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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Burkina Faso: 14 people killed in gun attack at church during Sunday mass
Today's Headlines
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
DOJ Response to Peter Strzok Opens a Whole Can of Whoop-Ass on Comey, McCabe and the Lovers
[Doug Ross@Journal] After his firing, disgraced former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok filed a complaint with the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) asserting that his proposed termination was unwarranted.

In a recently released response dated August 8, 2018, OPR assistant director Candice M. Will outlined all of the facts underpinning Strzok's termination. Among the findings, Strzok was found to have:

• Engaged in "unprofessional conduct";
• Committed security violations related to the use of personal email for FBI business;
• Committed misconduct regarding a judical proceeding by failing to investigate obvious leads in the Clinton email scandal

The OPR's 27-page response contains several interesting revelations, few of which have been publicized thanks to our Democrat Party media, which has spent three solid years trying to overturn the results of the 2016 election.

Strzok and Hillary Clinton's never-before-seen emails
One of the most egregious activities Strzok appears to have engaged in is trying to sit on all of the missing Clinton emails, three months of which had never been seen before by government investigators. The Weiner/Abedin laptop seems to have contained most of the missing emails, which Hillary aide Huma Abedin had forwarded to the laptop she shared with ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/03/2019 02:28 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:



AG Bill Barr Disputes IG Horowitz's Findings On the Trump-Russia Investigation
[Red State] Well, this is interesting.

Attorney General Bill Barr is pushing back on IG Horowitz’s coming findings on the Trump-Russia investigation. Recent reports have said that Horowitz will find no political bias in the investigation despite ample evidence numerous high level officials had it out for Trump. As with the IG’s findings on the Hillary investigation, Horowitz’s standard is apparently an admission under oath and sealed in blood, as he found dozens of pieces of evidence of bias there but still concluded there was nothing conclusive.

Now, The Washington Post is saying Barr doesn’t agree with his coming characterizations.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/03/2019 01:39 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  WaPo as a source?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/03/2019 7:24 Comments || Top||

#2  If the 2nd Horowitz report is like the 1st Horowitz report, it will be somewhat tepid and vanilla. We will have to wait until it is released. Durham has opened a criminal investigation(s), the results of which will be coming later.

Reports by WAPO, Lisa Page and the House Intelligence committee are said to be efforts to get out in front of the Horowitz FISA abuse report. Horowitz has little power to do anything but report, recommend and refer.

Barr, early on said Trump was being spied upon. Later, in a speech before the Federalist Society , said:

"Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called “The Resistance,” and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver to sabotage the functioning of the Executive Branch and his Administration. Now, “resistance” is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes -- It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous -- and indeed incendiary -- notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the “loyal opposition,” as opposing parties have done in this country for over 200 years, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government."

Durham, Barr, the courts and the people will have the final word.
Posted by: JohnQC || 12/03/2019 14:09 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
The sources of the west's decline.
A long very good essay.
[American Interest] Only five years ago, the general consensus among U.S. and European policy wonks was that, notwithstanding occasional glitches, the so-called liberal international order would remain the dominant global paradigm. For decades, the cognoscenti had assumed that export-driven modernization would eventually transform the likes of communist China into a mega-scale Japan, and that Russia, though authoritarian, would nonetheless adhere—at least in Europe—to the rules-based order. In hindsight it doesn’t really matter whether we fell victim to our own wishful thinking or refused to admit what was in front of us all the time—namely, a brief pause in great power competition followed by two great powers intent on revising the international order, in terms of both its principles and its geostrategic fault lines. We finally awoke to the geostrategic dimension of the ongoing rivalry when Russia seized Crimea and stoked a war in eastern Ukraine, and when China militarized the South China Sea by deploying military assets on its artificial islands. But the West has yet to fully grasp the realities of the system’s overall transformation, and especially its emerging axiology. The reason for the latter is not a lack of data points, but rather our inability to own up to the ideological shift underway within our own culture.

