This document is part of an archive of postings on Political Correctness Watch, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written.My Home Page. Email John Ray here. My other blogs: "Tongue Tied" , "Dissecting Leftism" , "Australian Politics" , "Education Watch International" , "Immigration Watch" , "Greenie Watch" , "The Psychologist" (A summary blog). Those blogs are also backed up. See here for details
With particular attention to religious, ethnic and sexual matters. By John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)This page is a backup. The primary version of this blog is HERE
13 October, 2024
IT HAPPENED: Norway just REJECTED cashless agenda: Shops are now required by law to accept cash as a form of payment
They have now rejected the cashless agenda. From the 1st of October, all shops are required by law to accept real physical cash as a form of payment.
As long as payments are under NOK 20.000 ($1871), shops cannot refuse cash payments. Those that do so will risk being fined.
The Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection even recommends people to have some amounts of cash at all times in case digital forms of payment stop working.
Just recently that was the case, after a software update caused computers all over the world to crash, affecting banks, airports, supermarkets and more.
As many as 600.000 Norwegians are not digital, especially many elderly people.
With the World Economic Forum having pushed a cashless agenda, Norway is going the opposite way.
It is important to have cash. Because in a cashless society, it would be very easy for a tyrannical government to control who can buy and sell, monitoring every transaction.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-149888588
*******************************************Spare us the cringeworthy back story
Judith Sloan
Im in charge of streaming in our household someone must be. Luckily, there is a joint preference for contemporary crime dramas, even if they involve solving cold cases. Its one thing the BBC still does well, by and large. We also love a bit of Nordic noir.
Almost without exception, however, the makers of these series cant resist the temptation to include some cringeworthy back story about one or more of the detectives solving the case. Do we really care that they are having marital difficulties? Do we really care that one of the kids has gone off the rails? Get on with solving the crime, I say. It just looks like unnecessary padding.
Sadly, far too many politicians have entered the field of recounting their tragic/uplifting/moving back story. Mind you, Kamala Harris, current US presidential candidate, moves her back story around depending on her audience. Some days she is just a middle-class kid; the next, she is a working-class kid. (Her mother was a medical research scientist, her father an economics professor sounds solidly middle-class.)
She also has some bizarre story about the woman who looked after her and her sister while her mother went to work. Evidently, this woman also ran a small business Im not sure when she had the time which means that Kamala understands small business. Sure.
The back story has become a part of the kitbag of too many politicians here. How many times have we heard about Albo living in public housing as his single mother struggled to make ends meet?
The messages are twofold: with grit, determination, a loving mother and a supportive state, even a boy like Albo can make good. Secondly, public housing is a plus rather than a minus, notwithstanding the evidence that public housing estates are far too often hubs for crime and drug-dealing and the employment rate among tenants is very low.
Of course, everyone has a right to bang on about their background if they want to. But the real problem for politicians is that they too often use their very narrow, individual circumstances to inform themselves about policy, ignoring wide consultation, research and the consideration of all options.
One of the most egregious examples of the tedious and irksome back story is from federal Education Minister, Jason Clare, who comes from western Sydney. He is very proud of the fact that he is the first member of his family to attend university. He undertook a double degree at the University of New South Wales in arts and law before he became an advisor to Bob Carr, Labor premier of NSW. So, well done, Jase. But what he doesnt seem to appreciate is that university is not for everyone. Many young people, including those who live in his electorate in western Sydney, would be much better served by pursuing a trade, particularly one in the construction industry. Jase is also very big on equity of access, irrespective of the record of the applicants or their capacity to pass the required subjects.
Jase commissioned the Australian Universities Accord which unsurprisingly recommended, in view of the ministers circumstances, that the participation of those aged 25 to 34 years of age in university education be lifted from the current rate of 45 per cent which seems extremely high to 55 per cent by the middle of the century. In addition, those groups currently most under-represented in higher education should increase to achieve parity across the Australian population. So much for universities being centres of excellence.
It doesnt seem to occur to our hero from western Sydney that the country will not be well served by having more graduates in Sociology, Cultural Studies or Chinese Medicine. Give us more plumbers, electricians, carpenters and brickies any day.
Its worth observing here that many jobs that now require a university degree were once done by school-leavers. This is the case, for example, in accounting and bookkeeping. There was generally a lot of training given on the job and the holders of these positions often progressed quickly. Interestingly, the accounting profession is currently considering reverting to this model, at least partially, much to the chagrin of university accounting departments.
The real message that Jase should be giving young people is that university is not for everyone and that there are great futures in a range of occupations, particularly in the trades. But this just doesnt fit with his back story.
If that anecdote doesnt make you recoil, let me recount another aspect of Jason Clares back story. Evidently, his son Jack was thrilled to learn that his parents were presenting him with a new brother named Atticus. Now, Jack is a childcare centre attendee and his response to the news was that he must tell his favourite childcare worker, Kellie, about the new arrival.
The reaction of Jase was quite heart-warming. This incident had made him appreciate the sense of community that childcare imparts as well as clearly demonstrating the benefits of childcare on children. (Sample size = 1).
Now I dont know about you, but this is not my experience of childcare. In many inner-city childcare centres, most of the staff dont really speak English. No doubt they would have nodded politely when hearing Jacks news, but thats about it. There is also a rapid turnover of staff such that, half the time, the children never get to know any of the carers.
But this is not in keeping with Jases (or Labors) political position on the topic. Parents must be highly subsidised to dump their children in childcare centres, the more hours each week the better. This is so the women can work and help the economy. But its also good for the children or so the experts tell us who refuse to accept the fact correlation does not necessarily imply causation.
The fact that the best studies around tell a completely different story is ignored. There has been close to free universal childcare in Quebec, Canada for many years. The quality of the care does vary, and all the best options are snaffled by high-income earners. (You probably get the drift of the key problem with many studies: the children of high-income earners do better in life, the children go to high-quality childcare centres. Its just a pity about the others.)
Its clear that long day care is statistically associated with a range of social problems for many of the children attending and that these problems persist into the teenage years. They include anxiety, hyperactivity and aggression. Jase might want to talk to Kellie about these findings.
Politicians really shouldnt use their (mostly uninteresting) back stories as a prime determinant of policy positions, particularly as these positions generally include spending great dollops of taxpayer dollars. File the stories in the bottom drawer and get on with using best practice means of settling on policies, including the option of leaving well enough alone.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/spare-us-the-cringeworthy-back-story/
***********************************************Gavin Newsom Does Something Conservatives May Like
The California governor signs a bill banning legacy preferences at private colleges and universities.
The Supreme Court began a new term this week, but its landmark 2023 decision on racial preferences in college admissions continues to reverberate.
Last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that bans private universities in California from favoring legacy applicants, those whose parents are alumni or whose families have donated to the school. It was Californias response to Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the ruling that outlawed preferences based on race and ethnicity. Conservatives often want progressive policies that emanate from the Golden State to stay there. This may be an exception.
The lefts rebuttal to the Harvard decision has been to push against legacy preferences at selective schools on the grounds that they amount to affirmative action for affluent white people. Thats not an unreasonable argument on its face. Granting favorable treatment to the offspring of Stanford and University of Southern California graduates would tend to benefit white applicants more than their nonwhite counterparts. And if these schools are aiming to admit the most deserving students, as they claim, why should lineage but not race give certain applicants who otherwise wouldnt qualify for admission a bump in the selection process?
Legacy admissions to the public University of California system were banned in the 1990s, and some elite private schools, including Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Amherst College in Massachusetts and Wesleyan University in Connecticut, voluntarily ended the practice. Virginia, Illinois and Colorado have proscribed it at public colleges and universities. But California now becomes only the second state after Maryland to pass a law that forbids consideration of legacy and donor status at private institutions.
Such bans at public schools are an easier call. Its hard to justify why state taxpayers should subsidize a university that chooses its students based on factors that have nothing to do with merit. Still, some might argue that legacy prohibitions at private schools are another matter, and court challenges are a possibility. Even critics acknowledge that however unfair legacy considerations may be, they dont violate the Constitution. Just as sororities, country clubs and other private groups can legally select some members and reject othersso long as they dont discriminate on unlawful groundsthe right of association protected by the First Amendment arguably allows private-school administrators to give relatives of alumni and donors a leg up.
In an opinion that accompanied an earlier Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), Justice Clarence Thomas, who is no fan of legacy preferences, nevertheless warned about comparing them to racial preferences. The Equal Protection Clause does not . . . prohibit the use of unseemly legacy preferences or many other kinds of arbitrary admissions procedures, Justice Thomas wrote. What the Equal Protection Clause does prohibit are classifications made on the basis of race. So while legacy preferences can stand under the Constitution, racial discrimination cannot.
The economist Richard Vedder, who also frowns on special treatment for the offspring of alumni and donors, has written that so much federal funding now flows to private institutionseither directly through research grants or indirectly through student loans and in other waysthat the public-private distinction no longer makes sense.
The Ivy League, for example, gets more government support per student than most so-called state universities, according to Mr. Vedder. The notion that public monies should be used to subsidize preferential treatment to less qualified [legacy] students, most of whom come from wealthy white families, is abhorrent to the American belief that anyone, regardless of wealth, race, gender or other group attribute, can with hard work rise to the top in our society.
Supporters of legacy admissions insist that schools depend on them for fundraising and recruitment, and that may be true at institutions that dont have large endowments, including historically black colleges. But most donations from alumni are for smaller amounts and out of loyalty and appreciation, not because the donor wants or expects a relative to receive special consideration. An empirical analysis of alumni philanthropy at the nations top 100 colleges over a nine-year stretch found no evidence that legacy-preference policies themselves exert an influence on giving behavior.
Many of the nations most selective schools, including all eight Ivy League institutions, still consider the legacy status of applicants. But since 2015, more than 100 colleges and universities have adopted legacy-blind policies, according to the Institute for Higher Education Policy. And in a nationwide Washington Post-Schar School survey from 2022, 75% of respondents said it was wrong for children of alumni to receive preferential treatment. Americans want public and private institutions to retire legacy admissions, and rightly so. Ideally, schools would act on their own, as some already have. Hopefully, its just a matter of time before others fall in line.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/gavin-newsom-does-something-conservatives-may-like-f3ac60dd
************************************************Soviet-style justice in the USA
Once the cops get a bee in their bonnets about you, you are in real strife
In 2019, several Hollywood notables and dozens of others were swept up in so-called Operation Varsity Blues. The FBI accused parents, college employees and their go-betweens in a bribery scheme to get nominally unqualified students admitted to top colleges.
What you might not have heard is John Wilsons story. Hes the parent who drew the most charges, but fought them. And after a grueling and expensive court battle he finally came out on top.
Wilson: What the government did to me is something that's never happened to anyone in America. And what the prosecutors did to me once they put me in their crosshairs was so outrageous that if I hadn't experienced it firsthand, I wouldn't believe it in a million years.
If Wilson was known for anything, it was as a self-made rags-to-riches success story and president of Staples, International. But his story changed drastically in March of 2019 when he returned to the U.S. from a business trip.
Wilson: I got off the plane. I'm going through the normal customs and immigration security checks. They pulled me aside, say there's something wrong with my passport. I go into a back room. And then, two FBI agents pushed me against the wall, handcuffed me, shackled me and told me I'm under arrest. I was shocked. I had no warning. This came out of the blue like a lightning bolt.
Sharyl: You ever been arrested before?
Wilson: No, I'd never been arrested in my life. I'd never even been accused of a crime in my life. I've never been in a courthouse in my entire life.
Sharyl: What'd they tell you was wrong?
Wilson: They told me I was under arrest. I said, You must have the wrong John Wilson. I said, There's 15,000 John Wilsons. I didn't do anything wrong.
Sharyl: And you had no idea this was related to college or anything at the time?
Wilson: I had no idea what it was at all. Neither did they. They couldn't tell me what it was related to. They said It's an unusual fraud charge we've never heard of. And that's all we know.
The FBI took him to a federal prison in Houston.
Sharyl: And what'd they do with you from there?
Wilson: They stripped me down, put me in this big, I dunno, common area shower room. And the guards took a couple big hoses and started hosing me down like an animal in this large public shower. And still thinking to myself, "What did I do? How could this be happening? This can't be real." And the guard says to me, "You better watch your back in here. You know, you're the only old white guy, he says, and they're gonna assume you're a pedophile and they hate pedophiles here and one of 'em is likely to try to shiv you and stab you. I was in shock. I said, What? How can that be? I asked, Can you lock me in my cell so I don't get stabbed? He says, No, no. If they lock you in your cell, they're gonna think you're a p**** and they're really gonna f*** you up. That's what he said, pardon my French, thats what he said to me. I said, Oh my god.
The next morning he learned from his brother, an attorney, why hed been locked up.
Wilson: I remember being handcuffed and shackled my feet and my hands shuffling down the hallway to this interview room where my brother was behind a plexiglass wall with another lawyer. I said, What, what is this? Whats, what's going on? And They said something to do with Singer. I said, Singer? He said, Yeah, you bribed coaches and you did some fraud. I said, What? I didn't do that! Again. I said, They must have the wrong John Wilson.
Singer was Rick Singer, considered the mastermind in the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, nicknamed after the 1999 film about small town high schoolers looking for a way out some through football scholarships.
Among the parents arrested were actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. They were accused of paying people to get their kids into top universities by bribing coaches, creating fake athletic photos, and cheating on tests. Both pleaded guilty in the case, in which 33 wealthy parents were charged.
Prosecutors claimed Wilson paid $220,000 to have his son, Johnny Wilson, recruited as a water polo athlete at the University of Southern California. And they said he spent $1 million to unfairly get his twin daughters into Harvard and Stanford.
Wilson admits he hired Singer and donated to colleges like millions of parents have done to increase odds their kids will get accepted in a fiercely competitive landscape.
But he says they were well qualified in their own right and there was no cheating, lying, or bribery. It was Wilsons financial adviser at Goldman Sachs who introduced him to Singer as a consultant who could maximize a students chances.
Sharyl: I didn't even know that industry existed. So there are people you can hire to help your kid get in a good college?
Wilson: Yes. I didn't know it existed either until the Goldman Sachs person called me up. So whenever you asked Singer a question, he knew everything about every school, every high school, every college. So he was very knowledgeable. He was doing real charity work and he was doing real tutoring work. So I trusted him.
Sharyl: And your goal was ultimately what?
Wilson: To find the right fit for my son for school. To get him as prepared as he could for his tests, to help build his profile, to be as strong as it could and to get a school that'd be a good fit for him.
Wilson says Johnny legitimately won a spot on USCs water polo team. He had impressive swim times, and a world record at age 9 as the youngest person to swim the frigid, choppy waters from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco.
The younger Wilson said on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" in 2006: "See that island over there, that is Alcatraz and I am going to swim from there all the way to shore there. It is 1.4 miles and Im a little nervous."
Wilson broke the world record, the youngest ever to make this swim.
His dad was convinced he could prove, at trial, that his childrens admissions to prestigious colleges werent due to bribery.
Prosecutors wanted him to plead guilty.
Wilson: And then they proceeded to literally every three months add on more charges. And each time they did, they said, We want you to plead guilty. If you don't, we're gonna add on more charges. And they did that again and again, four additional times. They ended up charging me with nine felonies and 180 years of prison time, all for the same act. And they said, We'll go for more. And I said, I'm not gonna plead guilty no matter how many charges you put on me. I didn't do anything wrong.
Sharyl: But the jury convicted you?
Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. They ran an unfair trial that was just outrageous.
He argues he faced a prosecutor-friendly judge who stacked the deck.
Wilson: Ill give you a couple of examples of things they blocked. My daughters perfect ACT score, and near perfect scores were inadmissible.
Sharyl: In other words, that would've shown that they deserved to get in college. Not that they were given a favor?
Wilson: Right. They earned their admissions. They were qualified on their own merits for admission, even at Harvard and Stanford. My son's certified swim times and his world record, the certified swim times proved he's one of the fastest on USCs team. They wouldn't allow his own high school coach, who's his water polo coach, who testified, to bring in his swim time.
Sharyl: When you heard what the jury found, did you think to yourself, Well, I can't blame 'em with what they heard?
Wilson: Absolutely.
Sharyl: Or were you surprised?
Wilson: No, no. We were sunk. We knew we were sunk when they blocked our evidence. I remember my lawyers even talking about this is something they've never seen before. It was so extreme. They said, The good news is you'll have a great appeals record, but now I have to spend another two years fighting for the appeal.
