Author: MC

Master of Truth. A writer who has captured the imagination of many.

Categories
Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

Just putting this out there. Professor: COVID pandemic, inflation make minority parents ‘devolve’ to poor behavior

Oh really?-College fix-Wycoff.
‘Historically marginalized communities like Philadelphia experience even higher levels of trauma’A professor at Thomas Jefferson University said incidences of Philadelphia parents and other adults coming to schools to settle their kids’ arguments and threaten teachers is due in part to the effects of the COVID pandemic, inflation and gun violence.Psychologist Kirby Wycoff (pictured) told The Philadelphia Inquirer that “historically marginalized communities like Philadelphia experience even higher levels of trauma than other communities,” and as such “may devolve to behavior that’s not helpful.”

“These families are stressed out, overwhelmed, and not sure how to get their needs met,” Wycoff said. “It’s not OK, but I can understand where it’s coming from.”

Over the last two years, the 217 schools in the city district have seen a concerning number of threats and incidents involving adults. In the first half of this school year there have been “five assaults on employees by parents and 35 threats by parents to employees.” At this same time last year there were two and 41, respectively.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, related how he recently approved the transfer of a teacher who had been assaulted by a student and, soon thereafter, members of the student’s family.

“Adults just marched right into the school, ignored the rules of checking into the office, walked right into the classroom, and attacked the teacher [physically],” Jordan told the Inquirer.

MORE: Philly teachers fed up with knuckleheaded discipline policies

Former Principal Robin Cooper said school district officials share the blame: “Why would I act appropriately if there’s nothing in it for me, if I know I can come up and act a fool and my kid still gets to terrorize a school? Our schools are not bad if the supports are there to hold people accountable for behavior.”

Cooper’s comments reflect the situation in many American schools: a paucity of teachers.

Despite media accounts about things like poor salaries, constant student misbehavior and lack of administrative support rank consistently highest among educator (and potential educator) concerns.

Wycoff’s solutions — more school “resources” and “promoting trauma-informed practices across systems” — sound a lot like methods in line with “restorative justice.”

According to her faculty page, Wycoff is co-author of articles such as “Motherhood Among Young Black Women: Wisdom and Survival amidst Trauma, Racism, and Structural Oppression,” “‘I ain’t ready: It’s time to get ready:’ Exploring Dichotomous Feelings about Motherhood among Young Women of Color,” and “Applying a MTSS Framework to Address Racism and Promote Mental Health for Racially and Ethnically Minoritized Youth.”

MORE: Philly schools launch ‘comprehensive initiative’ to end racism

Categories
Crime Daily Hits. Links from other news sources. Uncategorized

California Progressives rejoice. Rest of the population mourns. Their gun control laws only allowed one mass shooting this week.

Gun control. KABC photo.

California Progressives rejoice. Rest of the population mourns. Their gun control laws only allowed one mass shooting this week. Yes my friends it looks as if gun control is finally working in California. Only one mass shooting this past week.

A mass shooting took place Thursday in the wealthy Beverly Crest neighborhood of Los Angeles, killing three and wounding four people according to police. The shooting took place at a short term rental on the 2700 block of Ellison Dr. No suspect or motive has been identified as of yet but the public is not believed to be in danger. It has not been determined whether a party was taking place.

It’s working so well that California lawmakers are calling for even tougher laws. Oh they work so well. Don’t you think?

 

Categories
Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. Uncategorized

Putting this out there.Croatian President Calls Germany’s ‘We Are at War With Russia’ Comment Madness

Dean Mouhtaropoulos via Getty Images

Croatian President Calls Germany’s ‘We Are at War With Russia’ Comment Madness. Croatian President Zoran Milanovic responded to the German foreign minister saying “we are fighting a war against Russia” by calling the remark “madness” and wishing Germany better luck than with the last war they had with Russia 70 years ago.

Milanovic was responding to the bizarre and inflammatory statement made by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on Tuesday.

