Monthly Archives: April 2024

Plenty of Blame to Go Around In Education

By Anthony Trevlac

  • April 29, 2024
  • 4-min read

Most Americans have long recognized that education is a prerequisite for happiness, success, and well-being. It is also fair to say there is a widespread feeling that our schools are failing us.

There is a lot of debate about what to do to improve our schools, but it is important to remember they do not operate in a vacuum. Public education reflects the values in our communities, our nation, and ourselves.

Teachers and administrators should be held accountable, but our educational system can only do so much when the environment in which our children are raised has changed so dramatically. There is enough blame to go around. If our schools aren’t good enough, it is also important to ask if we are good enough.

The disintegration of the family is key. Most black children in the 1960’s had two-parent households. Most today do not. About three-fourths of black children in America today are born to unmarried women.

Only the most naïve of us – or the most willfully ignorant – would deny the devastating effect this has had on the ability of children to concentrate in school, get support at home, follow good role models, and stay out of trouble. Children from intact, two-parent homes perform better on every important metric.

Then there is the worst self-inflicted wound in our history. America shut down the economy and public education during Covid. Millions of us complained at the time and were widely reviled by those people who think you should just fall in line.

We objected to the loss of freedom and predicted it would result in terrible long-term damage to the economy. Many unconstitutional actions were taken, and sanctions were applied randomly. Why was it OK to go to Lowe’s or Kroger, but not to Larry’s Hardware or Sam’s grocery? Why was it safe to wait in line at Wal-Mart but not to wait in line to vote?

Those who defend our response to Covid claim we didn’t know much about it, we learned as we went along, and we did our best. That certainly is a charitable way to look at things. The physicians who used to use leeches and bled their patients said the same thing.

There was never good science behind several of the tactics we were told to use (masks, six-feet distancing), and many policies were continued long after we knew better. They are still promoted today.

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Let’s Skip Ousting Mike Johnson …
For Now

By J Robert Smith

  • April 22, 2024
  • 5-min read

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been joined by two of her House Republican colleagues in calling for Speaker Mike Johnson’s ouster. These three have ample cause. But when – not if – Johnson is booted matters. Trump wants Johnson to stay, saying, “I stand with the speaker, we’ve had a very good relationship.” Lindsey Graham claims Trump helped win Ukraine funding. But after the elections are over, Trump needs to ditch Johnson. The speaker has all the signs of being another Paul Ryan.

As conservative activist Ned Ryun remarked about Johnson last Sunday on X:

“I say this as an evangelical: this guy is one of the worst combinations you can ever have in politics. A smarmy evangelical who bends to the will of Democrats and the administrative state. And thinks he’s righteous in doing so.”

Last Saturday, the U.S. House, led by Speaker Johnson, committed an outrage. House Democrats and Republicans passed a stand-alone $60.8 billion funding bill for Ukraine, though there’s a carve out to “replenish [U.S.] weapons and stocks.” There’s also $13.8 billion for “advanced weapons systems.” The defense industry must get its kickbacks.

To flaunt their victory, uniparty members waved little Ukrainian flags on the House floor.

Despite Johnson’s oft-stated concerns for border security, not a penny was approved to stop the illegals deluge. Johnson’s words are meaningless. His actions speak volumes.

The uniparty’s display was one of defiance. Such congressional brazenness might be a first for the Republic. Democrats and a Republican faction showcased their contempt for the people’s will. Their votes were a statement. They’re jobs are to promote establishment interests. Those interests? A crass drive for money.

Mike Benz, a former State Department cyber security expert and analyst stated at X:

“Ukraine “Aid” & The Blob Uniparty: it ain’t about ideology, it ain’t about democracy — it’s strictly business.”

Benz offers a deeper dive about “The Blob” in his February 16 interview with Tucker Carlson.

Despite Marjorie Taylor Green’s very public attacks on Johnson, he isn’t going anywhere. Only one member of the GOP caucus is needed to cause the speaker’s chair to be vacated. Removing Johnson now and starting another speaker’s election – surely contentious and protracted – may satisfy a political blood lust but would make all sorts of trouble as election season kicks into higher gear. It’s trouble for Trump on his flank. Trump is picking his way through a perilous minefield as is.

Booting Johnson for his weak-kneed leadership risks more defections by establishment Republicans. Given the one-seat margin House Republicans enjoy, it wouldn’t take a RINO stampede out to flip the lower chamber to Hakheem Jefferies. If you don’t think Jeffries and his collection of statists, America haters, and cultural degenerates would make worse legislation on a broader range of issues, think again.