Sharyl: What happened on appeal?
Wilson: On appeal, we got everything overturned except for this minor tax issue. So all the court convictions were overturned and the judges said, you know, This is totally unfair.
Wilson paid a fine for the tax charge: improperly deducting USC donations. All the charges related to getting his kids into college were thrown out. The official Justice Department statement is that in May 2023, an appellate court affirmed the tax conviction and vacated and remanded the remaining counts of conviction.
But the fight isnt completely over. Today, Wilson is suing Netflix over a documentary that he says smeared him and poisoned the jury pool.
He says he sent Netflix a real photo of his son playing water polo. Yet the documentary depicted him pasting the head of his son, shown in the film as a scrawny boy, onto the body of an athlete, for a college application.
Wilson: And so he was really a water polo player at the national level. He was being recruited by other division one schools. And so we sent them pictures of that at a practice. And what Netflix used, was a kid standing in a pool in LA in the shallow end up to his waist with a water polo ball in his hand. And then they show a photographer taking a picture and then photoshopping that onto a body of a kid in the pool. They knew that was totally false and yet they used it anyway.
Wilson successfully fought back criminal charges that hed bribed to get his kids into college. But in the end, he says he lost five years of his peak career earnings potential, and spent his lifes savings more than $10 million on legal bills.
Wilson: I think for me the scariest part of this, if the government puts you in his crosshairs for whatever reason, the power and the resource they have can be devastating. They've been able to weaponize the justice system against innocent people. And they can do that with impunity. And it's frightening. And I think of all those people who have less resources than I had and how they're forced to plead guilty and how they're railroaded through an unfair process. And it's outrageous and it should never happen again. And I'm gonna do what I can to make sure that it doesn't happen again.
Netflix says its documentary never implied Wilson photoshopped his sons photo it depicted a different parent and son and was wholly accurate. A Massachusetts judge recently denied Netflix' motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative journalist and managing editor of "Full Measure." Her most recent book is "Follow the Science: How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails."
*****************************************************Australia: Landlords giving up in the face of government hostility: Victoria sees record fall in rental stock as investors leave the state
Victoria is experiencing the sharpest fall in rental stock since record keeping began in 1999, suggesting an investor sell-off is gaining pace.
The number of active rental bonds (a proxy for the number of rental properties in a market) fell from a little over 676,400 in June last year to 654,700 this year suggesting there were 21,700 fewer rentals in the market.
The state has only ever recorded two quarters of rental bond falls, and both occurred in 2024.
The speed of rental stock loss also appeared to be increasing, with the total number of rental bonds dropping 1.3 per cent in the three months to May, and 3.2 per cent in the three months to June.
The new data, released by the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, supports a trend identified in the recently-released Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA) 2024 Annual Investor Sentiment Survey.
The survey described a "sell-off of investment properties around the nation" that was "continuing unabated" and "fuelling fears of an even tighter rental market".
The outlook may be grim for investors, but home owners appeared to be benefiting, snapping up 65 per cent of the properties investors sold, according to PIPA.
First homebuyers in Melbourne have also enjoyed months of falling prices, while most of the rest of the country has experienced continued increases.
However, the survey's 1288 respondents declared Victoria to be the "least accommodating state or territory for property investors", and Victoria and Melbourne were found to have some of the highest proportions of investors selling up.
In Melbourne, roughly 22 per cent of investors surveyed had sold at least one rental in the past year, the second highest after Brisbane.
When it came to investors selling in regional areas, Victoria also had the second highest rate, with just over 9 per cent of investors selling, just below NSW, where the figure sat at just over 10 per cent.
PIPA Victoria board director Cate Bakos said legislative changes around minimum rental standards and increased land taxes were driving investors from the state.
She said real estate agents were also reporting a higher percentage of sellers being investors.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-12/victoria-sharp-fall-in-rental-stock/104464504
**************************************************10 October, 2024
Americas Cutting-Edge Weaponry Is Dependent on Chinese Tech, Experts Warn
American defense startups are far too reliant on Chinese partsand that poses a serious risk of exploitation by Beijing, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Business is booming as hundreds of defense startups have joined the growing U.S. military-industrial complex since 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal. But defense contractors are heavily dependent on China for parts for weapons systems, including motors, chips, and rare-earth minerals, which poses potential avenues for Beijing to exploit or hamper American technologies, experts said.
This is a serious problem for two reasons, said John Lee, senior defense expert at the Hudson Institute. First, as we saw during the pandemic, overreliance on Chinese supply chains for components and inputs leaves countries and economies vulnerable to politically or policy-motivated restrictions being imposed by Beijing.
Second, components can have elements inserted into them without the knowledge of the end user. This could be spying equipment, channels for China to disable or damage the component from a distance, or even materials that can weaponize the component, Lee said.
New defense contractors particularly rely on these parts because they dont enjoy the same cash reserve that the industry giants do, and China makes and sells the parts for a cheaper price.
But these startups dont want to be so reliant on China, given that the country is actively trying to undermine the U.S. and would likely be an adversary in a global war scenario, industry executives told The Wall Street Journal.
Decoupling from China-based entities proves difficult and expensive, defense startups told the Journal, though its the only option in the long term.
Theres a lot of lip-flapping about national security resilience manufacturing. But theres no money for us to do this, Scott Colosimo, CEO of defense startup LAND Energy, told the newspaper. LAND has some funding grants from the Pentagon, but needs more support to thrive, Colosimo explained.
The rare-earth minerals that China provides U.S. defense contractorsincluding neodymium, yttrium, and samariumare of particular value, given that they are essential for most high-tech military equipment, including laser and missile systems, jet engines, communications devices, and even nuclear propulsion systems.
Critical minerals are the building blocks for many of the most sensitive products in our defense industry, said Adam Savit, director of the China Policy Initiative at the America First Policy Initiative. China can abuse its dominant position in other critical mineral supply chains at any time.
The only long-term solution to this is to enact comprehensive permitting reform to approve domestic mining projects, and work with allied nations to develop new production when the U.S. lacks the relevant natural resources, he said.
Savits warning that China can upset the supply chain of rare-earth minerals also invokes a broader problem: China can cut the supply line for any of the parts needed by U.S. defense contractors, for any time or reason it chooses.
If your supply chain runs dry, you have nothing to sell, Ryan Beall, founder of drone manufacturer TILT Autonomy, told the Journal.
The Hudson Institutes Lee warned that the problem exposes the U.S. and Wests gaps in domestic supply chain capabilities for their respective defense industrial bases, which creates a vacuum that other actors such as China find ways to exploit.
China supplies more than 90% of the magnets used in motors for ships, missiles, satellites, and drones, according to the Journal. Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Rob Wittman of Virginia sent a letter to an Air Force official Sept. 25 and called the reliance on China a serious national security threat, pointing to an example in a report last year that found the Air Force increased its dependence on China for parts by 69%.
The idea to stop relying on China for resources became more popular after the COVID-19 pandemic, which created massive supply chain shortages in various sectors, including health care products. But in the defense capacity, it will take years to produce parts domestically, according to the Journal.
There has been a hollowing out of manufacturing and industrial capabilities in the West, which provides China with an enormous advantage, Lee told the Daily Caller News Foundation. In the event of a crisis against a country such as China, this will become very dangerous for the U.S. and its allies.
Unable to wait for domestic capabilities to improve and increasingly wary of buying from China, new defense contractors are turning to other alternatives for parts, according to the Journal. Sourcing components from Mexico and Southeast Asia, utilizing 3D printing, and buying parts in bulk have been some of the creative ways contractors are solving the problem.
Industry experts also expect that the U.S. government is likely to restrict some Chinese parts used by contractors in a bid to move toward domestic capabilities, according to the newspaper. Some restrictions on items used to produce cameras and radios already exist.
**************************************************Christian Mom Says She Was Blocked From Substitute Teaching Because of Her Faith
A conservative Christian mother of five who narrowly lost a contentious school board election in Virginia that involved transgender issues nonetheless decided she would apply to be a substitute teacher. After the school district ran a background check, approved her, and assigned her to a class, the school board denied her employment, and she suspects it did so for ideological and religious reasons.
I was absolutely shocked when the school board violated its own policy by taking action in closed session to strike my name from the personnel list before coming out in open session to vote, Lindsay Rich, the former candidate, told The Daily Signal on Monday.
Rich, 40, has three daughters currently in southwestern Virginias Montgomery County Public Schools in the area around Blacksburg, the city where Virginia Polytechnic and State University (commonly known as Virginia Tech) is located. Last November, she lost the Montgomery County School Board race to represent District E by a narrow margin. Derek Rountree, her former opponent, now sits on the school board.
I believe the school board members removed me [as a substitute teacher] for the same reason many attacked me during my campaign, Rich said.
During Richs campaign, a Virginia Tech official responsible for DEIdiversity, equity, and inclusionattacked her and a fellow school board candidate for supporting Model Policies on Ensuring Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for All Students championed by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican.
These policies require parental involvement in any school encouragement of a childs transgender identity and designate bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams by biological sex rather than claimed gender identity. Montgomery Countys school board previously adopted pro-transgender standards developed under Youngkins Democratic predecessor, Gov. Ralph Northam.
I support Governor Youngkins commonsense policies that base bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports on biological sexnot gender identitywhich is also tied to my religious beliefs that God created male and female, Rich told The Daily Signal.
I have sat at the last two [school board] meetings until close to midnight waiting on an explanation and will continue to do so until I get answers, Rich added in a text. I wont be pushed out of my childrens schools; they say there is room for ALL in MCPS, which includes conservative Christians like me.
Lindsay Richs Approval
Rich said she took a training course Sept. 11 and received an assignment to teach Sept. 19. She forwarded emails to The Daily Signal showing that Montgomery County Public Schools had given her access to the online portal and had put her on the schedule to teach.
On Sept. 11, after Rich had taken the substitute teacher training, Dawn LaPuasa, MCPS supervisor of personnel, sent an email to Superintendent Bernard Bragen with a list of substitute teachers for the school board to approve. The list, intended for a Sept. 17 board meeting, gave Rich and the other substitutes an effective date that coincided with their training.
Yet on Sept. 17, the school board approved a list of substitute teachers that did not include Richs name.
09.17.2024. Personnel Report Total 5 pagesDownload
Rich and her supporters say that the school board altered the list during a closed session to discuss personnel, part of the board meeting that is not public.Daniel Rich, the would-be substitute teachers husband, filed a request for information under Virginias Freedom of Information Act and obtained an email that shows Bragen, the superintendent of schools, took a personal interest in Richs employment.
On Sunday, Sept. 15, two days before the meeting, Bragen reached out to Amanda Weidner, director of human resources at MCPS.
Is the Lindsay Rich on the personnel agenda for a substitute the same person who ran for the school board? Bragen asked. Weidner confirmed that it was indeed her.
Lets review it tomorrow, Bragen responded. That is presenting a problem that we may need the attorney to discuss.
*************************************************Postponing This Partisan Lecture Isnt Enough
Radical political historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat was scheduled to speak at the U.S. Naval Academy on Oct. 10 as part of the Bancroft Lecture series, but according to a recent article from The Federalist, this lecture has been postponed.
In September, Ben-Ghiat announced that she would be speaking at the Naval Academy in a Substack post, yet in the same announcement she connected her topic of lecture, that of militaries under authoritarian rule, with former President Donald Trump and what she proclaims to be his authoritarian character.
Ben-Ghiat, in the same post, also suggested a voting preference, stating that several people, notable to the military audience she intended to reach, will be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
It is troubling that the Naval Academy invited an explicit partisan to lecture future military officers at an authorized event on federal property, especially since Ben-Ghiat has deliberately denounced a current presidential nominee as an authoritarian akin to Fascist Italy, Pinochets Chile, and the Russian military during the war on Ukraine.
It is even more troubling that the only reason this lecture is publicly known is through Ben-Ghiats Substack post announcing her partisan intent. The Naval Academy never publicized this event, despite having recently publicized a Forrestal Lecture in which the speaker talked about the far more appropriate topic of command leadership.
The concern over this Bancroft Lecture was publicized in a recent Daily Signal article. Since then, the Naval Academy has apparently postponed Ben-Ghiats lecture. Nonetheless, concerns still remain. There has been no official statement from Naval Academy leadership disclosing the status of the lecture, nothing to explain the logic for hosting an event of this political nature in the first place, and no remorse over the apparent politicization of the institution.
The Defense Departments Directive 1344.10 explicitly states that service members shall not engage in partisan political activity. With such proximity to an important election, it appears that the Naval Academy, by inviting a radical anti-Trump speaker, has been acting in a political fashion. It calls into question whether academy leadership violated the Defense Departments directive.
The Naval Academy ought to publicly explain itself, or else it will have missed the point entirely. The point is not that the lecturer is an extreme partisan, or that due to optics the lecture ought not to occur. The point is also not that leadership should simply postpone a lecture as soon as it receives heat from the public eye.
The point is that this is one instance of what could be a very dangerous broader trend.
The Naval Academy should take note of the articles publicizing exactly what is wrong, the letters from members of Congress urging leadership to take a look, and Ben-Ghiats expressly political language in describing a nominee for the next commander in chief. These should all serve as warning signs calling for more institutional vigilance, procedural compliance, and integrity.
The lack of remorse, the denial of responsibility, and the absence of any acknowledgment of an internal review show a lack of accountability. They show a dangerous sense of complacency and a complete misunderstanding of what the Naval Academy ought to bean apolitical, nonpartisan military institution.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/09/postponing-partisan-lecture-isnt-enough/
*******************************************************Secret to long and healthy life more down to genes than diet research
It is widely believed that eating fewer calories can lengthen life, with some studies suggesting cutting intake by as much as 25% can slow down ageing by up to 3%.
But new research on mice suggests genes may play a greater role in living longer than simply reducing food intake.
Scientists say this may be because these genes, which are yet to be identified, can make bodies more robust and stay resilient in the face of adversity.
The team found that mice that lived the longest were also the ones that lost the least weight while consuming less food, suggesting fasting helps some live longer but not others.
The team said further research is needed to explore whether restrictive diets such as intermittent fasting an eating plan that alternates between periods of eating and fasting and calorie restriction, which involves reducing the amount of calories consumed while still getting enough nutrients, can extend lifespan in humans.
They also added the findings could have implications on how diet studies are conducted on humans.
Gary Churchill, a professor at The Jackson Laboratory in the US, said: Our study really points to the importance of resilience.
The most robust animals keep their weight on even in the face of stress and caloric restriction, and they are the ones that live the longest.
It also suggests that a more moderate level of calorie restriction might be the way to balance long-term health and lifespan.
For the study, the researchers investigated the effects of intermittent fasting and calorie restriction on nearly 1,000 female mice.
The scientists said each mouse was selected to be genetically distinct, which allowed the team to better represent the genetic diversity of the human population and made the study one of the most significant investigations into ageing and lifespan to date.
The mice were randomly assigned to one of five different diets.
The first group was allowed to freely eat any food at any time, while in the second and third groups, the animals were provided with only 60% or 80% of their baseline calories each day.
In the final two groups, the mice were not given any food for either one or two consecutive days each week but could eat as much as they wanted on the other days.
The creatures were studied for the rest of their lives with regular blood tests looking at health markers such as body weight, body fat percentages, blood sugar levels and body temperature.
The team found that mice on unrestricted diets lived for an average of 25 months, those on the intermittent fasting diets lived for an average of 28 months, those eating 80% of baseline lived for an average of 30 months, and those eating 60% of baseline lived for 34 months.
They found animals that lost the most weight were likely to have low energy, compromised immune and reproductive systems, and shorter lives.
See AlsoTampa City Council - meeting transcription detailThe 50 best pubs in BratislavaCBS Los Angeles - Breaking Local News, Weather & InvestigationsAnd mice that naturally maintained their body weight, body fat percentage and immune cell health during low food intake were found to survive the longest.
But the researchers said that within each group, they found the range of lifespans varied widely.
The team said that in the group where mice ate the fewest calories, the creatures had lifespans ranging from a few months to four and a half years.
Analysing data to try to explain this wide range, the researchers said they found genetic factors had a far greater impact on lifespan than diets.
They said this highlights how genes play a major role in how these diets would affect an individual persons health trajectory.
Prof Churchill said: If you want to live a long time, there are things you can control within your lifetime such as diet, but really what you want is a very old grandmother.
