The Democratic Party and the liberal left’s obsession with disparate impact race politics crept into K-12 public education. Their latest social engineering experimentation uses black and Hispanic kids in poor urban classrooms as pawns for political power. Education is secondary.
Liberals believe they can artificially wipe away serious behavior problems that are cultural in nature. They do this by labeling reasonable standards of classroom discipline as racist or discriminatory. When urban schools with predominantly black and Hispanic students enacted protocols that create an environment where learning can take place, more suspensions and expulsions resulted, accompanied by a widening of the achievement gap between black students and their white counterparts.
The knee-jerk reaction from liberals was to claim that school disciplinary policies that disproportionally affected black and Hispanic kids were culturally insensitive, discriminatory and evidence of racism. The liberals were confusing correlation and causation. School officials were even discouraged from calling police even in cases of violent assaults – that could also be considered racist.
Social engineers in colleges and universities began drawing up untested experiments using black and Hispanic kids as laboratory rats. They wanted to show that leaving disruptive kids in the classroom, instead of removing them for serious behavior violations including assaults on teachers, would improve scholastic performance.
Instead, disruptions and scholastic performance both got worse. Leaving disruptive kids in a classroom is a danger not only to the teacher but to other students as well. The university professors are nowhere near the classrooms to see the disaster they created with their inane idea, nor are they held accountable.
Not surprisingly, no amount of cultural sensitivity training of school officials will negate the culturally dysfunctional baggage brought to school every day by students.
Too many black kids today do not come to school in a state of readiness to learn. They have not been read to by parents. They are not socially adjusted for a group environment like a classroom, nor have they been reasonably disciplined for unwanted behavior. This emotional baggage is then thrown into the lap of a teacher who does not have the education or skills for handling these serious emotional and behavioral problems.
Kids have an excuse because of their age, immaturity and bad parenting. The parents of those disruptive kids have no excuse. Long ago, parents were absolved of their responsibility to raise their kids effectively. Liberal social dogma told them racism was at the root of their inability to raise kids who were ready for the demands of a school classroom.
Poverty was to blame too. Now liberals had a reason for not just government but economic intervention as well. This gave the left a two-for-one moment to enact expensive government-run tax-supported programs. They could spend more money not just on unproven education experiments but also on new anti-poverty programs.
K-4 programs have become K-3 programs. This further absolves mainly black and Hispanic parents from their rightful responsibility of raising their kids.
We are on our way to kids being taken immediately from the maternity ward to a government school. They are already being fed three meals a day and provided for by taxpayer-funded after-school programs. Why not just start them on the road to government dependency, not to mention indoctrination and exposure to leftist dogma, as early in life as possible?
GOP politicians in Congress have been reluctant to challenge the efficacy of these expensive programs lest they are accused of not caring about black and Hispanic children, or being outright racist. Nothing makes a white Republican politician run like their hair is on fire faster than being accused of not caring about black kids.
Education has always been the traditional vehicle for upward mobility in America. It is even more important in today’s knowledge-based economy.
Blacks who have embraced education are less likely to have kids who drop out of school, commit crimes, join gangs or make other flawed lifestyle choices like drug and alcohol abuse and having children they are ill-equipped to raise.
One of the hallmarks of slavery was criminalizing the education of black children thus keeping them ignorant. I would argue that many of today’s public school policies achieve the same results – they keep kids ignorant.
The goal of social activists is not to fix education problems but to fix the statistics. They are focusing on the wrong thing. Statistics can be exploited not only to make school problems (seem to) disappear, but also to demonstrate the need for the continuation of government programs. The kids who fail in school today are the population that tomorrow will fill jails and prisons and be in need of government assistance.
Former President George W. Bush called these low expectations “soft bigotry.” He was right. Now the left wants to back up the soft bigotry with faulty statistics.
The Senate passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on Saturday, which serves as one of the final steps for Congress to pass historic tax legislation.
The Senate passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 51-49, almost entirely along party lines, with Vice President Mike Pence presiding over the vote. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) voted against the bill, and 48 Democrats voted against the tax reform legislation as well.
Reluctant Republican senators such as Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) voted for the bill after last-minute changes were made. Flake received a commitment from Republican leadership and the White House that they would pursue a permanent solution for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) illegal aliens, while Collins received a provision that would keep the deduction for state and local taxes (SALT).
The U.S. Senate voted just before 2 a.m. ET Saturday to pass a sweeping tax overhaul worth roughly $1.4 trillion, putting the Trump White House a big step closer to its first major legislative victory – and many Americans closer to a tax cut.
The vote was 51-49, with Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee the only member of the GOP to side with the Democrats in opposition.