At the geostrategic level, the state of global affairs today is defined by two principal trends: the growing assertiveness of Russia and China, the two principal revisionist states; and the accelerating realignment of states worldwide in response to this rising pressure. More importantly, this challenge to the West runs in parallel with the apparent determination on the part of China to supplant democratic governance with a system built around authoritarianism, framed around a party elite. And for the first time the West seems too divided to launch a coherent response to this ideological pressure from abroad.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: 3dc || 12/03/2019 05:52 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life,

#1  The left believes in driving everything to the lowest common denominator. That's the main problem.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 12/03/2019 6:41 Comments || Top||

#2  wordy and full of tangential points

the west is declining because

- the left is working to do that

- the left has taken much of the media, most of the Universities, and a good chunk of business leadership so they have become more effective in destroying our culture
Posted by: lord garth || 12/03/2019 8:05 Comments || Top||

#3  I can summarize that article in one sentence "Affirmative Action Kills".
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/03/2019 10:24 Comments || Top||

#4  The liberal order declined because the liberal intelligencia of the left didn't really believe in it. They were swooning over the Commies almost immediately.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 12/03/2019 11:19 Comments || Top||

#5  A good starting point for rebuilding Transatlantic relations would be to assess how far the United States and our European allies can progress toward defining a shared set of threats that our respective electorates would also recognize.

As long as our elites refuse to recognize the threat of unrestrained immigration from the Third World, there can be no agreement on a share set of threats.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 12/03/2019 11:44 Comments || Top||


Economy
Over Five Decades, This Entrepreneur Built A Defense Contractor That Made Him A Billionaire
[Forbes] George Pedersen cofounded his firm ManTech International back in 1968 with a single contract with the U.S. Navy, reportedly to build war-gaming models for the submarining community. Now the defense and intelligence contractor has 8,700 employees and nearly $2 billion in annual revenue. After a recent run-up in the stock, Pedersen is now a billionaire thanks to his stake in the Nasdaq-listed company. The 84-year-old owns a third of the firm, which has a market capitalization of $3.1 billion.

ManTech’s nine-figure contracts run the gamut from cybersecurity solutions for the Department of Homeland Security to IT systems engineering for the U.S. Army. ManTech declined to comment for this article.

The share price of the Fairfax, Virginia-based company has risen nearly 30% since the beginning of 2019. Some of that is the result of posting better-than-expected third quarter earnings on October 30. ManTech reported earnings per share of $0.69, beating analyst expectations of $0.60, and revenue of $579 million, exceeding the consensus by $20 million. ManTech’s acquisition this spring of Kforce Government Solutions, which provides IT staffing services to federal agencies such as the Department of Veteran Affairs, has boosted earnings.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/03/2019 12:56 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Moving federal agencies to the heartland would get struggling states hooked on big government.
[WSJ] As satisfying as it may be to see some of the sanctimonious elitists knocked off their lofty perches and forced to live among the peasants, it is probably better to keep the disease clustered in one place rather than spread it throughout the country where it might take root and grow. The government always grows; it never shrinks. Although I can see some potential benefits such as weakening the D.C. inbred culture and forcing some of the bureaucrats to see how the people live and the impacts their agencies have on the people.

Progressives dream of making the District of Columbia into a state, but now a pair of Republican senators have the same vision reflected through a funhouse mirror. The Helping Infrastructure Restore the Economy Act would effectively transform 10 states into D.C. by moving at least 90% of jobs from 10 executive departments out of Washington and into "economically distressed regions" across the country.

The bill's sponsors, Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, would send the Agriculture and Education departments to their respective states. Eight other federal departments and most nondepartment agencies would also be dispersed throughout the land, often to places intended to suit their functions - for example, the Transportation Department would be sent to Michigan to be near the auto industry.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/03/2019 06:58 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Distributed systems make good sense. What doesn't make good sense is the absurd inefficiency, duplication and waste we have now. The "diplomats" and "national security officials" whining at the shits how hearings gave anyone actually paying attention a master class in where to cut.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 12/03/2019 7:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Given that is what pols have done forever (since WWII) with military bases why do you think this piece is appearing now? The Swamp is getting itchy.

Watch the fun when the old Base Closure time comes around. Move those department and agencies out the the DC circus and them states will be very very reluctant to send them back.