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic responded to the German foreign minister saying “we are fighting a war against Russia” by calling the remark “madness” and wishing Germany better luck than with the last war they had with Russia 70 years ago.

“Do you want us to enter the war?” asked Milanovic during a visit to the port city of Split, adding that Croatia “should in no way help” Ukraine militarily.

The Croatian president expressed his amazement that such aggressive rhetoric was being spouted by a representative of the usually pacifist German Greens.

“If we are at war with Russia, then let’s see what we need to do. But we won’t ask Germany for its opinion,” Milanovic asserted. “Let them figure out who is the actual chancellor over there. I’ve been in politics for a long time, and our country has been through a lot, but I’ve never seen this kind of madness before.”

Milanovic condemned NATO powers for flooding the region with tanks and other weaponry in order to prolong the war.

“Those tanks may burn, or they may reach Crimea, but Croatia will have nothing to do with it,” he insisted.

As we previously highlighted, US weapons sales to other countries rose from $103.4 billion in 2021 to $153.7 billion in 2022, with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon all making a killing out of the Ukraine conflict.

In a related development, the French Foreign Ministry claimed that the US, Germany and other countries sending battle tanks to Ukraine did not mean that NATO was at war with Russia.

“We are not at war with Russia and none of our partners are,” ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said.

Categories
Corruption Politics Uncategorized

Thanks to Joe Biden and the National Archives, President Trump walks.

Thanks to Joe Biden and the National Archives, President Trump walks. As you know, Biden carried on about how President Trump had top secret documents and how irresponsible it was. Well the National Archives jumps in and demands the missing documents back. Trump had the power to declassify. So what happens? Biden who doesn’t have that power has top secret documents for months and says nothing.

The National Archives says nothing cause they claim they didn’t know. Three more times documents are found with Biden. Again the National archives has no clue. So now what do they do?

National Archives asks all past Presidents and VP to look for top secret documents. No planned raids or FBI agents showing up guns drawn. The wives don’t have to worry about anyone going threw the panty drawer. Moral of the story? Trump walks.

 

Categories
Education Public Service Announcement Reprints from others.

States with Best & Worst Education (2023) Scholaroo ventures to discover the best and worst school systems across three factors — Student Success, Student Safety and School Quality.

States with Best & Worst Education (2023)

Scholaroo ventures to discover the best and worst school systems across three factors — Student Success, Student Safety and School Quality. I’m in agreement with some and disagree  with some. Interesting how California is good in Math but at the bottom in  others ranked 45. My Ohio is ranked 22.

Education is a key indicator of the economic, social, and cultural success of any state. To analyze school systems across the United States, Scholaroo has identified various criteria such as student success, school quality, and student safety to compare all fifty states in order to assess which school systems are the best and worst in this 2023.

Student success can be measured through various academic metrics such as test scores and graduation rates. School quality accounts for the level of resources available to school districts. Finally, student safety is an important factor in determining school system rankings; this includes school security measures, bullying prevention programs, and other initiatives designed to ensure students feel safe at school.

The data set considers a depth of topics across 43 key indicators, ranging from metrics that measure how much a student is enabled to succeed, to metrics that measure the school’s security.

If you want to know which state has the best education system for 2023, here we show it to you.

Rankings of States with Best & Worst Public Schools

Category Breakdown

Methodology

In order to determine the best and worst school systems per state, Scholaroo compared the 50 states across three key dimensions:

  1. Student Success
  2. Student Safety
  3. School Quality

We evaluated those dimensions using 43 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weight. Each metric was graded on a 100 point scale, with a score of 100 being the max.

Finally, we determined each state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample.

Student Success (25 Points)

High School Graduation Rate: Double Weight (2.27 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of graduates High school graduates or higher.

High School Dropout Rate: Double Weight (2.27 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of high school dropouts among persons 16 to 24 years old (status dropout rate).