He added: While caloric restriction is generally good for lifespan, our data show that losing weight on caloric restriction is actually bad for lifespan.
So when we look at human trials of longevity drugs and see that people are losing weight and have better metabolic profiles, it turns out that might not be a good marker of their future lifespan at all.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/churchill-b2626567.html
**************************************************9 October, 2024
Throw the term gender in the dustbin of history
People of a certain age will remember a time when the word sex meant men and women and ipso facto their generalised sexed behaviour. This was the norm. A man or woman could simply look around and the truth of the term sex, both biologically and in relation to personality, was evident through observation. Sex-based personality manifested itself, from leisure to work, across the spectrum of human behaviour. For example, the heavy, dirty, dangerous jobs were done by men, while women, in contrast, were over-represented in the teaching, nursing, librarian, and secretarial professions. It was considered a given that the fashion and beauty industries, for example, were overwhelmingly patronised by women, or that men liked messing around with motorbikes and cars. Women, to point to another obvious truth, were better at looking after children. Even little boys, (those entitled patriarchs in waiting, according to feminists), if given a choice, ran to their mothers instead of their fathers for comfort. (None of this has changed.)
Then suddenly and mysteriously the word gender became synonymous with sex. Sex and gender, on this view, were words that described the same phenomenon the biological sex and the sex-based behaviour of women and men. A few years later, the term gender had entirely supplanted the term sex, except, by now, the biological basis for sex-based behaviour was removed and gender was defined by feminists, either negatively, as a socially constructed imposition, or positively, as a choice or as an identity. Biology, in other words, was entirely expunged from the equation and the genetic underpinnings of personality were forgotten.
Why is this important, gender identity adherents say, theyre just words? It matters because within the liberal-democratic West, ideologues are introducing hate speech legislation that will curtail speech, and impel people, under the threat of losing their livelihoods, their reputations, and their freedom, to affirm ideas with which they disagree. And the entire virtue-signalling, follow-the-leader, yes-we-are-all-individuals-midwit circus is based on a chimera at best and a lie at worst. Gender does not exist. There is biological sex and there is sex-based behaviour, and thats the complete alpha and omega of how men and women behave. Determining how many angels dance on the head of a pin is a fatuous question. And so is any attempt to count the number of genders conjured into pseudo-reality by Woke fools.
How did we arrive at the strange situation where gender nonsense became normalised? There are many strands to the story, but the ultimate cause rests with philosophers in this case, the existentialists.
Existentialism is a philosophical school that is difficult to define, because most of the thinkers grouped under the umbrella term existentialism never heard of the name and disavowed membership of any philosophical tradition. The two most influential and original of the existentialists, Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, believed that the core of being human is primarily determined by choice. Nietzsche said become who you are, while Heidegger claimed we are thrown into a world and we have to stand against the man or the they to become, echoing Nietzsche, our authentic selves. Both believed that only a small percentage of the population were capable of this endeavour.
Into this mix stepped two second-rate philosophers, Jean-Paul Sartre, whose main work Heidegger described as dreck dirt, to be exact and his lover, the even-more second-rate Simone de Beauvoir. It was the latter who, after putting a feminist spin on Sartres bad reading of Heidegger, said one is not born, but becomes a woman. This was the moment when the idea, which had been known for millennia, that men and women are different physically, psychologically, and biologically was overthrown in a feminist attempt to reject material survival and biology as the primary reasons why sex roles have existed. Gender as an idea was reified from an intellectual concept into a concrete reality.
In other words, gender was created, sex was negated, and biology, that bête noir of feminists, was rejected as harmful. Ideology, through this lens, determined reality rather than the other way around. This was the beginning of a new world, the world we still inhabit, the feminist wonderland, where material reality can be negated by cancelling the sin of essentialism, in other words, logic, or, more likely, as can be gleaned by reading a newspaper or watching a movie, the unrelenting sweep of feminist propaganda.
Unfortunately for gender ideologues, though, their most hated enemy, biology, is proving what those of us not blinded by ideology already know, that men and women are different, not equal or unequal, but complementary.
Every human characteristic can be accurately depicted on a bell curve. Whether its intelligence, sporting prowess, physical strength, musical ability, beauty, cooking skills, Morris dancing, or even which demographic is most likely to love Taylor Swift.
In the middle of the bell curve are people who are average nondescript dancers or guitar players, for example, or people who are neither beautiful nor ugly, tall or short, intelligent or stupid, etc. At the extremes, to the right and left of the curve, though, are those who are outside the norm in some way. Not necessarily better or worse, just different.
Its the same in relation to sex-based behaviour. People outside the mainstream, on the tails of the bell curve, are not a different gender, theyre just unusual in their personalities, tendencies, and proclivities. But they are still definitively men and women. Long may they celebrate, but not impose, their difference on society. People, consequently, who live in a liberal democracy, shouldnt be either punished or indulged because of their innate sex-based biological characteristics, eccentricities or personalities.
Its time to put the term gender in the lexicon of discredited ideologies. Refuse to use the word gender. Form a movement which only uses the word sex to describe the realities of being male and female.
This simple move will make the world a better place, especially for women, who will, once again, have rights based on biological sex. Children, too, will not be mutilated in the cause of an anti-human cult.
Throw the term gender, like every nonsensical ideological term, in the dustbin of history where it belongs.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/throw-the-term-gender-in-the-dustbin-of-history/
********************************************British schools are ideologically CAPTURED
Last week, I was contacted by a grandfather of a child at Cranbrook School in Devon. While his grandchild attends secondary school, Cranbrook also has a primary school, as well as nursery and pre-school.
He told me that he was deeply concerned that children at Cranbrook were being poisoned with toxic gender ideology.
I took a look.
Immediately, red flags appeared.
The Head of Year 7 for children as young as 11 years oldis Oliver Russell.
Far from focussing on educating his students in Maths or English, Russell appears keen to educate them in the world of radical gender ideology.
For you see, Russell identifies as non-binary and wants his students to know all about it. Sporting his full beard, he wears dresses and high heels in the classroom.
In official school communications, he signs off as Mx (mux) Russell and expects students to address him as such.
Whether Russell is playing out some sort of fetish or whether he is suffering from a mental health condition, the outcome is the exact same forcing young, impressionable children to affirm his delusions.
Particularly concerning is the fact that, every Tuesday, during lunchbreak, Russell runs a Rainbow Club for LGBTQIA+ students.
There appears to be no transparency whatsoever for parents regarding what is taking place during in these sessions. This is a form of ideological grooming.
Maybe these are just the actions of one rogue teacher? Think again.
The school itself has applied for a Rainbow Flag Award to demonstrate its commitment to the LGBT community.
The school curriculum teaches children about gender identity and transphobia, including getting kids to draw a big queer map of Devon.
Im told that teachers have gender pronouns on the outside of their office doors. And the school even disregards sex-based school uniforms altogether, allowing male pupils to wear female uniforms and vice versa.
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The consequences of such ideological indoctrination are plain to see.It is well documented that young people, particularly girls, can fall prey to forms of social contagion as regards mental ill-health. Historically, this has been witnessed in relation to self-harm and eating disorders. In more recent years, we have seen this take place with regard to children suddenly believing themselves to be trans.
I often hear stories from parents in which multiple students particularly girls within a single class are coming out as trans within weeks of one another.
In one study, over 66% of young people questioning their gender belonged to a friendship group in which one or more of their friends had recently come out as trans.
Is this any wonder, when the adults who we are supposed to trust with our childrens wellbeing and education are shoving this ideology down their throats on a daily basis?
I wish I could say that Cranbrook are the only perpetrators. But they are not.
Here are just a few of the most egregious examples of ideological indoctrination that I have come across:
St Judes, a Church of England primary school in Southwark, has what it calls its wider curriculum, which involves forcing inclusion, liberation and pride into other subjects. For example, in History, children will be taught about the history and meaning of the rainbow flag.
In computing, children are instructed on the spread of fake news and stereotypes relating to LGBT+ people. In art, children are even expected to study LGBT+ performance art and fashion, including drag queens and kings. This can only be described as sneaking nefarious ideologies in through the back door.
Daubney Primary School in Hackney instructs their very young students to pose with pride flags and posters, before posting the photographs online. In one recent photograph, a young boy can even be seen holding a sign that reads I cant even think straight (which is something you might expect to see on a stag or hen party but not in a classroom for primary school children).
This can only be described as sexualising children. When I called them out over social media, their Headmaster blocked me, before subsequently deleting their entire account. So much for transparency.
At Daubneys sister school, Lauriston Primary School, children as young as five years old are asked by teachers to draw asexual, polysexual and non binary flags, before displaying them proudly on the walls. On what planet is it acceptable for such young children to be sexualised in this manner? Seriously?
Or take Westmeads Community Infant School in Kent. During Pride Month, their students who are as young as four years old were expected to spend their days surrounded by the Pride Flags plastered all over the railings to their playground.
Schools, remember, have a duty to be ideologically neutral. This is anything but. The only flag that should be flying from schools is the Union Jack. Once again, when I dared to call the school out and demand an explanation, I was blocked by them.
Dame Elizabeth Cadbury School in Birmingham teaches its students that some people dont feel that they are themselves in their own bodies and feel that they cant be happy as they are. These people can have a sex change. Is it any wonder that children have gone down pathways of irreversible medical harm when they have been promised a silver bullet in the form of sex-reassignment to make them feel happy again?
Im afraid to say this only scratches the surface.
Where does the blame lie? Predominantly with the schools themselves, as they are choosing to inflict this upon their pupils.
Whether they do it because they genuinely think its the right thing to do, or to virtue signal, or because they are fearful of pushback if they dont, I couldnt care less, because the outcome is exactly the same the emotional abuse and indoctrination of vulnerable children.
And all this has been allowed to happen under the watch of successive governments.
In the last Conservative government, we had, as our Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan, who I dubbed the Minister for Indoctrination.
The fact she did nothing to stop this is perhaps unsurprising, given that she previously unequivocally declared that transwomen are women.
Whats worse, when she was grilled by the Department for Education Select Committee on this very issue, she was extremely dismissive.
And now, clearly, we little hope of things improving under the Labour government.
In fact, things will likely get worse.
Our Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has worse knowledge of human biology than GCSE students, having previously claimed that 1 in 1000 women have a penis.
As Ive previously written, Labour simply cannot be trusted on sex and gender, with many of their Cabinet posts now held by fervent ideologues.
Parents should be able to entrust their children to a school, safe in the knowledge that their sons and daughters will not be subject to political or ideological indoctrination.
Any schools that sexualise or indoctrinate children in the manners described above should be shut down altogether.
To parents out there - you have every right to interrogate your childs school on what your children are being taught and exposed to and also what external agencies or companies are being brought in to promote some of these ideas.
Its not common, for example, for schools to bring in very radical campaign groups who push radical gender ideology as though it is established fact when, in reality, it is a highly contested academic theory that, as the recent Cass Review underlined, lacks sufficient evidence and data in the scientific literature.
If you come across material that concerns you, consider complaining. There are many organisations out there that will help you to do this, including the Safe Schools Alliance, Sex Matters and Protect and Teach. In short, you are not alone.
To everyone else we must continue to hold the governments feet to the fire on this issue, as well as the schools that are often losing sight of the law, if not breaking it.
And I know that I for one will keep pushing and exposing this issue until everybody in Westminster and the country wake up to the reality of what is now taking place in schools and being imposed on our children before its too late.
https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/our-schools-are-ideologically-captured
*********************************************Transparency at State Universities
As state universities are partially financed with taxpayer money, one would hope that they have higher requirements for transparency than corporations. However, that is not the case at all.
Could corporations get away with having policies that require employees to hide any wrongdoing from their customers? I think not, but it seems that state universities can and do so when they want to. Could corporations get away with allowing their managers to tell employees that they cannot complain to senior management about manager misbehavior or inform other employees about such misbehavior? I hope not, but state universities do. Sometimes, universities are not even afraid to do this in writing, which provides clear evidence of such behavior.
Problems at state universities are common and are becoming worse, as the Prussian education systemthe current education system in the United Statesrewards bad behavior. (For a more detailed description of this education system, see my other articles: Why Are American Taxpayers Forced to Subsidize and Support the Prussian Education System?, The Inherent Flaws of the Prussian Education System, and What Has Happened to Our Great Universities?)
Some transparency problems at Illinois State University (ISU)where I am a tenured professorare especially easy to see. Thus, they provide good examples to help understand these issues.
First, a few years ago, I got an e-mail from our new department head saying that I should not e-mail the dean. This was a response to my polite e-mail to the deancopying the department headasking if he could help mitigate the consequences of poor class scheduling, considering our department head had very little administrative experience at the time. One of my classes was scheduled in such a way as to maximize the probability of it being cancelled. (For more details about this experience, see my earlier article: Is American Education a Fraud?)
I viewed the e-mail from the department head to be just as inappropriate as his scheduling of classes, and forwarded the e-mail to the dean. Given the clear evidence of inappropriate behavior, I expected such behavior to stop, but I was wrong. Forwarding any complaints to the provosts office also did not lead to any positive results.
Later, as the problems in our department continued, I e-mailed the whole department about them. I wanted to inform the people working in the department and to give them a chance to respond in case I missed something important before I published articles about these problems at ISU. In addition to Is American Education a Fraud?, I also published How Some Universities Are Destroying Education: Increasing Opportunities for Students to Take Classes in Any Order and Incentives for Choosing Faculty in State Universities: How Some State Universities Are Destroying Themselves, which discussed problems at ISU.
The response to emailing the department was in my annual evaluations. The department head described informing faculty as not being collegial behavior. He claimed that I should discuss this with the Ombudsperson Council of Illinois State University instead. Before this suggestion, I had already talked with members of this council and found the conversation useful. However, they also explained to me that they had no power to implement or require any changes in the department. Thus, the department head wanted me to discuss these problems only with people who could not do anything about them.
One semester, I e-mailed the link to my article Is American Education a Fraud? to my students to help them understand that they needed to study if they wanted to pass my class. Simply telling students that they need to study does not work with a large percent of students. I did not expect the article to convince all students but, if it would convince a few, I thought it was worth trying. Moreover, I taught finance classes, and the article provided a good example of what happens when institutions (e.g., state universities) are not subject to the discipline of free financial markets.
I was told by the ISU administrationstarting with the department headthat I violated university rules by e-mailing the link to students and that I could not do that again. The university has a rule that professors should not criticize their colleagues in front of students.
I think this is a strange rule. Science often advances by criticizing ones colleagues. However, universities can write their own rules and adopt them by having the whole faculty or faculty committees under the guidance of administrators vote for those rules. My repeated requests for clarification about what exactly they did not like about my article were not answered.
As I recently learned, administrators have significant power to cause problems for faculty, and they use that power when they want to. There were problems with scheduling my classes every semester since the semester described in Is American Education a Fraud? Thus, when it comes to committee voting, under the guidance sometimes means under pressure from administrators. Moreover, the administration has significant control over hiring and retaining the facultythus, to some extent, they choose who votes. Given such freedom for abuse, it is not surprising that state universities adopt rules that reduce transparency and create even more opportunities for abuse.
At first, I was surprised that such things could happen in the United States. However, if I would have known the history of the current education system, which I learned only recently, I would not have been surprised. The current education system in the United States is not the same as the system from the countrys founding. The old system was much closer to the free-market system.
Unfortunately, the United States (like other countries) adopted the Prussian education system and created legal restrictions for the older U.S. system. Most communists, fascists, and other intellectual descendants of the new Prussians who created this education system were never punished for the crimes they committed, and many of them immigrated to the United States. Some of them came as university professors and administrators. As university degrees could be granted only by those who already had those degrees, the United States imported professors from abroad, giving them control over education here.
Transparency and other problems in state universities are not just problems for those who work or study there. These problems affect everybody, as universities prepare teachers and government experts who keep increasing their interference in our lives. Moreover, even so-called private universities currently have similar problems, as they are not fully private institutions. Rather, they are a part of the same Prussian education system, receive direct or indirect financing from government, and function in the same legal and regulatory system that distorts incentives.