Not long after the vote, President Donald Trump tweeted his reaction:
“We are one step closer to delivering MASSIVE tax cuts for working families across America,” the president wrote. “Special thanks to @SenateMajLdr Mitch McConnell and Chairman @SenOrrinHatch for shepherding our bill through the Senate. Look forward to signing a final bill before Christmas!”
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
We are one step closer to delivering MASSIVE tax cuts for working families across America. Special thanks to @SenateMajLdr Mitch McConnell and Chairman @SenOrrinHatch for shepherding our bill through the Senate. Look forward to signing a final bill before Christmas!
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also responded, calling the legislation a “betrayal of the American middle class.”
“The GOP tax scam is a product of haste, carelessness and cruelty,” Pelosi wrote. “It was written on Republicans’ trickle-down delusions, not analysis or facts. It was written first and foremost for the wealthiest one percent, not middle class families trying to get ahead.”
In passing the #GOPTaxScam, @SenateGOP has sealed its betrayal of the American middle class.
The bill is not yet finalized. Saturday’s vote means the Senate and House have passed similar tax reform plans, but negotiators from both chambers will start meeting Monday to agree on a single piece of legislation that both chambers must approve before it is sent to the president for his signature.
Here’s how the latest legislation would affect you:
What deductions can I claim under the Senate bill that just passed?
The Senate bill does away with federal deductions for state and local income and sales taxes, but allows deductions of up to $10,000 in local property taxes. The legislation originally eliminated federal deduction for all state and local taxes, but the property tax exemption was later added at the insistence of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who said she was “delighted” about the change.
What about personal deductions?
Like the House bill, the Senate bill nearly doubles the standard deduction level to $12,000 for individuals (up from $6,350) and $24,000 for couples (up from $12,700).
Any other deductions I could claim?
The Senate bill retains the current limit for the home mortgage interest deduction to interest paid on the first $1 million of the loan. (The House bill reduces the limit to $500,000 for new home purchases.) The Senate version also preserves the deduction for medical expenses not covered by insurance (the House bill does not), but ends deductions for moving expenses and tax preparation.
Why does the Senate bill allow deducting medical expenses not covered by insurance?
Because the Senate bill also repeals ObamaCare’s individual mandate, while the House bill does not. If ObamaCare’s mandate is repealed, thousands of people are expected to drop their health insurance, raising the cost for those who decide to keep it.
And the personal exemption?
The Senate and House bills both eliminate the $4,050 personal tax exemption.
Will the tax brackets change at all?
The Senate bill keeps seven tax brackets, but reduces them to 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35 and 38.5 percent. (The current brackets are 10, 15, 25, 28, 33, 35, and 39.6 percent.) The House measure condenses seven brackets to four: 12, 25, 35 and 39.6 percent.
I own a small business. What would this mean for me?
The Senate bill allows owners of so-called “pass-through” businesses (that is, businesses that aren’t incorporated) to deduct 23 percent of their earnings, and then pay at their personal income tax rate on the remainder. This issue was a key concern of Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Steve Daines, R-Mont., both of whom announced this week that they would support the bill.
What about corporate tax rates?
Like the House bill, the Senate bill cuts the current 35 percent rate to 20 percent, but the Senate bill calls for a one-year delay in dropping the rate.
When will tax reform take effect?
President Trump and congressional Republicans have vowed to make tax reform law before the end of the year. If that happens, most of the provisions would come into force on Jan. 1.
Will tax reform affect my returns for this year?
The changes will not have any impact on your taxes for 2017, which are due to the IRS by April 17, 2018 (you get an extra 48 hours to file because the traditional April 15 due date falls on a Sunday).
So when will the differences in the bills be hashed out?
The House will vote on a motion to go to conference on the tax bills on Monday evening. The Senate is expected to vote on a similar measure soon after. Congress is scheduled to adjourn for its Christmas break on Dec. 15, but House Speaker Paul Ryan has said he will keep the House in session beyond that date if necessary to get tax reform passed.
Yes I Believe In Global Warning You Damn Idiots. The Fuhrer Was A Tree Hugger.
The Great Global Warming Scam Began with the Nazis…
If you really want to understand the great global warming scam you must listen to my podcast this week with Rupert Darwall.
In his new book Green Tyranny, Darwall tells a story so extraordinary and implausible that it’s no wonder most of the mainstream media has been too scared to touch it.
The bottom line: it all started with the Nazis.
Yes, I know. It sounds so click-baity, doesn’t it?
That’ll be why even those journals and writers that have reviewed the book favorably have tended to steer clear of the key chapter in Darwall’s book. The one mischievously titled ‘Europe’s First Greens’.