SAT Scores: Double Weight (2.27 points)

Note: This metric measures the SAT mean scores of High School Seniors.

ACT Scores: Double Weight (2.27 points)

Note: This metric measures the average ACT score (Composite score: English, Mathematics, Reading, Science scores) of Graduates.

College-Going Rates: Double Weight (2.27 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of High School graduates going directly to College.

Reading Test Scores: Double Weight (2.27 points)

Note: This metric measures the Average of Scale Scores between 4th and 8th Grade Reading scores.

Math Test Scores: Double Weight (2.27 points)

Note: This metric measures the Average of Scale Scores between 4th and 8th Grade Mathematics scores.

Science Test Scores: Double Weight (2.27 points)

Note: This metric measures the Average of Scale Scores between 4th and 8th Grade Science scores.

AP Exam Participation: Regular Weight (1.14 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of graduates who took an AP exam during High School.

AP Exam Scores: Regular Weight ((1.14 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of the Class of 2021 scoring a 3 or higher on an AP exam during High School.

Students in Gifted Programs: Regular Weight (1.14 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of public students enrolled in gifted/talented programs.

Class Suspension Rates: Regular Weight (1.14 points)

Note: This metric measures the number of days missed due to suspension (per School).

Expulsion Rate: Half Weight (0.57 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of student expulsions (per school).

Retention Rate: Half Weight (0.57 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of 8th Grade students retained (per school).

Student Participation in Sports: Regular Weight (1.14 points)

Note: This metric measures child participates in a sports team or did he or she take sports lessons after school or on weekends, age 6-17 years.

 

School Quality (35 Points)

Annual per-pupil spending: Regular Weight (3.50 points)

Note: This metric measures the annual per-pupil spending in Public Elementary-Secondary School System Finances.

School Rankings: Regular Weight (3.50 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of presence of Public High Schools in the Top 100

0 Best U.S Schools by U.S. News & World Report.

Pupil/ Teacher Ratio: Regular Weight (3.50 points)

Note: This metric measures the pupil/teacher ratios in public elementary and secondary schools.

Presence of Guidance Counselors: Regular Weight (3.50 points)

Note: This metric measures the number of guidance counselors per Public High School.

Presence of School Health Councils: Half Weight (1.75 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of Secondary Schools with one or more School Health Councils.

Full-Time Registered Nurse: Regular Weight (3.50 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of Secondary Schools that have a Full-Time Registered Nurse who provides Health Services to students.

Health Education Curriculum: Half Weight (1.75 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of Secondary Schools that required Health Education Instruction in grades 6–12.

Healthy Eating Curriculum: Half Weight (1.75 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of Secondary Schools in which Teachers taught the benefits of healthy eating.

Sexual Health Curriculum: Half Weight (1.75 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of Secondary Schools in which Teachers taught all 20 sexual health topics (including topics related to how HIV and STD’s are transmitted, contraception methods, sexual orientation, gender expression, creating and sustaining healthy relationships, sexual risk behaviors, etc) in a Required Course in Any of Grades 9, 10, 11, or 12.

Teachers meeting State Licensing Requirements: Regular Weight (3.50 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of teachers that meet all State Licensing/Certification Requirements.

Level of Experienced Teachers: Regular Weight (3.50 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of teachers with 3 or more years of experience.

Average Teachers’ Salary: Regular Weight (3.50 points)

Note: This metric measures the cost of living adjusted to the average teacher salary.

Student Safety (40 Points)

Bullying Rate: Regular Weight (3.33 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of High School students who were bullied on school property.

Exposure to Illegal Drugs: Regular Weight (3.33 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of High School students who were offered, sold, or given an illegal drug on school property.

Absence of Students due to Safety Concerns: Regular Weight (3.33 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of High School students who did not go to school because they felt unsafe at school or on their way to or from school.