BTW, my state is a NIMBY state. Everything others don't want in theirs, they send here. Store nuclear waste? Why not. Provide the Air Force with bases to practice supersonic training? Why not. Practice IRBM intercepts? Why not.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/03/2019 7:21 Comments || Top||

#3  Are there sufficient wagons and teams ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/03/2019 7:45 Comments || Top||

#4  The real problem is the near complete inability to terminate the employment of Federal workers. Fix that and this shit won't be necessary. If Republicans really had this 'visceral desire for revenge', moving the shells around the table becomes unnecessary.
Posted by: Raj || 12/03/2019 8:36 Comments || Top||

#5  I can recall a time (perhaps it's that way still) when American Federation of Government Employees grievances were oftentimes settled via monetary awards (some large - some small) as opposed to costly litigation.

An entire agency budget could be devastated by such 'un-programmed' cash award(s).

At least some agency 'end of year' annual bonuses were calculated on funds remaining at the end of the fiscal year. Can anyone see the built-in incentive for .... early pay-offs and settlements ?

Nice work, if you can get it.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/03/2019 8:48 Comments || Top||

#6  There should be no government unions. All government employees should be subject to USMCJ and have to compete for jobs and promotions via actual merit. Firing should take less than 2 hours. Failure to meet goals should be met with massive fines, pay cuts and other incentives.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 12/03/2019 10:10 Comments || Top||

#7  All government employees should be subject to USMCJ

And a rigorous PFT. Annual at least. ☺
Posted by: Dron66046 || 12/03/2019 10:22 Comments || Top||

#8  Term limit all government officials elected or not. Sunset all laws.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 12/03/2019 11:05 Comments || Top||

#9 
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 12/03/2019 14:25 Comments || Top||

#10  ...like the post offices that linger on in disuse in the internet age.

My small business did 60K worth of business with our small, "unused" two-person local post office last year. And that's just us. So.. FU WSG.

BTW, my state is a NIMBY state. Everything others don't want in theirs, they send here. Store nuclear waste? Why not. Provide the Air Force with bases to practice supersonic training? Why not. Practice IRBM intercepts? Why not.

Hello fellow Nevadan!
Posted by: Secret Master || 12/03/2019 21:41 Comments || Top||


Obama panicking about his legacy? Advises Left to pick any Democrat
[American Thinker] President Obama, who has yet to endorse anyone for president, has one piece of advice for voters: pick a Democrat, any Democrat, doesn't matter whom.

PJMedia captures the sense of panic in one of Obama's addresses to the barons of Silicon Valley:
"Everybody needs to chill out about the candidates, but gin up about the prospect of rallying behind whoever emerges from this process," Obama told the millionaire techies, according to far-left news channel CNN. "There will be differences" between them, he added, "but I want us to make sure that we keep in mind that, relative to the ultimate goal, which is to defeat a president and a party that has ... taken a sharp turn away from a lot of the core traditions and values and institutional commitments that built this country," those differences are "relatively minor."

"The field will narrow and there's going to be one person, and if that is not your perfect candidate and there are certain aspects of what they say that you don't agree with and you don't find them completely inspiring the way you'd like, I don't care," he went on to say. "Because the choice is so stark and the stakes are so high that you cannot afford to be ambivalent in this race."

This is nuts advice to that audience, given that several of the candidates are all but pledging to put those companies out of business. Should Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, go vote for Elizabeth Warren, who can't stop singling him out as her model bad guy? It's not exactly in tune with what Silicon Valley is up against. How about Bernie Sanders? Should they vote for a guy like that? Some will, but probably not the ones who know that the Sanders idea is annihilation.

What we have here is Obama being Obama, always looking out for himself.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/03/2019 01:52 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
stakes are so high that you cannot afford to be ambivalent in this race


Said with the most ambivalence, leaning toward encouragement of rebellion rather than compromise.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 12/03/2019 2:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Obama's already pocketed his baksheesh: $68 million, for doing next to nothing, from a Silicon Valley bubble company whose business and valuation depend heavily on favorable regulatory treatment by the Feds.

Pure corruption. And he has the gall to lecture, and posture, and pontificate.
What a worthless piece of shit this little man is.
Posted by: Lex || 12/03/2019 3:09 Comments || Top||

#3  What a worthless piece of shit this little man is.