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Newest Study Confirms: Trying to Change A Youth’s Sex is A Bad Idea

By Rob Meyne

  • April 15, 2024
  • 3-min read

If you had traveled forward in time from 1990 and were suddenly plunged into contemporary America, you would find it very difficult to believe what you hear. Men can have babies, there are more than a hundred genders, men should use women’s bathrooms, it is OK when boys expose themselves to girls in a locker room, and you can get fired if you don’t call a boy who wants to be a woman “she or her.” People have lost their jobs for that.

“Misgendering” is considered harassment in some circles. “Misgendering” doesn’t mean you used a wrong term based on biology; it means you used the accurate term. By the same token, surgery that is gender “affirming” refers to one that CHANGES one’s genitals to more closely resemble what the patient THINKS they should be, not what the science shows to be true.

Patients have taken over the asylum.

This just in: you cannot change your sex. Sex isn’t “assigned” at birth. Sex is determined by the physical, scientific proof available to health care professionals. It is a question of scientific proof. It isn’t a guessing game. If you have two X chromosomes, you are female. If you have an X and a Y, you are male. It IS that simple.

Tom Slater, writing in Spiked, has done some excellent reporting on this. See pieces from him on April 12, and April 11, both available at Real Clear Politics. Great stuff.

Slater discusses a ground-breaking review by Dr, Hilary Cass. It appears to be the most comprehensive, and best-resourced, overview of these subjects extant. Cass, a top pediatrician in the UK, worked for four years, reviewing a vast array of research. Cass concludes trans interventions are seldom a good idea, are not proven beneficial, and do more harm than good. Slater: “It is a stunning piece of work: a 400-page triumph of reason over unreason.”

Based on this study alone, reason would suggest the current mess of gender confusion, surgeries, medical interventions, and finger-pointing should recede in favor of science and common sense. Perhaps our world will slowly return to sanity. Yet, as long as people pay a substantial price, either professionally or personally, for opposing this woke nonsense it will be hard to turn things around.

(On a related note, a Canadian man has taken the government to pay for surgery that will give him a vagina, or “mangina,” as it has been called. This is in addition to his penis which was, at last report, still present and accounted for. The best thing you can say about that case is that, if he is able to emerge from it all with both a mangina and a penis, it presents dozens of temptations to tell him to go f**k himself.)

Is there any wonder younger people are confused, unhappy, even suicidal, considering the number of things that are clearly true but are today routinely rejected by people in authority?

There is a huge difference, of course, between telling a child they can be whatever sex they wish, on the one hand, and telling them, on the other, that we love them, respect them, and will support them if they choose to live their lives in some unconventional way. I like it when people are happy. If my son or daughter wants to live their lives claiming they are a Ficus tree, well, o k, I guess I’ll stock up on plant food instead of Chick-Fil-A. This isn’t about respect or approval; it is about coercion to toe the party line. We can respect people all day long, and vigorously defend their rights, without pretending their decisions make sense or are rooted in reality.

We do not have to agree with every mental or emotional decision made by others. It does not make us hateful when we don’t. If my neighbor Dave wants to say he is a girl, I hope that makes him happy. I hope he would not expect me to say “Yes, you’re a girl.” Saying something does not make it so.

Back to Cass. Her study has concluded, more convincingly than any previous scholarly work, that in general sexual interventions, medical or surgical, do not improve a person’s overall health, mental or physical; they do not reduce suicides; they do not make people happier; they can ruin, irreversibly, a person’s plans on having children; and they are not without horrible and painful side effects. In short, messing around with a young person’s genitals, before they even understand sex, is a really bad idea.

The best way to deal with a child who has gender dysphoria is to support, comfort, educate, understand, and love them, but to not do anything to them that is damaging or irreversible. Let them grow up. Then, as informed adults, they can make a responsible decision.

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EVs Will Be the End of Mobility

By Rob Meyne

  • April 10, 2024
  • 5-min read

If you want yet another example of how freedom dies, spend fifteen consecutive seconds considering the EPAs’ recent rule that will require the death of internal combustion engine vehicles.

The insidious nature of the creeping bureaucratic state has been detailed by people as varied as Ronald Reagan, Ayn Rand, and anyone sentient and intelligent enough to pay attention.