Bullying and Sexual Harassment Prevention: Double Weight (6.67 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of Secondary Schools where all school staff received professional development on preventing, identifying, and responding to student bullying and sexual harassment.

Sexual Assault Rate: Half Weight (1.67 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of Sexual Assault.

Rape or Attempted Rape Rate: Half Weight (1.67 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of Rape or Attempted Rape.

Robbery with a Weapon Rate: Half Weight (1.67 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of robberies with a Weapon.

Robbery with a firearm or explosive Rate: Half Weight (1.67 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of robberies with a firearm or explosive.

Robbery without a weapon Rate: Half Weight (1.67 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of robberies without a weapon.

Physical attack or fight with a weapon Rate: Half Weight (1.67 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of physical attacks or fights with a weapon.

Physical attack or fight with a firearm or explosive device Rate: Regular Weight (3.33 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of physical attacks or fights with a firearm or explosive.

Physical attack without a weapon: Half Weight (1.67 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of physical attacks without a weapon.

Threats of physical attack with a weapon: Half Weight (1.67 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of threats of physical attacks with a weapon.

Threats of physical attack with a firearm or explosive device: Half Weight (1.67 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of threats of physical attacks with a firearm or explosive device.

Threats of physical attack without a weapon: Half Weight (1.67 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of threats of physical attacks without a weapon.

Possession of a firearm or explosive device: Regular Weight (3.33 points)

Note: This metric measures the percentage of possession of a firearm or explosive device.

Categories
Daily Hits. Just my own thoughts Links from other news sources.

Why my articles are short, sweet, and to the point. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

What to write next. Writer-giffer.com

Why my articles are short, sweet, and to the point. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

This article was originally posted here.

First I must confess that by trade I’m not a journalist or professional writer. Just a 69 year old white dude retired and living the good life. But I’m trying my best to be a good writer. One thing you won’t see a long original article from me.

My articles are short and to the point. I know that I myself will most of the time see an article and usually stop after the first few paragraphs. Now when doing research I will read the whole contents. But most of my articles are usually two maybe three paragraphs. My feeling is that if I can’t get my point across in less than 500 words, 10,000 words will just bore you

 

Start writing today. Use the link below to create your Substack and connect your publication with Josh’s Newsletter

Start a Substack

 

Categories
Economy Links from other news sources.

Winning. Hey Progressives, guess who’s benefitting from your green spending? Red states.

The GOP is likely to find itself in an uncomfortable position as funding from the Inflation Reduction Act plays a growing role in Republicans home states and districts. | Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo

Hey Progressives, guess who’s benefitting from your green spending? Red states. Biden’s Climate law has had a reverse effect on blue states. They’re not getting the green energy benefits like they had hoped. They’re going to the red states. And why’s that?

My guess is that the cost to build wind, solar shields, and electric battery plants are going to red states. Roughly two-thirds of the major projects are in districts whose Republican lawmakers opposed the Inflation Reduction Act, according to a POLITICO analysis of major green energy manufacturing announcements made since the bill’s enactment.

Categories
Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

Drag Shows Are an Actionable Violation of Children’s Rights. And parents’ rights too

Drag Shows Are an Actionable Violation of Children's Rights.

Christopher was the  Editor and owner of Western Free Press and my boss. He’s joined substack so please think about subscribing to his website. Here’s one of his articles.

Christopher Cook

(As I mention in my About section, there will be times when I lay out well-crafted arguments, rooted in months or years of deliberation and research, and there will be other times when I work things out on the fly. This will be a combination of both.)

Libertarianism is perpetually complicated by the reality of children—by their temporary condition of helplessness and inability to have full communion with their rights, and by the natural realities that grant parents temporary authority over them. Libertarian formulations that can easily be applied to adults become more challenging when applied to children. In spite of this, we do need to craft rights-based arguments for children too. They are sovereign beings, even if they cannot enjoy full expression of every aspect of that sovereignty from their first breath.