It should not be surprising that spending more taxpayer money on education is not working. That money is just entrenching the Prussian system and making it harder for the private sector to develop and compete. Neither transparency nor other problems with the Prussian education system can be solved by government support of this system. Government does not need to get more involved with education. It needs to leave this industry to the truly private sector and the full discipline of free markets.
https://heartland.org/opinion/transparency-at-state-universities/
********************************************Professional protester: NSW Premier hits out at Marxist serial activist
Police could soon have the power to reject protests that stretch over months, as a clearly frustrated NSW Premier Chris Minns decried the more than $5m spent on controlling pro-Palestine rallies and attacked the leader of the protest movement as a professional demonstrator.
The move came after hundreds of police were deployed at rallies and vigils in Sydney on Sunday and Monday on the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas atrocities in Israel.
The protests were largely peaceful after police issued strong warnings not to bring the flag of the Hezbollah terrorist group, but two men were arrested for displaying swastikas superimposed on the Israeli flag.
The cost is huge so Im going to have a review into the resourcing that police put into these marches, and its my view that police should be able to deny a request for a march due to stretched police resourcing, he said.
Police were burnt out and tired, he added, and other important work had had to be sidelined.
I think taxpayers should be in a position to say we would prefer that money spent on roadside breath testing, domestic violence investigations, knife crimes, rather than the huge resources thats going into the city and the community.
Our resources are being stretched; it costs millions of dollars to police and marshal these protests and its completely reasonable for the police to take that into consideration when Form 1 applications are lodged with the courts, Mr Minns said.
Ultimately, this is a huge drain on the public purse.
The Premier hit out at Josh Lees, a leading member of the Palestine Action Group who has lodged weekly applications for the past year to march in Sydney since the October 7 Hamas atrocities in Israel, agreeing with the description of the activist as a professional protester.
Mr Lees writes for Red Flag, the outlet of Socialist Alternative, which declares itself Australias largest Marxist group, and regularly calls for the overthrow of capitalism.
He was also a leader of the Lockdown to Zero movement, demanding that the then- Berejiklian government maintain strict Covid-19 lockdowns and branding the loosening of restrictions as an offensive against the working class by the rich and powerful.
Mr Lees has also been spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, organising protests at the 2011 ALP National Conference against then-prime minister Julia Gillards asylum-seeker policies.
The former University of Sydney tutor was arrested during the Occupy Sydney movement that camped outside the Reserve Bank in Martin Place in 2011, clashing with police during a Hyde Park rally and at the Martin Place encampment.
After police broke up the protest, Mr Lees claimed police brutality. I woke to see about 200 riot police surrounding our protest camp physically removing people, using painful wrist-locks, and occasionally throwing punches, one of which left a protester in front of me bleeding, he said. Charges against Mr Lees and other protesters were later dropped.
Mr Minns emphasised he was not seeking changes that would affect union protests or industrial disputes, but police should be in a position to deny repeat applications for marches through Sydney if they didnt have the resources to deal with it.
If you were putting on a rock concert on the weekend, you would have to pay NSW police to keep the public safe this all comes from NSW taxpayers back pockets.
NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman called on Mr Minns to immediately implement a user-pays system for serial protesters, with a general rule against authorisation if organisers of repeat protests failed to meet the costs.
**************************************************8 October, 2024
UN expert: ‘males must not compete in female sports’ to prevent abuse and injury
Female sport categories should be exclusively accessible to biological females, with men who identify as trans women to compete in an open or male category, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls has found.
The United Nations General Assembly in New York will formally receive the explosive report on Tuesday which demands sports organisations – from the International Olympic Committee to grassroots organised events – “ensure that female categories in organised sport are exclusively accessible to persons whose biological sex is female”.
The UN special rapporteur Reem Alsalem has slapped down both the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic – witnessed recently in Paris – of allowing biological males and competitors with XY chromosomes to compete against females.
Imane Khelif and Lin-Yu-Ting both won Paris Olympic boxing gold medals despite being banned by the International Boxing Federation for having XY chromosomes. In the Paralympics the biologically male Italian runner Valentina Petrillo was allowed to compete in the women’s T12 400m and 200m.
The issue of biological males in female spaces and accumulating female records through self-identification has accelerated in recent years, even filtering down to silent protests about the by concerned females during the Saturday morning community event Park Run.
Ms Alsalem writes in her 24 page report that “in cases where the sex of an athlete is unknown or uncertain, a dignified, swift, non-invasive and accurate sex screening method (such as a cheek swab) or, where necessary for exceptional reasons, genetic testing should be applied to confirm the athlete’s sex.”
She says those competitors who do not wish to compete in the category of their biological sex can participate in sport through the creation of open categories where sports convert the male category into an open category.
Ms Alsalem said there was in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals, when competing against males.
“According to information received, by 30 March 2024, over 600 female athletes in more than 400 competitions have lost more than 890 medals in 29 different sports,’’ she said.
Of utmost concern, Ms Alsalem’s report has found that females have been put at increased risk of sexual harassment, assault, voyeurism and physical and sexual attacks in unisex locker rooms and toilets where sports have removed single sex spaces.
She said the insistence on maintaining female-only spaces, along with safeguarding and risk management protocols, arises from empirical evidence demonstrating that sex offenders tend to be male and that persistent sex offenders go to great lengths to gain access to those they wish to abuse.
She also found that female athletes are also more vulnerable to sustaining serious physical injuries when female-only sports spaces are opened to males, citing examples in volleyball, basketball and soccer including instances of adult males playing in teams of underage girls resulting in concussions broken legs and skull fractures.
According to scientific studies, males have certain performance advantages in sports, she wrote. One study asserts that, even in non-elite sport, “the least powerful man produced more power than the most powerful woman” and states that, where men and women have roughly the same levels of fitness, males’ average punching power has been measured as 162 per cent greater than females.
She found that even where sports federations mandate testosterone suppression it doesn’t eliminate the comparative performance advantages biological males have already acquired and the testosterone levels are at best “not evidence-based, arbitrary and asymmetrically favour males”.
“To avoid the loss of a fair opportunity, males must not compete in the female categories of sport,’’ she wrote.
Further in the report Ms Alsalam notes that women and girls in sports are rarely consulted on the sex-separation issue and they have faced negative repercussions when reclaiming their right to single-sex sport, “in efforts to silence them”.
Australia, along with Canada, is considered an outlier in the protection of women’s spaces, but the country was mentioned in the report for encouraging bystanders to prevent sexual assaults and Gymnastic Australia’s apology to athletes and families who had experienced abuse.
Ms Alsalam refers to various legal mechanisms underpinning her report: Articles 2 and 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; article 2 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, article 1 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Articles 1 and 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, Article 3 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
She also stressed that under international human rights law, differential treatment on prohibited grounds may not be discriminatory if it is based on reasonable and objective criteria; it pursues a legitimate aim its effects are appropriate and proportional to the legitimate aim pursued and it is the least intrusive option to achieve the intended result. “Maintaining separate-sex sports is a proportional action that corresponds to legitimate aims within the meaning of article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and does not automatically result in the exclusion of transgender persons from sports, nor does it require invasive sex screenings,’’ she wrote.
“When combined with other measures, such as open categories, fairness in sports can be maintained while ensuring the ability of all to participate – a course of action followed by several professional sports associations.”
*************************************************Monopolies in the labour market
See Saw Margery Daw,
Jacky shall have a new master;
Jacky shall earn but a penny a day,
Because he can’t work any faster.
The first reference to this rhyme is 1640. It describes an iron law that payment must be related to productivity. This is inevitably so for the economy as a whole, and is even conceded by many of the politicians and IR experts who foster legal machinery to boost workers’ earnings above those that would emerge in a competitive market.
The case rests on ‘market failure’.
The term is bandied about regularly by those who see imperfect outcomes and those who want to change the benefits different parties obtain from market transactions. But this fails to recognise the ‘government failures’ that emerge from alternative approaches.
In fact, labour market failure only truly occurs when there is a form of monopoly in place. Given the hundreds of thousands of different hirers and millions of workers there are very few areas of natural monopoly. These are confined to the labour supply where workers with highly specific skills or talents like rock stars, pipeline welders, and IT systems engineers, (all of whom generally command high remuneration levels). There are however areas where monopolies can be fashioned by preventing market entry, but this requires government policy or acquiescence.
The most notorious area of effective monopoly restraint is in building and construction where violence is used to prevent non-unionised workers offering their services and standover tactics are used against employers who seek to break the union-imposed monopoly. The elevated level of wages and other costs creates a 30 per cent cost premium, a premium that is absent from the non-unionised house building sector.
Under Australia’s IR system, thousands of ‘awards’ determine the remuneration of about 20 per cent of employees (30 years ago it was 80 per cent); registered collective agreements set the wages for a further 40 per cent with individual agreements covering the remaining 40 per cent. Although the average employee earns about a third more than the Award rates, in many areas the Award is the paid rate.
Political attention has focused on different payments for the same job. A union campaign pointed to some airline cabin staff doing the same job on the same plane as others but earning only half as much. Senator Roberts cited mining workers getting paid a $40,000-a-year difference depending on whether they were employed directly or through labour hire. Describing this as ‘wage theft’, he introduced the Fair Work Amendment in 2022 to bring labour hire workers pay levels to the same or greater than directly employed workers. His objective was to overcome ‘a failure of balanced market power’.
These are among countless other examples of apparently anomalous wage outcomes but in all cases the parties involved accepted the contracts willingly. Criticism is targeted at the employer paying some workers less than others – in no cases is there a suggestion that the higher earners are ripping off the employer!
The firm doing the hiring will seek to minimise its outlays. If it is cheaper to do so through contractors that will be the preferred route. In practice, most firms would want a balance between ‘permanent’ employees and workers hired under more flexible contracts. If the contractors do not obtain a premium wage to compensate for losing out on holiday pay loadings and other benefits this means the ‘permanent’ employees’ wages have been pushed above their market rate. Naturally, the workers getting lower remuneration will be envious of their more fortunate fellow workers
The government has now passed the two ‘Closing Loopholes’ Acts. Central to them is ‘same job, same pay’ for labour hire workers and enhanced workplace delegate rights including rights over prospective union members. Yielding to pressures, Qantas is levelling up its different wage settings at a reported annual cost to profits of $60 million.
Aside from loading the dice against employers, the Act introduces additional costs of complexity. In this respect, Freehills quips, ‘Make friends with a good IR lawyer – you will need them.’ The additional costs bring no corresponding economy-wide benefits.
And the ACTU is moving to its next agenda item: scrapping youth wages, illustrating a mindset that the level of wages has no effect on employment levels and no relationship to the productivity of those receiving them.
As the Closing Loopholes Act cannot conceivably have a positive effect on productivity, its goal of re-weighing the labour market outcomes can only be brought about by lowering profits. To the extent that this is successful, it would mean lower new investment levels and further reducing productivity.
For the ALP politicians and the unions, the key issue is to reverse the decline in union membership – down to about 8 per cent in the private sector – by forcing a de facto unionisation of the gig/contractor workforce. Union funding of the ALP, directly and indirectly, gives it a commanding advantage in terms of electoral marketing and one that is being eroded.
Labor’s IR policy adds to other productivity-suppressing economic policies put in place to foster support amongst sections of the economy. These include weaponising environmental regulations to prevent new mining, (while emasculating environmental protections in the case of wind and solar energy); subsidising wind, solar and green hydrogen; and squeezing irrigators’ water availability. The early outcome has been six quarters of declining national productivity.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/monopolies-in-the-labour-market/
*********************************************Biden-Harris Admin Raids FEMA Funds to Resettle Illegal Aliens
Federal spending is hard enough to keep track of at the best of times, but the Biden-Harris administration is highly adept at hiding how it funds its open-borders agenda.
In a cynical budget negotiation tactic, the White House is trying to push through a $40 billion “supplemental” funding bill that holds bailout money for the Federal Emergency Management Agency hostage to sending billions more to Ukraine with insufficient accountability.
It gets worse. If the White House tactic works, and Congress coughs up enough aid to Ukraine that rescue money for FEMA can get through, hundreds of millions of that funding won’t go to disaster-afflicted Americans.
Instead it will go to providing housing, food, health care, and transportation for illegal immigrants through grants to activist nongovernment organizations and “sanctuary” cities.
That’s right. Even though FEMA grants are meant to help taxpaying Americans prepare for and cope with hurricanes, fires, and floods, the Biden-Harris administration has used these same funds to pay activist NGOs to settle migrants illegally in the United States.
FEMA’s major disaster relief and flood insurance programs are already in debt and need to be refilled each year. The White House’s supplemental request uses that as a smokescreen to slip in grant money for their open-border operation.
FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program is already being siphoned for over $332 million “to assist communities receiving noncitizens released from custody,” which means housing migrants here illegally at the border, then transporting them to places such as New York City.
New York has been promised $104 million from this pot, though at a burn rate of $8 million a day, it won’t last long. Big city mayors gripe about a few buses carrying illegal aliens sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, but the main train delivering migrants to their sidewalks is driven by the Department of Homeland Security, using FEMA money.
And the Biden-Harris administration is getting even more brazen. FEMA grant money, unlike its Disaster Relief and Flood Insurance programs, doesn’t require the president to declare a federal disaster—which would at least highlight the self-defeating results of his policies.
So it should come as no surprise that DHS, in its fiscal 2024 budget, already asked for a directly appropriated $83.5 million for FEMA Shelter and Services Program grants to “nonprofits and local entities to provide support to noncitizens released from DHS custody.”
Furthermore, the Department of Homeland Security asked for $800 million—$650 million more than the year before—“for communities to support migrants who have been released from DHS custody pending the outcome of their immigration proceedings.”
Bear in mind that with the asylum system backlogged as never before, this outcome would be far in the future in most cases. The money would come from a $4 billion “Southwest Border Contingency” fund in DHS’ proposed fiscal 2024 budget.
In plain English, this means that having created a giant magnet for illegal immigration, the Biden-Harris administration wants to continue to burn your tax dollars to sustain hundreds of thousands of people who entered the U.S. illegally, for an indefinite period. To be clear, not only did these people have no right to enter the country, but they stand little chance of getting asylum even after a due process lasting many years.
Naturally, Biden faces resistance in Congress. Republicans have seen DHS use appropriated money to facilitate mass illegal entry over the past two years, and they are wise to the White House’s attempt to ramp this up in the fiscal 2024 budget.
Hence the attempt to Trojan-horse the border-related funds into the Ukraine-FEMA bundle. In the supplemental request, DHS is asking not only for $203 million more for Customs and Border Protection’s industrial migrant processing machine—which includes tent housing, transportation, and medical care—but also $600 million more for the FEMA Shelter and Services Program grants.
In a recent hearing before Congress, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell tried to “clarify for the record that FEMA is not an immigration agency.” Yet she also proclaimed her support for Biden’s Southwest Border Contingency Fund, which would channel money to FEMA to spend on services to immigrants here illegally.
But as a firefighter for two decades, Criswell surely knows which arsonist set the dumpster fire on the border that her agency’s cash-hose is now being pointed at.
All this only adds to the reasons that Congress should oppose this corrupt deal. Tying a FEMA top-up to Ukraine aid—in the middle of hurricane season, and shortly after Hawaii’s deadly Maui fires—shows that the Biden-Harris administration will maintain open borders at any price.
****************************************************The Left’s Word-Shaming Can’t Conceal ‘Third World’ Effects of Open Borders
Politically incorrect words don’t kill, but Venezuelan gangs do.
On Saturday, former President Donald Trump warned rallygoers in a small Wisconsin town that if Vice President Kamala Harris “is reelected, your town and every town … will be transformed into a Third World hellhole. ”
Trump repeatedly warns that Biden-Harris open borders are turning New York into a “Third World nation” and America into a “Third World” disaster.
Left-wing elites are apoplectic over Trump’s use of “Third World.” Never mind the violence perpetrated by migrant gangs and the societal disorder caused by open borders. The Left‘s problem is with “Third World.”
NPR calls the term “offensive.” Foreign Policy columnist Howard French calls it “utterly racist rhetoric.” This is an intentional distraction.
People watching their neighborhoods being degraded know what they are seeing with their own eyes. They have no problem calling the conditions “Third World.”
New York City Council member Vickie Paladino, a Republican, says, “We’ve got a Third World country now here in New York City, with Third World crime.” She estimates that 60% of the arrests in her Queens district are “illegal aliens.”
Queens resident Ramses Frias, a Democrat-turned-Republican, complains that commercial streets are being turned into a “Third World market,” with illegal vendors hawking stolen merchandise, and half-naked sex workers strutting in plain sight of children walking to school. Roosevelt Avenue is so overrun with hookers that it’s dubbed the “Market of Sweethearts” and looks like Bangkok’s sordid Patpong market.