In mathematics, a negative number is a real number that is less than zero.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/03/2019 4:26 Comments || Top||

#4  What happened? Did AG Barr send a tailor to Zero with a supply of orange fabric?
Posted by: AlanC || 12/03/2019 7:11 Comments || Top||

#5  All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. Benito Mussolini

BTW, the party and state are to be one. Scratch one of them and you find a totalitarian in them.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/03/2019 7:24 Comments || Top||

#6  I've long said part of the reason Reagan was so great was because Carter was so bad. Obama was worse than Carter but without the cold war the stakes are lower.

Thank god he used easily undone executive orders so often.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 12/03/2019 11:15 Comments || Top||

#7  Thank god he used easily undone executive orders so often.

Thank god he used easily undone executive orders so often.

No worries, Hillary wouldn't do anything untoward now would she?

I give thanks everyday that HRC will never be President.
Posted by: AlanC || 12/03/2019 13:42 Comments || Top||

#8  Barack Hussein "SouthofCarter" Obama.
Posted by: JohnQC || 12/03/2019 16:47 Comments || Top||


'More unlikeable' than Schiff: Trump allies eagerly await expected Nadler belly-flop
[Washington Examiner] Supporters of President Trump say they are eager for House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to take the helm of impeachment proceedings this week, predicting he will harm the Democratic case against Trump.

Republicans close to and within the White House say the New York Democrat is vulnerable to claims of hypocrisy and is prone to lash out in an unbecoming manner. The inaugural Nadler-led impeachment hearing on Wednesday, they said, will feature law professors unlikely to reveal new facts about Trump pushing Ukraine to investigate Democrats.

"We’ve been anxiously awaiting the moment that Nadler takes over the impeachment inquiry," said a Republican close to Trump. "After [House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam] Schiff, he’s the most incompetent and unlikable Democrat member. [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi was unhappy with Schiff’s performance. Wait until she sees Nadler in action."

Nadler has clashed with Trump since the 1980s and '90s, when Trump nicknamed a then-overweight Nadler "fat Jerry." The men fought particularly over Trump’s efforts to develop land on the West Side of Manhattan along the Hudson River.

Republicans say Nadler’s liabilities were on display this year when he repeatedly referred to former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks as "Ms. Lewandowski" in a closed-door hearing, in what they consider a deliberate sexual smear against Hicks and Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager.

And Republicans are dusting off Nadler’s words during the 1998 Bill Clinton impeachment. He said at the time "an impeachment of a president is an undoing of a national election," expressed concern about due process rights for Clinton, and opposed the release of Starr report material, despite now calling for the release of Mueller report redactions.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/03/2019 01:48 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Lisa Page To Teach College Course On How To Make Yourself Out To Be A Victim
[Babylon Bee] CAMBRIDGE, MA ‐ After Lisa Page finally spoke out against President Trump, masterfully painting herself as the target of Trump's oppression and misogyny, Harvard University quickly hired the former FBI lawyer to teach an upper-level course on how to turn yourself into the victim in any situation.

The course will cover various situations, from getting caught having an affair with a co-worker to conspiring to overthrow a republic, and teach students how to make themselves out to be the victim in any of these scenarios.
"I feel disenfranchised!"
"The way Page had an affair and then conspired with her lover to sabotage a democratic election and THEN made herself out to be the victim -- that's the kind of expertise we look for here at our prestigious university," said a spokesperson. "This is the sort of 4D chess we need to teach our students."

Harvard staff praised Page for harnessing the left's hate against Trump and using it to generate sympathy for herself.

"See how she didn't take any responsibility for her wrongdoings, but instead managed to blame patriarchy, misogyny, and President Trump for everything? She's clearly a pro."

Disgraced congresswoman Katie Hill will co-teach the class.
Posted by: Frank G || 12/03/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Night = day.
Up = down.
Conspirator to overthrow a president = victim of a conspiracy by said president.
Posted by: Lex || 12/03/2019 0:58 Comments || Top||

#2  Makes more sense that Comey teaching a course on ethics.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 12/03/2019 7:29 Comments || Top||

#3  #me2
Posted by: Skidmark || 12/03/2019 12:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Fake but accurate
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 12/03/2019 12:23 Comments || Top||

#5  A drunk drives a car and hits three pedestrians and kills them. The driver pleads: " It wasn't me that did this, it was the car that did it." Seems similar to Page and Strzok's evil-doing. What are they going to do blame us for reading their messages?
Posted by: JohnQC || 12/03/2019 14:14 Comments || Top||

#6  Damn, got me again.
Posted by: JohnQC || 12/03/2019 14:15 Comments || Top||

#7  Me too.