The Freedom Scale is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Conservatives intuitively sense that a person dressed in drag, wearing a cartoonish prosthetic penis, taking a child by the hand and parading him or her around the room is—somehow—a violation of rights.

1

Even drag-queen story-time, with its general air of hyper-sexualization, crosses a clear line. Parents understand that this is about more than telling children a story. Putting drag queens in front of kids is the point of the exercise, not telling them a story that could otherwise be read by anyone.

So how can this be understood to be a violation of either the child’s rights, or the parents’, or both? Ultimately, I think the argument hinges on consent. So let me try my hand…

First, consent is central to the core rights of all humans. In the months ahead, I will be laying out formal proofs for this, but in brief…

You have exclusive and inalienable self-ownership as a natural fact of your existence, and coercive force exercised against the enjoyment of your self-ownership is morally (and ontologically) impermissible. Thus, things done directly to you against your will—things to which you do not consent—are impermissible.

But children cannot competently consent to anything. Normal human beings recognize this, and most of those charged with acting in loco parentis (teachers, daycare minders, etc.) don’t push anything so far that consent becomes an issue. They do normal things: they feed them, stop them from sticking forks in electrical sockets, and so on. The kids cannot exactly consent to those things either, but normal people try to do only those things that a parent would also do—reasonable things that a child needs. But leftist activists, I am sorry to say, are not normal. And at this point, neither are those who are seduced by the easy path to leftist-style “virtue” offered by the activist: “Letting me come to your preschool in drag and read weird stories to the children under you care will make you a better person.”

This then raises a problem: we don’t exactly have a hard-and-fast rule for the consent of children. Just like their parents have temporary authority over their children and can forcibly stop them from electrocuting themselves, or even make them clean their rooms, those acting in loco parentis have some of this authority too.

But surely they have this authority by proxy. Surely the parents are granting this authority, provisionally and temporarily, to teachers and others acting in loco parentis. So how, then, do the parents get this authority? There is not space for all the sub-arguments here, but the facts are pretty simple. It boils down a specific form of responsibility.

If you get drunk and drive through your neighbor’s fence, you have initiated a kind of force against his property. His property is, of course, an extension of his self-ownership, which means it was an act of force against your neighbor. Your act has made you responsible fix the fence. The same is the case, of course, if you drive over your neighbor’s foot rather than his fence.

This is also the case if you are a signatory to a contract. A contract involves the exchange of alienable property (or labor, which is an extension of self-ownership). If the other party abides by the agreement but you do not, you are essentially stealing from him (an act of force). You have taken an action—signing the contract—that makes you responsible to its terms.

If you are a parent, you are responsible for your child’s existence in the world. You have taken an action which produces a person who requires your help in order to exist. You are not responsible if a homeless person starves somewhere; you did not cause that homeless person to be. But you are responsible if your child starves because you are responsible for the existence of your child.

2

It might not feel, at first blush, as clear-cut as your responsibility for the hole in your neighbor’s fence, but the reasoning, and justification, are the same.

The natural facts of reality—specifically the temporary helplessness of the child—are such that in order to meet this fiduciary responsibility, you must exercise authority over the child. Common sense, Common Law, and the laws of nature all recognize this. Ideally, a parent eases this authority at a pace commensurate with the child’s growing ability to enjoy full communion with his own rights and sovereignty, and then, at a certain age, releases a free human being into the world. It’s not always easy to get the timing perfectly right, but the facts of nature make this the only logical and moral system to use. This authority places exclusive, dispositive decision-making power in the hands of the parents.

3

This is the essence of a right.

A child’s consent is thus placed, pro tempore, in the hands of the parent. A child cannot consent to being led around by the hand by a drag queen wearing a giant phallus. Period. Doing so violates the child’s rights. But since the decision about consent is temporarily in the hands of the parent, then doing so is a violation of the parent’s rights as well.