The Trump campaign is also getting backlash for posting a comparison of two images on X—one of a quiet, clean street lined with homes, and the other of hundreds of newly arrived migrants, eating and sleeping huddled on the sidewalk outside the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan.
The Trump War Room caption reads: “Import the Third World. Become the Third World.”
The NAACP said of the post, “They are showing all of us just how racist they are.”
That’s preposterous.
Bedlam is being imported to the area around the hotel, once a Manhattan landmark. Businesses are fleeing. The migrants pictured happen to be mostly black, but commuters—black as well as white—dread walking past the chaos to get to Grand Central Station.
Trump is also being bashed as “racist” for calling migrants who rape and murder “animals.” On Saturday, he said, “Just this month, right here in this beautiful town, police arrested an illegal alien member of a savage Venezuelan prison gang known as Tren de Aragua” for “holding a mother and daughter captive against their will and sexually assaulting them again, and again, and again.”
Trump called the alleged assailant “an animal.”
He also used “animal” to describe the Venezuelan illegal who raped, bludgeoned, and killed nursing student Laken Riley. But Reuters accused Trump of wrongdoing for “resorting to the degrading rhetoric he has employed time and again.”
Ridiculous. The issue isn’t Trump’s choice of words. It’s loss of life caused by Harris’ open border.
The Left elite also turn a blind eye to the impact of prostitution on business owners and families trapped in close proximity to the brothels.
Incredibly, most Democratic politicians—except New York City Mayor Eric Adams—align themselves with the sex workers. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose Queens district is overrun with street prostitution, has insisted in the past that “sex work is work” and generally supported decriminalization. Rep. Jerrold Nadler supports decriminalization, even as prostitution spreads in his Manhattan district.
A Democratic bill in Albany, N.Y., would decriminalize buying and selling sex, operating a brothel, and sex tourism—never mind the impact on neighborhoods. “This legislation would make NYC a major sex tourism destination,” warns Sonia Ossorio, of the National Organization for Women, who has documented the explosion of migrant prostitution.
Last week, The Washington Post accused Trump of alarming voters by depicting an “imaginary and frightening world.” Frightening, yes. But not imaginary.
Felonies are up 35% in New York City since 2019, and an estimated 75% of arrests in midtown Manhattan for assault and other crimes are illegal migrants. Street sex sells for $50 for fellatio, and $100 for vaginal penetration, according to NOW.
The situation is Third World, and you’ll get four more years of this mayhem if Harris is elected president.
**************************************************7 October, 2024
Making immigration controversial will be one of Trudeaus greatest legacies
Immigration has finally become a topic of genuine debate in Canada, and that is a remarkable and sorely needed development in our discourse. This follows decades of it being an issue that political parties could only support while being permitted to argue about the nuances, lest they be accused of bigotry and xenophobia.
Amidst a brutal affordability crisis, three-quarters of Canadians want immigration levels lowered until that situation is at-least partially alleviated. Given the dismal number of housing starts in Canada, that will mean drastic reductions.
This is far from the only reason Canadians have become sceptical about immigration.
No policy issue should ever be above debate, least of all immigration and its economic benefits, as well as its social changes.
Under the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose Liberal party has held power since 2015, the number of immigrants coming into Canada has exploded. What was sold to Canadians as a noble, hopeful policy that would only be good for the economy has become an utter disaster.
Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party, has pledged to lower immigration to the point that the annual growth of Canadas housing stock outpaces the number of newcomers. If that sounds like an obvious policy any reasonable government should have already implemented, thats because it is.
It is no surprise that, as the loudest voice opposing just about everything the Liberals stand for, Poilievre and the Conservatives are surging in the polls and projected to win a supermajority in the 2025 election. He is not on track to do so because he is an anti-immigrant demagogue, but because he is promising a return to sanity on immigration and a host of other policy issues.
The problem is that the Liberal government is not level-headed or pragmatic. Since forming a government nearly a decade ago, Trudeau and his ministers have ambitiously swung for the fences on as many issues as possible to bake left-wing ideas into Canadas culture and economy.
During his successful election campaign in 2015, Trudeau promised Canadians real change, and he was not lying. One of those changes was dramatically expanding immigration, and another was pushing a post-nationalist agenda.
For those who do not know, post-nationalism in Canada means the country has no established mainstream culture or identity, which is how Trudeau himself described it in 2015. It was an ideology espoused by Life of Pi author Yann Martel, who labelled Canada as the greatest hotel on Earth.
Canada is not akin to a hotel, and it never has been. It is a country with an Anglo-American culture, distinguished by a unique history and its own set of beloved peculiarities. Even if Canada were a hotel, it would be terribly overbooked, as insulting as Martels comparison is.
Between January 1 and August 31, 2023, 692,760 temporary work permits were issued, compared to 274,690 in the same time period in 2022. Canadas population now grows at a rate of over 3 per cent annually, rather than 1 per cent as it was for decades.
International student permits jumped from 354,784 in 2018 to 550,187 in 2022. In 2023, there were over a million such students present in Canada, mostly concentrated in the larger cities. Bear in mind, Canada is a country of less than 40 million people.
For international students, Canada offers the possibility of converting their student visas to work visas, with the hope of then converting those work visas into permanent residency permits.
A diploma mill boom industry emerged, with predatory entrepreneurs starting up career colleges, often located in rundown storefronts in shopping plazas and offering little more than a promise of eventual permanent residency. This was especially acute in the province of Ontario, which has very loose regulations on starting up educational institutions.
Meanwhile, established post-secondary schools with good reputations like Conestoga College in Toronto or Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia have seen the vast majority of their enrolments become international students. In Ontarios case, the nominally centre-right provincial government froze university tuition fees in 2019, and many institutions opted to soak themselves on hefty international student fees.
There have been tremendous consequences for this open-door policy, which has become rampant with fraud as newcomers try to game the system for permanent resident permits.
The effects of such a policy of mass immigration have included an exacerbation of Canadas housing crisis, which the federal government was warned about when they began ballooning Canadas population.
For a government that pretends to follow the evidence, they shelved the warnings of their own public servants in favour of taking marching orders from the Century Initiative. The Century Initiative is a lobby group formed by ex-McKinsey employees and has petitioned the Canadian government to try and increase its population to 100 million by 2100.
One question that many Canadians are asking is, why? Why should Canada strive for such an arbitrary target? The evidence that it would be a good thing does not speak for itself.
One of the great myths pushed about mass immigration is that it is always good for economic growth, but Canadas GDP per capita on the whole has declined for six years in a row. In 2023, GDP per capita in the United States was 43 per cent higher than in Canada, and now in 2024, economist Trevor Tombe estimates that gap could widen to 50 per cent.
In 2015, Canadas standard of living was ranked ninth on the UN Human Development Index (HDI). By 2022, Canadas ranking in the UN HDI had plummeted to 18th.
Housing is an economic issue that has gone off the rails due to the massive influx of newcomers, straining the already thin housing supply in both Canadas major cities and smaller urban centres.
A house on the American side of Niagara Falls goes for $145,000 USD, while on the Canadian side it is $513,110 USD. Few, save for the wealthy, those who come from well-off families, or foreign investors, can afford to purchase property, to say nothing of monthly rental costs.
The monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto jumped 40 per cent between 2021 and 2023, now amounting to about $1,860 USD. Newly common are ramshackle houses hosting illegal numbers of international students per room, as slumlords make the most of their rare, valuable properties.
Canadas housing supply has not kept up with the massive influx of immigration as a result of the sheer numbers and layers of regulations that stifle new builds. Whatever evidence the Liberals used to justify their immigration policy did not include supply and demand when it came to housing.
Unlike American states like Texas, which have few housing regulations, cities in provinces like BC still have some of the most onerous homebuilding fees in Canada.
In infamously unaffordable Vancouver, for example, extra fees paid to the municipal government account for 30 per cent of the costs of building a new home, which go for an average of $881,507 USD in a city where the average yearly salary is $45,816 USD. Unaffordability has dampened the spirit of young people, just half of whom believe they will ever own property and get the security that comes with it.
All of this has been accompanied by the spread of post-nationalism under the guise of inclusion and diversity, which has amounted to little else than scrubbing away anything reminiscent of Canadas colonial past. Canada is a British-style Westminster democracy with King Charles III as head of state, Common Law, and a nominally liberal economy, yet post-nationalists would have all reminders of that erased.
One of the first moves Trudeau made after becoming Prime Minister was to remove portraits of Queen Elizabeth II from government buildings in Ottawa.
The Fort Calgary historic site was renamed The Confluence in an effort to decolonise it, which, as one Canadian writer lamented, made the birthplace of the city of Calgary sound like a condominium development.
Likewise, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia retired the crest it held since 1886, resplendent with lions and the Crown. What replaced it in the name of decolonisation was a bland, corporate-style logo consisting of three shades of blue and little else.
There are calls for provincial flags to be ripped up and replaced because they feature a Union Jack, while Victoria Day, named in honour of the former Queen, is scarcely acknowledged by the Prime Minister or left-wing provincial premiers.
It is little more than Anglophobia stitched up as inclusion. Canadians are not actually on board with this desecration of the national memory and have opposed the statue topplings and decolonial efforts, though the progressive government has not done anything about it.
Another prong of post-nationalism, made possible by boosting immigration to a country whose government tells them contains no identity or history worth integrating into, has been Canadas transformation into a stage for the old worlds blood feuds.
Jewish institutions have come under attack from anti-Israel activists, including coordinated bomb threats, shots fired at Jewish girls schools, and near-daily harassment of the community with calls to globalise the Intifada. Other conflicts are present too, such as pro-Hong Kong independence activists being violently harassed by pro-Beijing actors in the streets of cities like Vancouver.
An April poll suggested that two-thirds of Canadians believe immigrants should only be allowed to enter the country if they adopt its values, and those do not include brawling in the streets or making bomb threats over conflicts thousands of miles away. The poll also revealed that Canadians are almost evenly split between those who endorse a multicultural mosaic as the model for society, and those who prefer a melting pot where immigrants assimilate.
This is Canada as the hotel of the world. It is nothing more than a packed state devoid of a unique culture or history it is allowed to take pride in, where ethnic tensions drive the culture. Post-national Canada is also a future in which nobody can afford a home, in part due to an overcharged immigration system that is riddled with fraud, in a further blow to national dignity.
Still, it would be a mistake to say that Canadians have become an anti-immigrant society; they simply want a return to policies similar to the previous Conservative government that tailored immigration to Canadas economic needs, such as addressing the lack of highly skilled workers.
The Conservative governments immigration policy was not solely a cold economic calculation either, as there were also generous allowances under the Conservatives for spousal reunification and the admission of genuine refugees. By balancing selective, skills-based immigration with compassionate admissions, Canada had an economically-sound and family-oriented immigration system that looks like the gold standard in hindsight.
Under Trudeaus mismanagement, however, immigration is nothing short of an embarrassment. Immigration is also now a topic that people in Canada are finally discussing comfortably, including its economic merits and what levels of integration should be demanded of newcomers.
That is a remarkable achievement in itself.
Even if Trudeau never intended it, making immigration controversial will be among the most important pieces of his legacy. Perhaps that is something we can all thank him for, though he will blush to hear it.
*********************************************Why so many students hate Israel
Oct. 7 marks the anniversary of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, an action that resulted in the deaths of some 1,200 Israelis and provoked a ferocious Israeli response that has produced thousands of casualties in Gaza.
Over the past year, some Americans have sought to celebrate this atrocity. Weve seen numerous demonstrations demonizing Israel and demanding the destruction of both Israel and the United States. One extraordinary element of these demonstrations is that they have been joined by thousands of American college students who have no connection to the Middle East and know little or nothing about the region.
These students are entitled to their opinions. The problem is that their opinions are usually not based on knowledge. When it came to those students shouting from the river to the sea, for example, more than half could name neither the river nor the sea when asked to identify those locations in 2023. The particular foolishness of college groups, such as Queers for Palestine, a place where LGBTQ persons likely would be murdered by the locals, hardly needs discussion.
We shouldnt be surprised by the naivete of our college students. American students are taught little about the history of their own country, much less the history of far-away places. In many of Americas public schools, history is poorly taught, and many U.S. colleges do not require a foundational course in history or government. In the classes they do take, most college students are asked to think critically and analytically. But, as every professor can attest, the average students capacity to think critically is hampered by a lack of knowledge. One colleague told me that his students hardly know anything about World War I or World War II other than which came first because theyre numbered.
Absent facts, students rely upon their feelings. This decoupling of opinion from knowledge is sometimes said to be characteristic of our contemporary post-truth polity, in which many citizens are no longer concerned with objective facts but simply accept what they believe or feel as true. A feeling requires no evidentiary foundation but, rather, creates its own reality.
What are the feelings students learn in Americas schools?
A recent report issued by the American Historical Association helps provide some answers to this question. Based upon a survey of 3,000 middle and high school teachers in nine states, the report found that curricular materials from left-liberal organizations were widely used in the nations classrooms. Forty-two percent of the respondents had used materials from Learning for Justice, produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center. About 25% had used materials from the Zinn Education Project, an organization that valorizes leftist activism, and 17% used materials provided by the 1619 Project (see below). Only a small percentage reported ever having used materials from two of the more prominent conservative sources, the Ashbrook Center and Hillsdale College. The AHA report warned that some left-leaning school districts exhibited a trend of offering moralistic cues that seemed to direct students toward viewing American history in an emotional manner, as a string of injustices.
About 4,500 school systems have adopted the 1619 Project Curriculum, material adapted from a series of New York Times Magazine essays designed to replace the conventional American historical narrative with one that places slavery at the center of the American story. According to this new history, the true date of Americas founding is 1619, when slavery was introduced in Virginia, rather than 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was written. Crafted mainly to justify demands for the payment of reparations to the descendants of enslaved persons, the 1619 essays properly call attention to the role of slavery in American history. An untutored reader, however, namely a young student, might reach the rather erroneous conclusion that slavery was the actual centerpiece and driving force of American political and institutional development.
Such an interpretation, of course, delegitimates the U.S. as a nation. It transforms America from the land of opportunity into the state of slavery. The more widespread this belief, the more disruptive it is to Americans sense of identification with their nation.
In extinguishing a kingdom of men, observed 19th century Chinese poet Gong Zizhen, the first step is to remove its history.
It appears that at least some teachers view their mission as removing Americas history by presenting students, under the rubric of critical thinking, with an unfavorable view of their nation, its history, and its policies. Many of the same educators teach their students to equate Zionism with bigotry and racism. Negative feelings about Israel and the U.S. often go hand in hand precisely because they emanate from the same set of educational institutions.
In the interest of promoting a more knowledgeable discussion of the events that transpired on Oct. 7, 2023, I offer a few facts that might serve as counterweights to hostile feelings toward Israel:
Feeling 1: Israel is an ethnostate in which the Jews monopolize political power
Fact: For better or worse, most of the worlds states, including all the Muslim states of the Middle East, are ethnostates. In most Muslim states, non-Muslims, if tolerated at all, face numerous handicaps. Israel, the so-called Jewish state, is quite multiethnic and multicultural. Israeli society includes Christians, Druze, Arabs, and others. Israels Muslim political party wields power in the parliament. Members of the Druze, an ancient Mideastern sect, hold prominent positions in the Israeli military and, as a result, exercise considerable influence over Israeli security policy.Feeling 2: Israel is an illegitimate product of settler colonialism
Fact: The concept of settler colonialism has no real significance because it cannot distinguish one state from another. All states are products of settler colonialism. Every square inch of territory on the face of the earth previously belonged to someone else. When Europeans arrived in North America, they settled on land belonging to Native American nations that previously had seized the land from other Native American nations. Many of todays Europeans are descendants of tribes that conquered pieces of Roman territory that the Romans, themselves, had stolen from the Etruscans, Dacians, Illyrians, and others. At worst, the Israelis are no different from anyone else.The archeological record, moreover, suggests the Jews have a powerful historical claim to the land. The Temple of Solomon may have been built as long ago as the 10th century B.C., and the Second Temple was built in the 6th century B.C. Jews worshiped there continuously for the next 500 years. Muhammad was not born until 500 years after the destruction of the Second Temple. The Jews claim to what became modern-day Israel was recognized by the League of Nations and, later, the United Nations. In fact, modern Israel was not created by conquest but by the U.N.