-dollar in the jar-
Posted by: swksvolFF || 12/03/2019 16:07 Comments || Top||

#8  Damn, got me again.

"Can't anybody here play this game?" Just kidding.
Seriously, this has become like that Schroedinger's cat thing where you can't tell if the cat is alive or dead until you open the box, or in this case, read past the headline.
Posted by: SteveS || 12/03/2019 16:32 Comments || Top||

#9  Game is getting tougher. I mean:

Greta on the Shelf Doll will track your Climate Sins.

Seriously know people would buy that for real.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 12/03/2019 17:47 Comments || Top||

#10  Hey, I put it in the first line. Don't blame me :-)
Posted by: Frank G || 12/03/2019 19:04 Comments || Top||


Mollie H: 21 Reasons Not to Believe Blowsey Ford
[TheFederalist] The ACLU recently awarded Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford. It is unclear why politicians and pundits still claim to believe Ford, given the lack of evidence in support of her serious accusations.
Posted by: Lex || 12/03/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Read the 21 and tell us your favorites - pick three.
I'll go first:

#5. Ford’s Father Supported Kavanaugh’s Confirmation

"Ralph Blasey, Ford’s father, went out of his way to offer to Ed Kavanaugh his support of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, according to multiple people familiar with the conversation that took place at Burning Tree Club in Bethesda, Maryland. “I’m glad Brett was confirmed,” Ralph Blasey told Ed Kavanaugh, shaking his hand. Blasey added that the ordeal had been tough for both families. ...It wasn’t just Ford’s father. ...the D.C.-based family and friends of Ford’s quietly apologized to friends and family of Kavanaugh, even as the toxic political environment made it punitive for them to speak up publicly."

15. False Claims Were Made about Ford’s Inability to Fly

This is the individual whose lawyers claimed she couldn't fly to DC because of her fear of flying-- and who then flew on a private jet owned by a Silicon Valley billionaire, along with that person (Pincus iirc) and two other leftist scumbag billionaires (Hoffman, Sandberg).

This is the individual who routinely flies all over the Pacific for her "surf vacations." What a lying sack of shit.

18. Ford’s Attorney Admitted a Motive of Desiring an Asterisk by Kavanaugh’s Name

Busted. Motive for lying. Means and opportunity as well. So f---ing obvious.

Why is this woman not in prison?

Shame on this country's leadership.

Shame on us, for tolerating this carnival of defamation, perjury, witness-tampering, extortion and attempts to bribe congressmen.
Posted by: Lex || 12/03/2019 1:06 Comments || Top||

#2  The Absurdity Of Charging 10-Year-Olds As Sex Offenders

That's what happens when criminals like Blasey Ford are NOT punished.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/03/2019 2:44 Comments || Top||

#3  3. Friends Pressured Keyser to Change Her Story
There is an obvious leftist agenda at work here.
The leftist goal is to subvert the truth with lies in order to gain power to achieve their perverse goals.
After OJ Simpson killed his ex-wife and her lover in a jealous rage he was crushed with guilt and afraid of being exposed and humiliated in public.
But a dream team of lawyers came in and convinced him he was innocent and spared him of public humiliation by making a mockery of the prosecution.
Blasey Ford must have been jealous of Kavanaugh and somehow triggered.
Maybe she had a crush on him or maybe she was just projecting on him another failed relationship.
So Blasey Ford got together with a dream team of left activists and although initially hesitant the activists were able to brainwash her into the righteousness of her cause to be willing to come forward as a public victim that the left could worship as an underdog hero taking on the abusive powers of men in government.
To expose the lefts hypocrisy and agenda compare how the female accusers of President Clinton were treated.
The left destroyed the real victims of President Clinton and instead bestowed victim-hood on Hillary after the Lewinsky scandal.
Weinstein and Epstein were never treated as criminals because they were being used by the left and because of his link to important figures like Bill Clinton.
But as soon as the left could blame Alex Acosta for Epstein's "get out of jail" they could spin the story from themselves to Trump since Alex was his labor secretary.
So the only truth the left knows is the truth they are trying to subvert with their lies with impunity.
Posted by: boomerc || 12/03/2019 7:54 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
In a Wisconsin village, the doctor makes house calls ‐ and sees the rarest diseases on Earth
[USA Today] When James DeLine became a rural doctor, he had no experience treating the Amish, and no idea he'd be at the cutting edge of genetic medicine.

