and Superintendents about Critical Race Theory being taught to their children. Parents are increasingly aware that this twisted ideology has no place being taught in American elementary, middle, and high schools.

The very thought that White children would be told they’re racists and Black children told they’re victims of White people is not only sick but is as heinous as telling children God hates Americans, especially Black children.

Politically Liberal and Progressive School Boards, with the full support of the Nation’s Radical Teachers Unions, are claiming they control all educational curricula and lesson content and not parents. Unbelievably, the arrogance of righteous Marxist Teachers Unions are telling parents they’ll teach whatever they please, and there’s no such thing as parental rights over what they present in class.........To Read More....

My Take - I keep wondering what's going on in the minds of these "elected" members of all these school boards?  I keep wondering if they need that job, because after the next time they come up for election, they won't get unemployment for getting unelected.

Friday, June 18, 2021

CRT Can KMA

Kurt  Schlichter
Kurt Schlichter: Jun 17, 2021

Do you smell their fear rising over the competing reeks of Prius new car smell, of kale, and of the armies of shambling, squatting hoboes that have come to symbolize modern liberalism? That eau d’ uh-oh is the scent of progressives realizing that maybe pushing an ideology that tells the majority of America “You stink!” is not going to lead to the sweet smell of success. 

Everyone hates CRT, critical race theory, that bizarre, ridiculous, and morally illiterate hodge-podge of Marxist mumbo-jumbo blended with a healthy dose of the kind of racial hash that would make Democrat David Duke beam. Even the lib wine moms, who were so ecstatic about the recent lack of mean tweeting – ironic that the only man able to give them pleasure was Donald Trump, and he does it by not doing anything – despise this Marxist pestilence. The guys in the campaign business I talk to are giddy and often burst into spontaneous jigs of pure glee at the poll numbers they are seeing. Hey Congress, congratulations! Thanks to CRT, there’s something America hates even more than you!........To Read More....