Feeling 3: Israel is guilty of brutality and oppression
Fact: Every government is capable of brutal and repressive conduct. Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th century nihilist philosopher and social critic, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, had Zarathustra call the state the coldest of all cold monsters. Yet, if we were to rank states on the dimension of cruelty, Israel would rank well behind nearly all the states in the Middle East, including Iran, Syria, and the Talibans Afghanistan, where women are again being deprived of all rights.By failing to teach history and political affairs in our schools, we have turned our children into what the Soviets used to call polezniye durakie, meaning useful idiots, unwitting stooges used by political activists to further their causes.
This is why American students can be trained to chant their demands for the destruction of not only Israel but the U.S. as well. The fault is not that of the credulous students. We are to blame for allowing this to happen.
*********************************************Harris Economic Plan Would Increase Federal Stranglehold on Economy
Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech last week to accompany the release of her 82-page economic planning document. While her words were intended to evoke optimism, the implications of the plan are troubling for Americas future.
To begin with, the plan must be placed in context.
The Biden-Harris administration has overseen the federal government since January 2021. President Joe Biden has faced broad public disapproval of his handling of the economy for most of that time, and Americans still view high prices and inflation as leading concerns.
Rather than breaking from the Biden-Harris record, the Harris economic plan wholeheartedly embraces it.
Harris plan praises a series of legislative packages passed in 2021 and 2022 that fueled inflationary deficit spending. Some of the bills even required tiebreaking votes by Harris herself in the role of presiding officer in the Senate as vice president.
Reading the economic plan makes it clear that Harris is proud of the Biden-Harris administrations economic legacy.
In worrisome fashion, the plan would tighten Washingtons grip on the economy even further.
Rather than relying on businesses to create jobs with smart investments, the Harris vision involves the federal government using a combination of spending and tax credits to subsidize preferred industries.
Meanwhile, she proposes to raise taxes on businesses broadly, claiming they arent paying their fair share. With tax credits in one hand and tax hikes in the other, Harris would pick winners and losers across the entire economy.
The dismal track record of the Biden-Harris administrations investments is plain to see. Billions of dollars in subsidies for electric vehicle charging infrastructure has yielded only a handful of stations, and a massive new broadband internet program has also had pitiful results.
There are good reasons for these failures.
The Biden-Harris administration loads federal programs with requirements for equity, environmental justice, and other left-wing ideological fads. That ensures that federal spending produces even less economic value than usual.
Another claimthat a Harris administration would cut red tapeis downright laughable.
Not only has the Biden-Harris administration made federal programs even more bureaucratic and complicated, but it has also unleashed a torrent of regulations that impose thousands of dollars in costs for every family.
Unless and until Harris is willing to repudiate that regulatory record, any cut red tape claims will be hard to take seriously.
Speaking of families, the Harris plan takes the same approach for households as it does for businesses; namely, subsidies and tax credits for some, higher taxes for others.
A prominent example is Harris calling for $25,000 in down payment support to offset the rising cost of housing. Yet this would lead to a massive increase in demand for houses, causing prices to rise even faster.
On the jobs front, the plan calls for both broad and targeted increases to the federal minimum wage. That would destroy jobs by reducing hiring and artificially accelerating automation, while also raising prices for consumers (which is to say, everyone).
In addition, reversing many (or all) of the tax cuts passed in 2017 under then-President Donald Trump would stifle job-creating private investment.
The Harris economic document also embraces the Biden-Harris administrations many attempts to write off student loan debt. Thats not forgiveness as much as it is a transferal, since the burden is shifted from university attendees to taxpayerswho already have $35 trillion in federal debt to shoulder.
In sum, the Harris plan would make Washington the center of U.S. economic life, ensuring fewer jobs, less economic growth, and higher prices.
Rather than a new way forward for the middle class, the document is a recipe for economic stagnation and national decline. Harris plan would only create an opportunity economy for bureaucrats and her political allies.
*************************************************Democracy demands choice, not the appearance of choice
Senator Ralph Babet
Most Australians think we have a real choice when it comes to the government we elect, but many of us know that is not true. Unless of course you consider being given the opportunity to vote for socialism or socialism-lite a choice!
Imagine going to the ballot box and believing that the choice of authoritarianism on one hand and gentle authoritarianism on the other, meant you had real options.
Spare me.
The idea of a two-party political system is pure disinformation. Speaking of which, if you want proof that the two-party system is really a one-party system cleverly disguised as democracy, look no further than the Labor Partys Misinformation and Disinformation Bill. The Bill now proposed by Prime Minister Albanese and his Communications Minister Michelle Rowlands is the same bill first proposed by Scott Morrison and his Communications Minister Paul Fletcher. Fancy that!
In the same way that cockroaches survive nuclear wars, globalist ideas survive federal elections and changes of government.
You need to understand that most government ministers are not especially smart or capable. Most MPs, if they had to find actual jobs in the actual economy, would be hard-pressed to find work as low-level middle managers. Think regional managers overseeing half a dozen 7-11 stores.
Actually, no. More like and Im stretching here deputy assistant to the assistant night manager of a solitary, underperforming store in a rural town no one ever heard of. Yes, thats your average high-ranking Labor minister had they not been voted into Parliament.
So the people sitting at the big desk in the ministerial office are not the brightest. They are good at talking, schmoozing, and politicking. But that is about it. The real smarts are to be found in the bureaucracy the nameless, faceless, public servants who are more likely to be serving the globalist elites than the public who pay their wages.
These bureaucrats attend globalist functions where they enthuse over how idyllic the world could be if only the public could be massaged and moulded into the right kind of public. They then return to Canberra where they convince the deputy assistant to the assistant night manager of a poorly performing 7-11 who by some fluke of the electoral system somehow end up as Australias Communicators Minister that it is vitally important to censor the free thinking of free citizens online.
The Communications Minister more suited to making a Slurpee than running a national portfolio let alone protecting civil rights is quickly convinced by the bureaucrats fine-sounding words and high-minded ideals. The next thing you know, your Facebook posts are being suppressed and your X (Twitter) account has been suspended.
Labor and the Liberals exist only to echo one another. Liberal or Labor, Scomo or Albo its all the same. Only the colour of the corflute changes. I can give you example after example to prove the point. Consider Australias self-sabotaging commitment to Net Zero emissions. Right now, Net Zero is considered a Chris Bowen fetish. But we should never forget that it was former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard who signed Australia up to the Kyoto Protocol that required us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as if human activity was the main cause of climate.
Today the Labor Party insists on wind turbines and solar panels while the Liberal Party insists on nuclear power plants. But both parties are in lock-step agreement that there is a climate catastrophe that can only be avoided by completely overhauling our energy policy.Or what about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament? Prime Minister Albanese wanted it in the Australian Constitution; Mr Dutton wanted it legislated. Our major parties only disagreed on the instrument, not on the desirability to divide Australians by race.
Should we talk about Digital ID? Its a Liberal Party idea that never quite got up. Labor succeeded where the Liberals failed and all Australians lost.
Think about the commitment to globalist entities who continually undermine our national sovereignty. Whether its the World Health Organisation, the United Nations, or the World Economic Forum both major parties are beholden to them.
The WEF serves unelected corporate elites by giving them access to politicians worldwide, and subsequently, access to public money. Australias politicians and bureaucrats should be nowhere near any of it.
Both major parties love big government and big bureaucracy. No matter what they say before taking office, neither party ever reduces the size of government or repeals legislation. Both parties have put the nation into serious debt. And both parties have raised taxes and levies.
There was perhaps no more appalling proof that we actually live in a the one party state than during Covid when both Liberal and Labor politicians cheered the trashing of civil rights. Both parties to their eternal shame supported mandatory vaccinations, lockdowns, mask-wearing and school closures.
Democracy demands a choice, not just the illusion or appearance of choice. At present, we dont have that. Slowly, Australians are starting to realise it, but we must all play a part and wake more people up.
The UAP exists outside of the two-party system because a real democracy demands that voters are given a real choice a choice about where we are heading as a nation and about the kind of country we want to be.
When you support the United Australia Party you are doing more than supporting sensible policy positions, you are giving Australia the chance to exercise real choice and in so doing, strengthening democracy.
I am ever so grateful for your continued support.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/democracy-demands-choice-not-the-appearance-of-choice/
**************************************************6 October, 2024
An author changes sides
M. C. Armstrong
To @TheDemocrats:
This is my career suicide note, but its also a thank you from someone who is done with careerism. Im a lifelong member of your party and Im voting for Donald Trump. Why? Its not just your industrial-scale censorship or your endless wars or the fact that you disenfranchised millions of Kennedy voters through lawfare. If that were all I had, it would be sufficient, in terms of conscience and rage, but theres more to this story than anger. Your hatred and censorship has taught me to admire @realDonaldTrump and to love my fellow working-class Americans, and for that I thank you.
This vote is for all the traumatized people who have been canceled and banished just for saying no to the establishment. This vote is for the surveyor, the farmer, the HVAC man, the nurse, the hairstylist, the Deadhead, the veteran, and my fellow adjunct professors who have told me their stories about being bullied by the Democrats in their friends and family and their colleagues at work. This is for the young Black woman in my class last year who, on the day of Kamala Harriss visit to campus, said, Youre going to hate me, Dr. Armstrong, but Im not going. Im voting for Donald Trump. Why would she think I would hate her for the way she votes? What has happened to our country?
Somehow, Donald Trump has changed my mind. Where I once saw a cartoon white supremacist, warmonger, and narcissist, I now see the man who renegotiated NAFTA and the only president in the twenty-first century not to start a new war. Where I once saw the pal of the neocons, I now see a man who has awoken from his slumber and disavowed Dick Cheney, George Bush, and John Bolton, even as my own party embraces these men.
Why has the greatest entrepreneur of my generation (@elonmusk) risked his career to side with Trump? Why has the most consequential grassroots environmentalist of my time (@RobertKennedyJr) sacrificed friends, family, and reputation to side with The Orange Menace? Why has the most courageous peace activist of the twenty-first century (@TulsiGabbard) left our party? Because Tulsi, Bobby, and Elon see what I see. Donald Trump is resilient and hes risking his life to change the fate of our nation. Trump is transforming the Republican Party into the party of peace, free speech, and the working-class. He has converted George Bushs billionaire boys club of Big War, Big Ag, and Big Pharma into a party that cares about public health and embraces regenerative agriculture.
Now I dont think the GOP is all the way there yet, but theyre clearly the party that embraces dissent, and dissentbrave speechis the fuel for evolution. So, for the first time in my life, Im voting Republican. In the name of peace in Ukraine and free speech here at home, Im casting my vote, as a Kennedy Democrat, for Donald Trump.
https://x.com/mcarmystrong/status/1842187462321561861
**************************************************IT CAN HAPPEN HERE: Free Speech Under Siege in Colorado as Well as in Brazil
The legendary rocker Joe Walsh once sang, The Rocky Mountain way is better than the way we had. But in Colorado, unfortunately, the Rocky Mountain way now more closely resembles censorship in Brazil than liberty in America.
More than 100 international free speech advocates, including five former U.S. attorneys general, joined an open letter to the Brazilian Congress last month condemning Brazils severe censorship, which includes suspension of the social media platform X.
While some may look on with mawkish curiosity at foreign intrigue they deem irrelevant to life in America, others may view Brazils authoritarian impulse through a lens of gratitude that it couldnt happen here. Both are wrong.
One need only look to the state of Colorado to find an American example of governing authorities who seek to silence speech with which they disagree and compel reiteration of their preferred message.
More on that a bit later.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who owns X, has been engaged in a dispute with Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes that stems from de Moraes demands that Musks social media platform censor messages he disfavors.
On Aug. 30, de Moraes officially suspended X nationwide in Brazil. He also froze the bank accounts of Starlink, a subsidiary of Musks aerospace company SpaceX that provides internet access via satellite.
In his order, de Moraes said X presents a real danger of negatively influencing the electorate in 2024, with massive misinformation, with the aim of unbalancing the electoral result, based on hate campaigns in the digital age, to favor extremist populist groups.
Besides the former attorneys general, signers of the Sept. 12 letter to Brazilian lawmakers include three members of the United Kingdoms House of Lords, The Daily Wires Megan Basham, bestselling author Rod Dreher, podcaster Tammy Peterson, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, X Spaces host Mario Nawfal, former Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and leading academics such as Princeton Universitys Robert P. George.
Sifting through de Moraes parade of red herrings reveals that he and others in power in Brazil fear that allowing access to certain speech on X might lead to an electoral result they wouldnt like.
As international pressure builds against Brazils scurrilous attacks on Musk, X, and the fundamental human right to free speech, many Americans are awakening to the rising global tide of censorship at home.
Now, back to Colorado, where current state law invades the sanctity of the counselor-patient relationship. For patients who desire to live according to their true identity as image-bearers of God, created biologically male or female, the state has declared that any message other than so-called gender-affirming care will put a mental health care professionals license at risk.
Colorados pro-choice legislators, who frequently pontificate that the issue of abortion should be left to women and their doctors, also banned doctors from offering women progesterone to counter the effects of the abortion pill.
Thankfully, legal challenges to this Colorado law are underway, but the chilling message from the Legislature is clear: The only state-approved choice once an abortion pill is taken is the one that results in the death of an unborn child. And thats the only choice about which women can be trusted with information.
Government as gatekeeper to information in Colorado isnt limited to the state. Local school officials decided that parents didnt need to know their daughter would be required to share a room on an overnight field trip with a male who identified as female. Apparently, the parents couldnt be trusted to make the right decision for their child. Much better to leave it to the experts, of course.
Colorado is also home to Lorie Smith and Jack Phillips.
Smith, who witnessed the now decadelong persecution of Phillips, a Christian baker and self-described cake artist, at the hands of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Smith took that body to the U.S. Supreme Court, where she won the most significant victory for free speech in many years.
Smith, a graphic artist, won for herself and other artists across the nation the Supreme Courts recognition that coerced speech and censorship are two sides of the same unconstitutional coin. Phillips now waits to see if the Colorado Supreme Court will affirm this same principle for him.
At the heart of the matter in Brazil and Colorado is the widening gulf between the governing and the governed. It is a tempestuous sea of mistrust.
Government officials assume the role of arbiters of truth and the authority to decide what information the masses should have at their disposal. It is a story that has played out on the world stage many times and one that rarely has ended well for the common man or freedom.
America, owing to its extraordinary constitutional protections for the God-given rights of the individual, has been an exception to the general rule of history for nearly two and half centuries.
As Walsh would put it, Lifes been good. To remain so requires vigilance in defense of liberty at home as exemplary leadership for the world.
**************************************************After 5 years, teacher Wins $575K Settlement After Being Fired for Not Using Students Preferred Pronouns
Peter Vlaming, a longtime high school French teacher in Virginia, was fired in 2018 for refusing to use a students preferred pronouns. On Monday, after years of litigation and a win for Vlaming at the Virginia Supreme Court, the school board finally capitulated and agreed to settle the case for $575,000.
But the West Point School Boards refusal for five years to protect Vlamings free speech and religious freedom rights came with an exorbitant price tag.
In 2018, one of Vlamings female students at West Point High School began identifying as a transgender male. Although Vlaming consistently used the students preferred name, the French teacher carefully avoided using third-person pronouns so as not to violate his own religious beliefs.
That courtesy wasnt good enough for West Points school board and school administrators. When Vlaming refused to use preferred pronouns, they fired the teacher for creating a hostile learning environment.
Thats right. Vlaming wasnt fired for what he said. He was fired for what he didntand couldntsay.
Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom and a local attorney, Vlaming sued in state court in 2019, asserting claims under Virginia law and the Virginia Constitution.
The school board didnt flinch, but instead tried to move the case to federal court.
And no wonder. If the West Point School Board succeeded, it could invoke the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in another Virginia case called Grimm v. Gloucester School Board, which largely adopted gender ideology in its reasoning. That caseand its deeply flawed reasoningwould have mandated the use of preferred personal pronouns.
Thankfully, the school board failed in Vlamings case. But it took nearly two years of litigation simply to determine what court should hear it.
The school board then asked the state lower court to dismiss the case. The judge agreed and tossed Vlamings lawsuit, ruling from the bench without an opinion.
Vlaming appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor in December 2023 and reinstated his lawsuit.