MILWAUKEE, Wis. ‐ It is 5 degrees below zero and a light powdering of snow swirls across the roads of Vernon County. A few horses and buggies clop through the chill morning air, but Perry Hochstetler leaves his buggy at the family farm and has a driver take him to his doctor’s appointment.

The Hochstetlers are Amish. With no health insurance and a modest income, they cannot afford most doctors.

They can afford James DeLine, once the lone doctor in the western Wisconsin village of La Farge. Population 750.

When he became the village doctor in 1983, DeLine had no experience treating the Amish and no idea the crucial role they would play in his work. Today, about 20% of the doctor’s patients are Amish or Old Order Mennonite, part of a Christian population called Plain People. They are known for their separation from the modern world and adherence to a simple lifestyle and unadorned dress.

Something of a throwback himself, DeLine, 65, is a short, bespectacled man with a walrus mustache, a doctor who carries a brown medical bag to house calls. For years, he carried his equipment in a fishing tackle box.

He knows the families on every local farm and their medical histories. He knows who’s been born, and calls on the mothers and infants to make sure they are healthy. He knows who’s dying, and looks in on them in their final days, sitting by their bedside, talking in a gentle voice, making sure they have what they need for pain.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/03/2019 18:14 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
Kelleigh Nelson - 'Over A Century Of Corrupting American Education'
[News with Views] The plain, unvarnished truth is that public education is a shoddy, fraudulent piece of goods sold to the public at an astronomical price. It’s time the American consumer knew the extent of the fraud which is victimizing millions of children each year. ‐Samuel Blumenfeld

Orwell was dealing with communism and his disillusionment with communism in Russia and what he saw the communists do in Spain. His novel, 1984, was a response to those political situations. Whereas I was interested in more things than the political atmosphere. I was considering the whole social atmosphere: the impact of TV and radio and the lack of education. I could see the coming event of schoolteachers not teaching reading anymore. The less they taught, the more you wouldn’t need books. ‐Ray Bradbury

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. ‐Socrates

Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world. ‐Vladimir Lenin

My maternal grandparents graduated from 8th grade in 1911. Their framed diplomas hang on our library wall. Each diploma states, "Having passed a credible examination in Orthography (the spelling system of a language), Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Geography, English Grammar, Physiology, United States History, and Music, and having sustained a correct deportment is granted this certificate of proficiency." Oh, to have these subjects in today’s grammar schools.

I highly doubt any of today’s college graduates could pass the tests my grandparents passed to graduate from 8th grade. Most cannot read at a proficient level. Why? Because phonics has been eliminated, and yet it’s so easy to teach. If America’s children can’t read, they cannot gain knowledge, they cannot read their Bibles, and they cannot read America’s Declaration of Independence or Constitution.

The best approach for the majority of children is systematic phonics, the simple concept of teaching the 26 letters of the alphabet, the 44 sounds they make, and the 70 most common ways to spell those sounds. For most children, learning this basic code unlocks 85 percent of the words in the English language by the end of the first grade. Children of all levels of intelligence can learn to read most words simply by learning the correspondence between sounds and letters.

Parents say their toddlers are so bright, but once they are put into the government education system, which totally lacks phonics and academic training, they become bored little socialists who have been thoroughly brainwashed with leftist ideology. They are victims as education expert Samuel Blumenfeld has so rightly stated, and it was the Unitarians at Harvard University who promoted public education, removing it from the family, churches/synagogues and private institutions so long ago.