Europe’s First Greens were, of course, the Nazis.
The documentary evidence provided by Darwall is irrefutable, for this is a considered, well-researched and scholarly work not a potboiler.
What Darwall demonstrates is that the ideology driving the current climate scare originated in Hitler’s Germany.
Angela Merkel’s Energiewende, the brainwashing of your kids in school with green propaganda,the Climate Industrial Complex, the black outs in South Australia, Solyndra, Obama promising that electricity prices would “necessarily skyrocket”, the bat-chomping bird-slicing eco-crucifixes destroying a skyline near you, the real reason Trump just had to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord – it’s all basically the fault of the Nazis.
Americans Are So Damn Stupid. I know Climate Change Is A Joke But I Still Gave Them Solyndra $535 m. I’m A Pimp Damit
That’s because Nazis – though similar in so many ways to their fellow totalitarians the Communists – had at least one major point of difference with Marxist ideology: they feared and loathed industrial progress and they worshipped nature.
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:
When man attempts to rebel against the iron logic of Nature, he comes into struggle with the principles to which he himself owes his existence as a man.
The Fuhrer, in other words, was as big a Gaia worshipper as even Naomi Klein or Emma Thompson or Leonardo di Caprio.
As Hitler thought, so did the Nazi intelligentsia. Many of them were vegetarians and, like Rudolf Hess and Agriculture Minister Walter Darre were big fans of organic farming. The party was fiercely anti-smoking (even though the Germans continued to smoke fanatically so long as tobacco was available). They were also massively into “renewable” energy, especially wind, tidal power and hydroelectric.
Hitler said in a dinner party conversation in 1941:
“We shall have to use every method of encouraging whatever might ensure us the gain of a single kilowatt…Coal will disappear one day.”
He then speculated on renewable solutions to this ‘peak coal’ problem:
“The future belongs, surely, to water – to the wind and the tides.”
(This isn’t mentioned in the book but Hitler’s favorite SS commando – Otto Skorzeny – who miraculously survived the war and retired to live in Spain spent his later years campaigning on behalf of the wind industry.)
Darwall doesn’t mince his words:
The Nazis’ profound hostility to capitalism and their identification with nature-politics led them to advocate green policies half a century before any other political party. As an approximation, subtract Nazi race-hate, militarism and desire for world conquest, and Nazi ideology ends up looking not dissimilar to today’s environmental movement.
What Darwall goes on to demonstrate is how this mindset, unabated by the defeat of Nazi Germany, continued to dominate European political thought. This was especially so in the two countries most responsible for promulgating the climate change scare: Sweden and Germany.
In Germany, the Nazis’ green ideology became linked inextricably with that of the Peace movement – which, with a certain irony, was largely sponsored by the Soviet Union.
Sweden, meanwhile, did most to get the global warming scare up and running in the early days. Bert Bolin, the first chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was a Swede.
You’ll have to read Darwall’s book for the full, rather complicated story. By the end you’ll have an answer to perhaps the most puzzling of the many questions about the global warming industry: why, given the scientific evidence is so flimsy, does it carry on pushing its cause so fervently?
The answer is simple: because “global warming” is not about “the science” and never was about “the science.”
Like the “acid rain” scare and the “nuclear winter” scare, the man-made global warming scare is a fake news story designed to push a political and economic agenda.
At the bottom of that agenda is the same superstitious fear the Nazis had: that industrial progress is morally wrong because it is against Nature.
Hence the greenies’ obsession with renewables. Despite all the evidence that renewables do at least as much environmental damage as fossil fuels, only much more expensively, and without making any meaningful difference to “climate change” the green ideology persists in pretending that renewables are the “clean” “natural” alternative to “dirty” fossil fuels.
It’s about emotion not logic; about the narrative, not reality.
For decades we’ve been gulled by a compliant (and invariably ignorant) media into believing that the global warming scare is about scientists doing clever sciencey stuff and reaching important conclusions which the world can only ignore at its peril.
But actually, all along, the tail has been wagging the dog.
The scientists are a virtual irrelevance in this story: merely the useful idiots of a political agenda.
That agenda is part religion – a kind of pagan nature worship expressed through opposition to Western industrial civiliation and the embrace of retrograde technologies like wind power.
And it’s part leftist politics and economics: a way by which Europe can destroy and overtake the United States’ economic hegemony by neutralising one of its greatest competitive advantages – the abundance of fossil fuels which have now made it the world’s number one energy superpower.
Donald Trump probably hasn’t a clue about the intellectual and ideological undercurrents which created the great global warming scare. But he’s a businessman and saw what was happening through gut instinct.
Global warming is a scam – the biggest the world has ever seen.