The majority decision, written by Justice D. Arthur Kelsey, was a landmark victory for religious freedom and free speech. The state Supreme Court held that the Virginia Constitution protects religious exercisenot just religious speechunless it threatens the publics safety or order.
In so ruling, the states highest court rejected U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalias highly criticized majority opinion in Employment Division v. Smith. That decision gutted religious freedom when a challenged law could be considered both neutral and generally applicable to everyone.
Instead, Kelseys opinion for the state Supreme Court relied on the Virginia Constitutions text and its framers views on religious freedom. The Virginia Constitution, the court explained, protects not just beliefs but also the right to act on those beliefs in every aspect of life.
The court also ruled for Vlaming on his claim of compelled speech. Merely objectionable or hurtful speech, it emphasized, poses no threat to public safety or order.
Vlamings refusal to use preferred personal pronouns based on his Christian religious beliefs thus was protected even if others subjectively took offense to his silence, Kelsey wrote in the opinion.
[I]f liberty means anything at all, Kelsey wrote, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. All the more, it means the right to disagree without speaking at all.
Seeing the writing on the wall, the West Point School Board finally relented. In a settlement finalized Monday, the board agreed to pay Vlaming $575,000 in damages and attorneys fees. It also agreed to expunge Vlamings firing from his employment record.
And for good measure, the school board took the initiative and changed its policies to conform to new educational policies from Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, which protect free speech and parental rights.
The school board fought for five years to avoid respecting Vlamings rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion. In the end, that fight cost the board (or, more likely, its insurance provider) more than half a million dollars.
Thats to say nothing of what the school board had to pay its own lawyers.
It turns out that compelling a teachers speech carries a hefty price tag and causes quite a lot of trouble.
In the end, Peter Vlamings courage in defending his right to remain silent is exemplary and achieved far more than money. His stand resulted in one of the clearest statements in history from the Virginia Supreme Court that religious exercise is robustly protected under the state Constitution.
This is a victory that we all can celebrate. Hopefully, it also serves as a stark reminder to school boards and school administrators that mandating the use of gender-based personal pronouns just isnt worth it.
****************************************************Biden-Harris Inflation Wreaks Supply Chain Havoc With Dock Strike
On Monday, nearly 50,000 workers at 36 ports with the International Longshoremens Association began striking, the latest failure of Biden-Harris economic policies.
The workers are demanding higher pay, a backlash against the record 20% cumulative inflation under the failed leadership of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
This strike could have major inflationary effects as it affects a shocking half of the countrys goods. Depending on the severity of the strike, it could play a major role in Novembers electionsan October surprise, of sorts.
A prolonged strike could create price spikes, even as inflation and elevated prices starting in 2021 are still hurting consumers. That would unfold as wholesalers and retailers are already expected to pass higher transportation and shipping costs to consumers.
Its no secret that Biden and Harris White House has been an economic disaster for all Americans, especially for low-income and middle-class Americans, because inflation is essentially a tax. Poorer and working-class Americans are hit the hardest because they spend a greater proportion of their incomes on consumer goods.
Depending on how long this strike lasts, it could have a significant impact on family budgets. Under the strike, cargo stuck in ports doesnt make it to store shelves, leaving fewer options and supply chain disruptions. Fresh and perishable foods could be lost.
Former President Donald Trump noted the contrast in a statement released after the strike began: The situation should have never come to this and, had I been President, it would not have. This is only happening because of the inflation brought on by Kamala Harris two votes for massive, out-of-control spending, and her decision to cut off energy exploration.
As economist Stephen Moore notes, during Bidens nearly four years in office, inflation is up roughly 20%, but during Trumps four-year term, inflation rose a much smaller 8%. As other observers noted, while protectionism can raise prices and should be avoided, Trumps relentless focus on building American-made goods also protects against the shock of disruptions to foreign-produced supply chains. And protectionism is not the same as ensuring that foreign countries engaging in unfair trade practices are held directly accountable.
Americans who thrived under President Trump cant even get by because of Kamala Harris. This strike is a direct result of her actions, Trump continued. American workers should be able to negotiate for better wages, especially since the shipping companies are mostly foreign-flag vessels, including the largest consortium ONE. (The Singapore-based ONE is the sixth-largest shipping company in the world, according to Politico.)
The strike could cause furloughs and job losses because jobs connected to ports could be affected, including truckers delivering goods, warehouse workers, manufacturers, and other workers dependent on the ports. These workers could be furloughed or let go if the strike is prolonged.
Thats why its not surprising we are witnessing generational shifts among blue-collar workers, including Teamsters union workers (breaking from their union leadership), trending toward Republicans like Trump. Its because Harris policieswhich are indistinguishable from Bidens policies, according to the White Houseare a disaster for working-class Americans, and the dock strike is a case in point.
This generational shift is a significant blow for Democrats, who have taken organized labor for granted for decades. Over the past 10 years, the Republican Party has shifted to the working-class party in many areas. This came following record household wealth and income gains seen under the Trump administration (prior to COVID-19 shocks) among women, black, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. These gains came thanks in part to the 2017 tax-reform bill passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by Trump.
In the battleground state of Arizona, new polling from Suffolk University and USA Today found that 29% of black voters are going to vote for Donald Trump. Thats a significant shift away from Democrats for black voters, with Harris garnering only 67% of black support in that state. (Historically, nationally, black voters often break 90% or more for Democrats.)
Nationwide, including projections for all battleground states, RealClearPolitics estimates place Trump with 281 Electoral College votes and Harris with 257, with 270 needed to win. The dock strike could continue to shift those trends further toward Trump, what with Harris inflationary policies.
**************************************************2 October, 2024
Mexico wants Spain to apologise for conquering the Aztecs
When Claudia Sheinbaum becomes Mexicos first female president later today, Felipe VI, the King of Spain, will not be present. He has, very pointedly, not been invited to the swearing-in ceremony because he hasnt apologised for Spains invasion and conquest of the Aztec empire 500 years ago.
Spaniards are alert to the emotional fraudulence of professing guilt for something that happened 20 generations ago
This diplomatic stand-off began in 2019 when Andrés Manuel López Obrador, then president of Mexico, wrote to King Felipe inviting him to express his regret. Having described the conquest as tremendously violent, painful and unjustifiable, López Obrador said, Mexico would like the Spanish state to recognise its historical responsibility for these offences and to offer the appropriate apologies or political reparations.
Felipe didnt reply to that letter. By 2022 López Obrador was suggesting that Spain needed to learn to respect Mexico rather than regarding it as an ex-colony. Then last Thursday at his daily press conference the out-going president read out the four-page letter he sent five years ago and claimed that Felipes failure to reply showed high-handed arrogance.
His successor sings from the same hymn sheet. Shortly after becoming president-elect of Mexico in July, Sheinbaum declared that Spain should ask for forgiveness. Perhaps she has in mind something along the lines of Pope Francis apology in 2021 for the atrocities committed during the conquest and evangelisation of the Americas. She may well also be aware that there is a precedent: just nine years ago Spain recognised that the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 was a cruel mistake. Now one of Sheinbaums ministers has proposed holding a ceremony of atonement to normalise relations with Spain.
Felipe, first as prince and then as King, has in the past attended the swearing-in of Mexican presidents. On this occasion he has left it to Pedro Sánchez, Spains left-wing prime minister, to comment on Mexicos decision not to invite him. Regretting that the relations between two progressive governments have deteriorated to this point, Sánchez confirmed that due to the unacceptable and inexplicable exclusion [of King Felipe] there will be no representatives of the Spanish government at the ceremony.
Spain, Sánchez explained, regards Mexico as a brother country We feel enormous frustration that we cannot normalise our relations. Hinting that Mexicos politicians are using a confected confrontation with Spain as a distraction from their countrys real problems, he recalled with gratitude that Mexico welcomed hundreds of thousands of Spaniards fleeing the Spanish Civil War and Francos repression: I feel closer to those principles and values.
Although there will be no representatives of the Spanish government, several of Spains anti-monarchical, left-wing politicians will attend the swearing-in ceremony. One suggested that if Spain is represented abroad by the head of state, then it should be a democratically elected head of state. Another described Felipe as arrogant for not apologising to Mexico for the excesses committed during the Spanish conquest and said that the king is now paying a price for his enormous diplomatic clumsiness.
In fact the Spanish monarchy did once make an apology of sorts. In 1990 during a visit to Mexico, Juan Carlos I, Felipes father, regretted the abuses that occurred during the conquest whilst pointing out that Spains monarchs sought from the very beginning to defend the dignity of the indigenous people. Of course, Juan Carlos explained, the prudence and equanimity of the monarchs was unfortunately often disregarded by venal officials.
Juan Carlos reluctance to shoulder the blame for events that took place half a millennium ago is shared by many Spaniards. They are alert to the emotional fraudulence of professing guilt for something that happened 20 generations ago. Besides, many point out gleefully, López Obradors Spanish surnames suggest that he may himself be descended from a conquistador. The Partido Popular, Spains main right-wing opposition party, which rarely endorses anything the government does, has on this occasion enthusiastically supported Sánchezs decision to lodge a formal protest with the Mexican authorities, calling the decision not to invite Felipe an unacceptable provocation.
Nor has it gone unnoticed in Spain that, while King Felipe was dropped from the guest list because he hasnt apologised for what Hernán Cortés and his men did hundreds of years ago, Vladimir Putin, personally responsible for a far more recent invasion, was invited.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/mexico-wants-spain-to-apologise-for-conquering-the-aztecs/
**************************************************Federal government introduces online dating safety code
Aussies going online in the hopes of finding love, or at least a date, will now be protected by new rules designed to protect online daters from harm and abuse.
The Australia-first guidelines will require online dating platforms, including Tinder, Hinge, Bumble and Grindr, to have systems in place to detect potential incidents of online-enabled harm from taking place.
The code will also require dating apps to take actions against users who have violated a companys online safety policies, provide prominent and transparent complaint and reporting mechanisms, offer more support resources on safe dating practices and online enabled harm, and remain proactively engaged with Australian law enforcement.
The dating platforms will also be required to supply regular transparency reports detailing the number of Australian accounts terminated and content moderation processes.
The code comes after the federal government sat down with both online dating platforms, including Bumble, Grindr, and Match Group which owns the platforms, Tinder, Hinge, OKCupid and Plenty Of Fish.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the code, which has been given the tick of approval from the eSafety Commissioner, would offer online dating users better peace of mind knowing theyre safer online.
Online dating is now the most common way to meet a partner in Australia, however the level of violence and abuse experienced by users of these platforms is deeply concerning, Ms Rowland said.
That is why we are taking the steps needed to ensure a safer experience for Australians using online dating platforms.
The Australian governments constructive engagement with industry means that the largest online dating services operating in Australia have made clear, public commitments to improve the safety of their services including to crack down on abuse and remove dangerous users from platforms.
Now that the code is operational, the government will be watching industry closely to ensure they take the steps needed to keep their users safe.
Dating platforms will now have six months to implement changes, with strict enforcement to begin from 1 April next year.
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said it is essential people feel protected from harm when interacting with potential dates.
Dating app violence is a form of gender-based violence, and it has to end, Ms Rishworth said.
Our government is committed to ensuring Australians are safe from sexual violence and abuse in both online and physical spaces.
We must create communities both in the physical and online world where everyone is treated equally and with respect.
This world-leading industry code will improve safety for Australians using dating apps and help them make choices about the apps they use.
Everyone deserves to live a life free of violence no matter where they are and this includes online.
After nine months of operation, the eSafety Commissioner will assess the effectiveness of the code and determine if it has helped reduce harm to Australians.
If the code has seemed to not live up to expectation, the Government will consider whether further action is needed, including regulation.
The dating apps that have signed up to participate in the code are Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, Grindr, eHarmony, OK Cupid, Plenty Of Fish, RSVP, MeetMe, Zoosk, Badoo (part of Bumble), Tagged, Skout and Growlr.
***********************************************School Threatened to Arrest Parents for Wearing Pink Wristbands in Protest of Boys in Girls Sports
A coalition of parents sued the Bow School District in New Hampshire on Monday after being punished and threatened over a silent protest standing up for womens sports.
Multiple parents and one grandfather decided to wear pink wristbands during a soccer game to show support for protecting womens sports, to which the school district threatened to have them arrested for trespassing, the complaint states. The New Hampshire Department of Education was preliminarily enjoined by the court in September from enforcing a state law that cracked down on biological males from participating in womens sports.
The parents claim that the district conspired with a referee and police officer to intimidate and prevent the group from expressing their First Amendment rights, the lawsuit states. After the soccer game, the school banned anyone speaking out from being on school property and attending future games.
Bow School Districts ban on demonstrations criticizing the decision to allow biological boys to play girls soccercloaked in the language of disruption and harassmentis unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, the lawsuit states. The First Amendment does not allow state-operated schools to become enclaves of totalitarianism.
The school districts policy allows officials to monitor the behavior of anyone on school property or in attendance at a school event, which includes any buildings, vehicles, property, land or facilities used for school purposes or school-sponsored events, whether public or private, the complaint continues. The high schools athletics handbook also states that it regulates the conduct and speech of individuals in attendance at games.
Days before the soccer game, Nicole Foote, a mother of one of the players on Bows team, met with the athletic director to express concern regarding the potential risks of allowing a biological man to compete in womens sports, to which the director said the court prevented the school from doing anything, the lawsuit states. The athletic director sent an email the night before the game stating that following the handbook, they would impose obligations on any actions from the sideline, noting that any inappropriate signs, references or language would not be allowed.
The athletic director also claimed that some differentiating opinions regarding the game would be fine, according to the complaint.
Some individuals who wore the pink wristbands wrote XX on them to support female athletes, and no parents on the sidelines wore them in the first half of the game. Besides the wristbands, there were no other indications of parents outwardly protesting, but the athletic director told one parent that he had to take off the wristbands, to which he then argued that First Amendment rights protect the use of the wristbands.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed a bill in 2023 that banned transgender individuals from participating in womens collegiate sports. Similar to Texas, West Virginia passed a law banning biological men from partaking in womens athletics, but a court blocked the law in April.
*************************************************Wyoming Doctor Booted From Medical Board for Opposing Transgender Treatments Asks Court to Reinstate Him
Wyomings governor removed a doctor from the states board of medicine because the doctor supported a law banning gender-affirming care for minors. The doctor is suing, and his lawyers are filing a motion Tuesday asking the court to reinstate him on the medical board. His legal team also revealed that more than 5,000 Wyoming residents have signed a petition asking the governor to reinstate him.
I was removed from the Wyoming State Board of Medicine because I took a stand to protect the children in our state, Dr. Eric Cubin, a radiologist, told The Daily Signal on Tuesday. The nonprofit law firm Liberty Justice Center is representing him. The center is best known for representing Mark Janus in the 2018 Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME, in which the court protected government employees First Amendment right of free association to refuse to financially support a union they wouldnt join.
I am proud to stand with the Liberty Justice Center and fight this violation of my First Amendment rights, Cubin added.
Chloes Law
Cubin supported Senate File 99, also known as Chloes Law, which Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, signed in March.
The law, named after detransitioner Chloe Cole, went into effect on July 1. As a minor, Cole had surgery to try to appear more like a boy, including having her breasts removed, and a few years later, detransitioned back to identifying as her actual sex. The law prohibits doctors from prescribing experimental transgender medical interventions for minors, specifically banning so-called puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries that remove healthy breasts or sex organs.
Internal documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, a pro-transgender activist group, revealed that WPATH leaders knew about various side effects of gender-affirming care, including cancer in teens and reduced sexual function, as well as the lack of informed consent for procedures with lifelong impacts. These medical professionals endorse the experimental treatments anyway.
But some doctors have gone on record opposing such treatments. Back in 2023 in Florida, many doctors testified in favor of a rule that would prevent Medicaid dollars from funding gender-affirming care. The doctorsincluding psychiatrists, endocrinologists, neurologists, and a former WPATH leadertestified that these interventions are experimental and may do more harm than good.
Cubin, a member of the Wyoming Medical Society, sent a letter in February to every member of Wyomings Legislature to set the record straight after the society (a voluntary association for medical professionals in the Cowboy State) had opposed Chloes Law. (The societys magazine attacked Chloes Law in 2023 and its executive director testified against the law that year. Cubin claims the society also opposed Chloes Law in 2024.)