Countless books have been written regarding the damaging effects of what American education has become along with the Outcome Based Education Skinnerian International Curriculum and how it destroys our children. For a full overview of the continued damage to America’s children, I would suggest purchasing Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children, by Samuel Blumenfeld and Alex Newman. Pdf Link

Blumenfeld puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of the educational leaders who decided early in the last century to change the purpose of education from its traditional academic function to a radical social one. High literacy was an obstacle to their progressive agenda, so the teaching of reading had to be changed to produce a more socially desirable result. The results for the nation have been disastrous.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/03/2019 10:48 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Iron Rice bowls are not cheap. Those who possess them are loath to give them up.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 12/03/2019 11:02 Comments || Top||

#2  /\ We actually need a graphic added to Fred's graphic library with that widely applicable phrase.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/03/2019 11:08 Comments || Top||

#3  IMO, the real corruption is not the leftard world view they're pushing (any school kid worth spit knows not to trust teachers on soft subjects), it's the semi-illiterates they certify.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/03/2019 12:01 Comments || Top||

#4  I remember back in the late 1980's/early 1990's one evening when I tried to help my daughter read a book. When she came to a word that she didn't know, I told her to sound it out, which was a basic concept I learned in the first grade during the 1950's. She did know what I meant.

Aren't they teaching her phonics? I asked Mrs. Uluque.

No, said the wife. They're using the "whole language" approach these days, some new system concocted by the "experts" in Sacramento.

Four years later, when my son was in kindergarten, he had a wonderful older and slightly rebellious teacher who taught phonics to her students on the sly. So he learned it and now possesses stacks of books. He's still a socialist but at least he can read. Maybe that's the most dangerous kind.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 12/03/2019 12:05 Comments || Top||

#5  1895 8th Grade Exam
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 12/03/2019 12:22 Comments || Top||

#6  Thank you, Mullah Richard. Clarifying.

How many Ivy League undergrads today could pass this portion if the 1895-era Salinas KS 8th grade exam:

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?
Posted by: Lex || 12/03/2019 14:02 Comments || Top||


Welcome To The Potemkin Village Of Washington Power
h/t Instapundit
[AmericanConservative] Don't be misled: elected officials are subjugated to the national security firmament. Trump is just exposing it.

What American constitutional government most urgently needs at present is for our Madisonian institutions‐the presidency, the Congress, and the courts‐to wrest back control of national security policy from an unelected and increasingly rogue national security establishment.

That ominous challenge to constitutionalism was on full display with the recent op-ed piece in the New York Times by retired Admiral William McRaven, in which he brashly warned that unless Trump jumped aboard the Forever War bandwagon, he must be removed, and "the sooner the better." The U.S. must have a policy, McRaven said, that protects "the Kurds, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Rohingyas, the South Sudanese and the millions of people under the boot of tyranny."

How did we get to the point where a former senior military officer calls for the removal of a duly elected president because he doesn’t stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Rohingyas? McRaven’s op-ed represents something new in American politics: the assertion that an elected president is illegitimate unless he works to spread our "ideals of universal freedom and equality" through military action and alliances. McRaven also argued that it is "the American military...the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State Department and the press," all unelected institutions, that now embody the true American civic religion and protect its "ideals."
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/03/2019 10:10 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Once upon a time his peers in the military would have neutralized him. Now they hope he gets away with it.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 12/03/2019 11:04 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2019-12-03
  Burkina Faso: 14 people killed in gun attack at church during Sunday mass
Mon 2019-12-02
  40 to 100 Iranian protesters executed in a marsh.
Sun 2019-12-01
  At least 14 killed in bloody gunfight in northern Mexico
Sat 2019-11-30
  Thousands of Iraqi protesters are celebrating in Baghdad after Prime Minister Adil Abdel Mahdi pledges to resign
Fri 2019-11-29
  Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi says he will resign
Thu 2019-11-28
  Happy Thanksgiving!
Wed 2019-11-27
  Armed Iraqi protesters attempt to attack police forces in Baghdad
Tue 2019-11-26
  US Rep Ilhan Omar accused of being a foreign agent
Mon 2019-11-25
  9 More Shot Dead as Protesters in Iraq Now Calling for Revolution
Sun 2019-11-24
  Navy secretary Richard Spencer resigns amid controversy over Navy SEAL
Sat 2019-11-23
  Algerians mark 40th week of anti-government protests
Fri 2019-11-22
  Iranian security forces brutally beat #Iranian protesters
Thu 2019-11-21
  Afghanistan’s president claims victory over IS
Wed 2019-11-20
  SpaceX Starship BLOWS UP!
Tue 2019-11-19
  Iran’s Guards threaten petrol protesters with ‘revolutionary’ response

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