To sum up…

  1. Parents’ fiduciary responsibility to their children grants them temporary authority over their children.
  2. This authority includes the right to hold the child’s right of consent in proxy until the age of majority.
  3. Anything to which the child is subjected without the consent of the parent is a violation of the rights of consent of both parent and child.

Again, this is not an issue most of the time, because most of the time, outside forces do not act against the wishes of children or their parents. Normal people will teach children math, read them a nice story, or keep them from getting hit by a bus, and parents are fine with things like that. But we’re not dealing with normal people; we’re dealing with leftists. And now we’re also dealing with people who have substituted the left’s idea of “virtue” for their own—people who have become so addicted to the narcissistic frisson they get from thinking they’re one of the BeautifulPeople™ that they actually think it’s okay to do this to children. And weak-minded, compliant narcissism addicts are just as dangerous as the leftists giving them the drug in the first place.

Drag queen story-time and similar activities are clear violations of the right of consent of both parent and child. They are acts of force against self-ownership, and are thus actionable. If the system does not punish these acts, then the system has failed. If the system allows them to occur—or worse, abets their occurrence and prevents recourse by the parents—then the system itself is committing an act of force against children and parents alike.

This too is actionable.

 

1

Libertarians ought to sense this as well, and many do, but presumably not quite as many. Libertarians are more rights focused, but I suspect they are, in the aggregate, less children focused. (This is based on an assumption that they are less likely to be married and have children than conservatives, though I do need to research that to be sure.)

2

This is one area where the otherwise rock-solid Murray Rothbard goes careening off the rails: In The Ethics of Liberty, he argues that a parent may, through inaction, starve his children.

3

If a person does a poor job of exercising his exclusive, dispositive decision-making power over his own life, that’s on him, but the parent-child situation is complicated by the fact that the child is a separate being from the parent. Nonetheless, ceteris paribus, this authority is natural, necessary, and generally good.

Subscribe to The Freedom Scale

By Christopher Cook  ·  Launched 2 days ago

Human rights. The madness of the left. A way out of the darkness. The world has gone insane—we already know that. My job is to help figure out WHY.

Categories
Corruption Leftist Virtue(!) Links from other news sources. Progressive Racism

Say his name. Service members forced to pay back signing bonuses after being fired over COVID vax.

The man who ordered the cowardly retreat had to have done this. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images / File)

Say his name. Service members forced to pay back signing bonuses after being fired over COVID vax. So now we see that the military kicked out our men and women for not taking the jab. Making matters worse, they want the signing bonus back cause they didn’t do the promised service time.

U.S. service members who were fired for refusing to comply with the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate are now being forced to pay back their original recruitment bonuses, which they tell Fox News Digital is a “kick in the face” after years of dedicating their lives to protecting the country.

The push by the Pentagon to recoup signing bonuses from fired service members comes after President Biden signed the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which included a provision, cleared by the House and the Senate, to repeal the administration’s military vaccine mandate. This month, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signed a memo that will update the records and remove letters of reprimand from troops whose exemption requests to the vaccine were denied.

Give those bonuses back. Remember Austin was the one who ordered our troops to flee for their life from the advancing Taliban.

Categories
Crime Links from other news sources. Uncategorized

California is number one in gun laws and number one in active shooters.

California is number one in gun laws and number one in active shooters. Yes my friends high crime and strict gun laws go hand and hand. Just ask the feds if you don’t believe me.

 FBI’s figures which show California was number one in “active shooter incidents” in 2021. Breitbart News pointed out that the FBI figures mean California was number one in gun control and number one in “active shooter incidents” at the same time.

 The city of Los Angeles alone witnessed 382 murders in 2022, according to Crosstown. Moreover, on July 12, 2022, ABC 7 explained that Los Angeles homicides “hit the highest level in over a decade” during the first six months of 2022.

So what does the WP write?

The Washington Post propped up California’s failed gun controls after a Saturday night shooting at a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park resulted in ten deaths.