I had been misrepresented by the Wyoming Medical Society and had no choice but to speak up for what I believe to be right, the doctor told The Daily Signal. I urged our legislators to be circumspect about the information they were being provided and cautious about what they allow physicians to do to kids in our statesomething that is now the law across Wyoming.
The Governor Fires CubinSo why did Gordon, who signed Chloes Law, remove Cubin from the board of medicine? It seems unlikely someone who supported the legislation would move against a doctor for supporting the same bill.
First, Gordon only grudgingly signed Chloes Law.
I signed SF 99 because I support the protections this bill includes for children; however, it is my belief that the government is straying into the personal affairs of families, the governor said at the time. Our legislature needs to sort out its intentions with regard to parental rights. While it inserts governmental prerogative in some places, it affirms parental rights in others.
Gordon had also expressed disapproval for a bill preventing biological males from participating in girls sports in public schools. In March 2023, he allowed the bill, SF 133, to go into effect without his signature (refusing to veto it but also refusing to sign it). He said the bill is overly draconian, is discriminatory without attention to individual circumstances or mitigating factors, and pays little attention to fundamental principles of equality.
Gordon announced his intention to remove Cubin in an April 22 letter. While Gordon acknowledged the doctors free speech right to express his opinion, he insisted that the five-member board of medicine must remain impartial. The board is responsible for issuing and renewing licenses for physicians and other medical practitioners in the state, along with overseeing medical regulation, compliance, and discipline.
I have been made aware of your email to the members of the House of Representatives during this last legislative session regarding SF0099, in which you strongly encouraged the members to pass this legislation and criticized the Wyoming Medical Societys opposition to the bill, Gordon wrote.
I believe your comments on this particular legislation could give doctors, who are licensed by the board of medicine, a reason to be concerned that you might use your position to advocate for a particular position when considering matters that should be considered absent an agenda or prejudice, the governor added.
I am certain you would understand that while you certainly are entitled to your First Amendment right to free speech, as an individual member of the board, you would not be entitled to speak for the board unilaterally, Gordon wrote. He suggested that Cubin had chosen to express personal beliefs in a way that can be construed as speaking for the [board as a whole], and therefore he was removing the doctor.
**************************************************1 October, 2024
Mother Warns Against Colorado Law Prohibiting Abortion Pill Reversal That Saved Daughters Life
This is the person that the grim Leftists of Colorado would have killedWhen Mackenna Greene took the abortion pill to end the life of her unborn daughter, she immediately knew she had made the wrong choice.
Ill admit that in the days leading up to it, I was not excited, Greene told The Daily Signal. I was second-guessing myself. I found myself trying to convince myself that I was making the right decision.
Immediately after taking it, I felt regret, she said of the abortion pill, and I had a feeling that that was a very bad decision.
Greene said she googled her options and found Chelsea Mynyk, a nurse-midwife at the life-affirming Catholic medical center Bella Health and Wellness in Englewood, Colorado. Mynyk prescribes abortion pill reversal medication to women who regret starting a chemical abortion.
Greene took progesterone to counteract the effects of the first chemical abortion pill. About a month ago, she gave birth to her daughter.
I felt like I had worked my whole life to have her, Greene said. Im the luckiest girl alive to be looking at this girls face. And thank goodness that the reversal was successful.
Shes got such a personality and sometimes when I look at her, I think of missing out on all of that, and it hurts, Greene said. Im just so lucky, so blessed, to be able to look into her face every day.
But Colorado, where Greene and Mynyk live, passed a law in April 2023 forbidding doctors and nurses from providing the abortion pill reversal. Under that law, Mynyk could be fined up to $20,000 each time she helps reverse the effects of an abortion pill.
That same month, Becketpreviously the Becket Fund for Religious Libertysued the state of Colorado on behalf of Bella Health and Wellness, securing a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the law against the faith-based OB-GYN practice.
In January, an anonymous individual filed a complaint against Mynyk because she offers abortion pill reversal, and the Colorado Board of Nursing opened an investigation. In response, Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian law firm, filed a motion to intervene on Mynyks behalf. It was granted in April.
This is a law that restricts the ability of medical professionals like Chelsea [Mynyk] to save lives, said Kevin Theriot, a senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom.
Theriot is representing Mynyk as she challenges the Colorado law so that she may continue saving babies such as Greenes.
It singles out those women that have regret, just like Mackenna, and decide that they dont want to go through with the chemical abortion and doesnt allow them to give to receive this progesterone, which is a drug thats been used for over 50 years to stop miscarriage, Theriot told The Daily Signal. Chelsea herself has proven that it definitely increases the chances that moms like Mackenna can save their babies.
Medical professionals should be able to talk about and prescribe the abortion pill, Theriot said.
The law really doesnt make any sense unless you see it from the perspective of this radical abortion lobby that says that we want women to have access to abortion, and we dont think they should be able to change their minds, Theriot said.
Theriot said he hopes the court will enter a permanent injunction putting the Colorado law on hold because it violates the rights of Mynyk and patients such as Greene.
I think that would be very difficult to practice as a provider, not being able to offer this option to women, especially when they regret their abortion and they want something to take to reverse that, and especially because we know this is safe, Mynyk said. Its natural progesterone. Its not some sort of random pill were giving.
Everyone should be concerned about laws such as this that violate religious liberty and freedom of speech, the lawyer said.
The primary reason why this process is so important is because it saves lives, and Mackenna and her daughter are a perfect example of that, Theriot said. But it also is a treatment that medical professionals like Chelsea ought to be able to talk about, because its a viable option.
******************************************Stanford Marketing Course Requires DEI Statement Before Student Enrolls
Requiring students to make a DEi statement to qualify for a course is inappropriate and could cross the line of compelled speech, according to a Brookings Institution expert.
Stanford University is requiring that those applying to enroll in Global Entrepreneurial Marketing, a course offered by the Department of Management Science and Engineering, make a statement on diversity and inclusion.
Diversity is an important part of the mission of the Stanford MS&E Department and this class, text describing the required diversity and inclusion statement reads. Please use this opportunity to describe how you will contribute to a culture of diversity and inclusion in this class.
Brookings Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies, questioned the requirement in a post on his X account.
Heres what some @Stanford engineering instructors are requiring of prospective students for course enrollment, Rauch wrote.
Rauch acquired the screenshot of the requirement from a member of the Stanford community, he told The Center Square.
Rauch has authored eight books and writes for The Atlantic, according to his Brookings bio.
It is inappropriate to require students to make a statement about their commitment to diversity and inclusion in order to qualify for a course, Rauch told The Center Square.
While Stanford as a whole should expect students to conduct themselves in a civil, respective manner, conditioning participation in academic programs or activities on social or political commitments treads dangerously close to compelled speech, if it does not actually cross that line, Rauch said.
Moreover (and unfortunately), the term diversity and inclusion, in todays academic context, has acquired controversial political overtones which students may justifiably hesitate to endorse, Rauch said. A student could reasonably conclude that the teachers of this course intend to screen out students who disagree with them politically.
Stanford should tell these teachers to cut it out, Rauch said.
The requirement is in place despite the university recently announcing an institutional neutrality policy.
The course description mentions skills needed to market new technology-based products to customers around the world. Case method discussions. Cases include startups and global high tech firms.
The course themes are listed as marketing toolkit, targeting markets and customers, product marketing and management, partners and distribution, sales and negotiation, and outbound marketing.
The course description states that enrollment is limited and admission is by application.
The Center Square sought comment twice each from the listed course instructors, professors Lynda Smith and Thomas Kosnik. Neither responded.
The Center Square also sought comment twice each from Stanfords engineering dean, Jennifer Widom, and director of public relations, Jill Wu. Neither responded.
**********************************************Michigans Election Chief Faces Lawsuit for Refusing to Remove Dead People From Voter Rolls. Shes About to Get More Power
Michigan lawmakers are poised to empower Secretary of State Jocelyn Bensona Democrat who has faced six separate court orders to enforce election lawsto have more control over elections.
A package of four bills dubbed the Michigan Voting Rights Act cleared the Democrat-controlled state Senate and awaits action by the Democrat-controlled state House of Representatives.
Critics say the legislation would strip the state Legislature and Michigans local governments of authority to regulate voting.
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They are systematically moving power away from local election clerkswho are not partisan but are hard workersand up to the state, state Sen. Ruth Johnson, a Republican and former Michigan secretary of state, told The Daily Signal.
Under Benson, the state voter registration rolls have 106% of the voting-age population of Michigan, Johnson said, arguing that Benson is an operative for the far Left.
She is the most partisan secretary of state in my lifetime, Johnson said. I prided myself on bringing both sides to the table in overseeing elections.
Michiganwhich Republican Donald Trump won in the 2016 election and Democrat Joe Biden won in the 2020 electionis one of the most hotly contested and closely watched states in the 2024 presidential race.
Benson formerly worked for the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center as well as the Democratic National Committee. She was the founder of an activist group called the Michigan Center for Election Law and Administration.
Pure Integrity Michigan Elections, an elections watchdog group, points to six occasions over the past four years in which state and federal courts ruled against Benson in election law cases:
In July, in the case of Republican National Committee v. Benson, Michigan Court of Claims Judge Christopher Yates ruled against the secretary of states policy of presuming voters signatures were valid. The RNC brought the case in March regarding Bensons December 2023 instructions to election clerks to presume the validity of absentee voters signatures. The RNC argued that the instructions violated the Michigan Constitution, which requires verification of signatures.
In October 2022, in the case of OHalloran v. Benson, Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Brock Swartzle ordered Benson to revise her rules governing poll watchers guidelines to comply with Michigan election law. Bensons rules limited when poll watchers could make a challenge and also banned electronic devices. Swartzle determined that Benson did not go through proper procedures. However, the Michigan Supreme Court, in a 4-3 ruling, last month sided with Benson and reversed lower court rulings.
In March 2021, Benson lost in the case of Genetski v. Benson when a judge struck down her October 2020 guidance regarding standards for voter signatures. Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Christopher Murrays ruling said Benson violated the Administrative Standards Act. Bensons guidance was put in place before the November 2020 election. The court ruling only affected elections going forward.
In October 2020, in the case of Davis v. Benson, Murray issued an injunction against Bensons directive banning the open carry of firearms at polling places.
In 2020, in the case of Carra v. Benson, Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Cynthia Stephens issued a preliminary injunction against Bensons directive restricting poll watchers and election challengers. (Poll watchers observe voting; election challengers observe the count.) The litigation was related to requirements for social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Days before the 2020 election, Bensons office settled the lawsuit, which was brought by state House candidate Steve Carra, a Republican, to allow poll watchers and election challengers to be within six feet of election workers.
In the case of Johnson v. Benson in October 2020, U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney ordered Benson to change her guidance on the time and manner of election processes to comply with state law on the deadline for the arrival of absentee ballots.
On the most recent front, in a pending case, the Republican National Committee sued Benson over her instructions to local clerks and election inspectors to process and count ballots with numbers that dont match those in the poll book or the return envelope. Republicans alleged that this procedure violated Michigan law requiring matching numbers on the ballot, poll book, and ballot return envelope to ensure that ballots were cast and counted properly.
Earlier this month, testifying with other secretaries of state before the House Administration Committee in Washington, Benson said unsubstantiated rhetoric can harm those charged with protecting our election systems.
However, Patrice Johnson, who chairs Pure Integrity Michigan Elections, said Benson hasnt demonstrated evidence that election workers face threats of violence.
Benson also has tried to intimidate both election watchdogs and local election officials, said Johnson, who is not related to Ruth Johnson.
Her behavior is reminiscent of Gestapo tactics, designed to intimidate and silence opposition, PIMEs Johnson told The Daily Signal. No one who values free speech and the Constitution of the United Statesor who respects her constituentswould trample on individual rights in this arrogant and self-aggrandizing manner.
The PIME chair pointed to Bensons words during an online question-and-answer session last month.
If someone were to violate the law, and not certify the election at the local level, we will come for you, Benson said of local election officials. So, any local certifier thinking of skirting the law and not certifying the vote, dont even think about it, because well get you.
The legislative package touted by Benson as the Michigan Voting Rights Act is made up of four separate bills.
Senate Bill 401 would allow court-appointed monitors to oversee elections for up to 10 years. Critics say it would pave the way for the process known as ranked choice voting. SB 402 would establish a private institute outside a government entity for collecting election data.
SB 403 would mandate language assistance for elections, which critics say would create heavy costs for elections offices. Finally, SB 404 would legalize electioneering near voting locations, which critics say could jeopardize the secret ballot.
Bensons office has argued that the legislative package would prohibit voter denial, dilution, and suppression and enhance and clarify protections for voters with disabilities or others who need assistance to participate in elections.
A spokesperson for the Michigan Department of State did not respond to inquiries from The Daily Signal for this story. But in a public statement last week, Benson touted the Michigan Senates passage of the legislation
Every Michigan voter deserves access to fair, secure elections and no citizen should be unfairly denied the right to vote, Benson said. The Michigan Voting Rights Act will not only build on the federal Voting Rights Act but will add new protections at the state level to shield us from future attacks on our democracy.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation sued Michigan over Bensons refusal to remove the names of 26,000 dead people from voter registration lists. Of those, almost 4,000 had been dead for over two decades; 17,479 were dead for more than a decade; 23,663 had been dead for at least five years.
The foundation, an election watchdog group, noted that Bensons department mismanaged voter rolls. She publicly defended her office, however.
**********************************************Concerns over Gender Queer book dismissed by Australian classifications board as anti-LGBTQ+, court hears
OK to promote deviant sexuality to kids (?)
The Australian classifications board made a broadbrush dismissal of over 500 submissions calling for a ban of the book Gender Queer by labelling those submissions as anti-LGBTQ+, a court has heard.
In July last year, the Classification Board rejected calls to restrict access to a memoir about gender identity that was the target of conservative campaigns to have it banned in the US, and found the content was appropriate for its intended audience.
Activist Bernard Gaynor had applied to the board in early 2023 to review the classification of the graphic novel-style memoir about gender identity by writer Maia Kobabe.
Complaints about the book which details Kobabes experience coming out as non-binary are focused on the cartoon images of sex scenes, one of which has been described by critics seeking a ban as pornographic and paedophilic.
When the Australian Classification Board upheld its original decision to classify the book as unrestricted with the consumer advice of M not recommended for readers under 15 years, Gaynor appealed against the ruling to the federal court.
In a hearing on Monday, Bret Walker SC, acting for Gaynor, said the overwhelming majority of submissions to the board on the review of the decision had called for the publication to be restricted or refused classification. He argued the classification board had erred by not taking these submissions into account, by broadly labelling them as anti-LGBTQIA+.
Walker said there was a deliberately broadbrush dismissal of those submissions, many of which he said objected to what they saw as depicting a man having sex with a minor referring to an image portraying Platos Symposium. Walker said many of those objections did not refer to the gender of the images subjects, just that it appeared to depict paedophilia.
Justice Ian Jackman said that while by his count, about 600 submissions from among 9,000 people had been considered to be anti-LGBTQ+ by the board, on closer examination Jackman said just 52 of these expressed anti-LGBTQ+ views less than 1% of submissions received.
Walker said the board gave little weight to the submissions, and had failed to engage with them in its review decision.
In response, the barrister for the minister for communications and the classification board, Houda Younan SC, said the law did not require the board to accept submissions as part of the review of its classification decision and that the invitation of submissions did not require the decision-maker to then consider them.
However, Younan said the board did consider the public submissions and did not dismiss them on the basis of being anti-LGBTQ+ but because they did not assist the board in its statutory task of a classifications decision.
We say that in this case, every submission was received and considered, Younan said.
Submissions in the decision were labelled to give their tenor, she said. Submissions were given weight based on whether they contained evidence the writer had read Gender Queer and understood its content within the context of the publication.
Those that did not demonstrate an engagement with the publication were given little weight, she said.
Younan indicated the board had considered whether a submission noted the context of the image being of Platos Symposium, or was a criticism of the image on its own, removed of context.
She later identified 14 additional examples of explicitly anti-LGBTQ+ submissions beyond those initially identified by Jackman.
Among the orders sought, Gaynor is seeking to have the decision remitted back to the classifications board.
Jackman reserved his decision.
In the US, Gender Queer is one of the most challenged books in libraries. Kobabe told the ABC in May that the US push to ban the book had been frustrating and that the depiction of Platos Symposium had been included as it was one of the few gay-themed texts Kobabe had encountered in college.
It stuck in my mind, because it was the only one.
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