The EPA is the Devil’s Spawn. It was created under President Nixon, as a paean to the far left who thought all Republicans wanted to kill puppies, poison water, and finish it all over a heaping plate of Whooping Crane Helper. Nixon was, some would say, suckered into the con that you can get people who hate you to like you just by being more like them.

It seldom works, and old Tricky Dick lived long enough to realize his idea of empowering a bunch of unelected bureaucrats to regulate every small detail of our private lives, all in the name of saving the planet, has cost us much and not produced enough.

The EPA has gone to court to argue they have the power to regulate CO2. CO2 is, of course, a naturally occurring substance, without which life would not be possible. It amounts to a total of about 0.04 per cent of the atmosphere (that is four one-hundredths of one per cent). We exhale it, you and I, as do all animals. Plants can’t live without it. If Co2 disappeared, so would life. But we are to believe it is the enemy. Sure, yeah, let’s pretend it is evil and let some clown in DC make six figures bitching about it.

So now comes the most damaging, unintelligent, and eventually unpopular rule in the history of DC. It will result in the banning of cars and trucks, as we have come to know them. You read that correctly.

The rule will force American car companies to produce more electric vehicles, and fewer gas-powered ones, resulting in a de facto banning of traditional vehicle by 2032. You read that right. Eight years from now, everyone will be expected to go for EVs.

If you want a good summary, see the piece in Real Clear Policy, April 8, by analyst John Miltimore. It is clear and compelling. He says, “Forcing automobile companies to expand production of their least-profitable product lines at the expense of their best-performing ones is economic madness.”

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Stop Mommying Kids about the Eclipse

By J Robert Smith

  • April 7, 2024
  • 4-min read

American society is in full retrograde motion. Tomorrow — yes, tomorrow — a solar eclipse is going to cut a swath across the United States, southwest to northeast. Fear and trembling are in order.

In any one place, the eclipse is expected to last a grand total of 4 minutes and 27 seconds. Yet, the reactions to this much anticipated astronomical event are downright droolingly stupid.

Here in Western Pennsylvania, where I reside, schools are opting to close. The eclipse track is slightly north of here, meaning that 98.3% of the eclipse is visible. The excuse for the closings is that kids might harm their widdle eyes staring too long at the solar event.

Since peak eclipse will occur a smidge after most schools are dismissed here, high schoolers who drive may rubberneck to observe, say school district authorities. Not only will teenagers go blind, but car accidents will be more plentiful than teacher workdays. Who knows? Kids staring at the Awesome Spectacle while on school property rather than at home might be legal liabilities. Don’t put that calculation past pencil-necked school administrators and district lawyers. If your kid stays at home and goes blind, it ain’t on us!

An email notice sent from a local high school to parents follows. The school’s name has been edited out to spare administrators and faculty acute embarrassment, yet, with any luck, the day will come when the aforementioned are mightily embarrassed for their inanity.

“Following up on the communication below that was sent on March 24th regarding the Solar Eclipse, the District will operate on a Flexible Instruction Day (FID) on Monday, April 8, 2024. Students will not report to school but will complete their schoolwork from home.”

In the course of my 66 years on the planet, there have been eclipses now and then.

When I was a middle schooler, an eclipse occurred during a school day. Wouldn’t you know it, my science teacher made it a science project. He brought disposable polarized glasses to class. We all had a chance to take a look at a natural wonder. Hard to believe, none of us went blind, not even temporarily. Even us kids back in ancient times didn’t look at the eclipse without 1) eye protection, however rudimentary by today’s standards, and 2) after being told not to stare at it. Hard to believe that us primitives had enough sense to follow instruction.

Kids today aren’t genetically different than kids back then, though 0.000003% claim to be the opposite sex. Or their disasters-of-parents claim. Contemporary kids, having the same brains we had, can certainly grasp commonsense. With proper guidance, overwhelmingly, most wouldn’t gawk at the eclipse with their unaided eyes. In fact, this eclipse could be another swell learning experience. The universe is chockful of magnificent wonders compared anything you can see on a handheld screen.

Ah, but therein may be the rub. Perhaps there are too many parents today who don’t parent? They indulge their kids rather than guide, instruct, and discipline. A lot of schools aren’t going to do much more than mommy kids, because, you know, it’s futile when parents don’t parent and lawsuits pop up like mushrooms.

When it comes to the Great, Spectacular, Wonderous, Humongous Eclipse of 2024, kids don’t need to be mommied and skip school. Or, alas, maybe they do. But, if we want today’s kids to become real adults, mommying them all the time ain’t gonna cut it.

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