Category Archives: Political Correctness

The prospect of a new name for Fort Bragg is getting mixed reviews from veterans and civil rights leaders in Fayetteville.

A federal commission tasked by Congress with recommending new names for military installations named for Confederate officers has suggested that Fort Bragg become Fort Liberty.

Thats fine with Jimmy Buxton, president of the Fayetteville branch of the NAACP.

Its somewhat mind-boggling that they came up with Liberty, said Buxton, who was invited to share his input when representatives of the naming commission visited Fort Bragg in the fall for feedback.

I knew it had to be changed, Buxton said. I think I can live with Fort Liberty - what liberty stands for. And its what Fort Bragg has stood for for years. It brings a pretty good meaning to Fort Bragg.

Buxton said he didnt have a suggestion for a new name, but one of the men whose name he would have liked to be seriously considered was Gen. Roscoe Robinson, the first African American to command the 82nd Airborne Division.

Retired Army Gen. Dan McNeill, former commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, said he thinks the commission chose wisely, considering all the suggestions it had.

"If you named it after a person, which person would you have picked? he asked. If you picked one, as opposed to groups of others, you would have left others behind.

McNeill said the commission spoke to a lot of diverse people while seeking feedback from the community.

"It was a good job of assembling a wide array of people," he said. "By the time the last meeting occurred, they all seemed to agree on Liberty. A name is what caused this problem to start with. When someone said Liberty, it made a lot of sense to me."

The naming commission announced its recommendations last week. They will be forwarded to Congress and, if approved, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, who will have the ultimate authority to rename the installations.

Fort Bragg, with more than 53,000 troops, is home to the 82nd Airborne Division and Special Operations Forces.

The post, which opened in 1918 as a field artillery station, was named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, a North Carolina native. The Army artillery officer was known for his role in the 1847 Battle of Buena Vista, Mexico. He later served as a Confederate general and was a slave owner.

Troy Williams, a legal analyst and criminal defense investigator, said at this point, he doesnt see the renaming of Fort Bragg as a big deal.

Williams served in the Air Force from 1973 through 1977.

I dont like the Fort Liberty name, Williams said. Its not going to sit well with some people. At this point, this far into the game, its a moot point to change this because they were Confederate officers.

Williams questioned when all the name changing would end in a period of political correctness. He said some military installations are named after Union Army leaders who slaughtered native Indians and the buffalo they hunted.

They were slaughtering these people. Theyve got stuff named after them, he said. My challenge is, are we going to change everything?Williams doesnt like the proposed name.

If were going to come up with a name, at least make it a name that honors people, he said. Fort Liberty what the heck is that? We honored Bragg all these years, and now we cant honor another person?

U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., whose district includes Fort Bragg, has suggested that its association with Confederate Gen. Bragg instead be with Bragg's cousin, Union Army Gen. Edward S. Bragg of Wisconsin, as a compromise.

Most historians rate Edward Bragg as the better military leader.

William Greene, 59, the quartermaster of VFW Post 10630 in Hope Mills, served five years in the reserve before serving on active duty in the Army from 1985 to 2005.

Greene agrees with Hudson.

To me, personally, Id call it Fort Bragg after the Union guy, Greene said. The Confederate general theyve got to get rid of that. All the Confederate history.

But changing the name would be costly, he said.

Youre talking a lot of money, Greene said. I dont know how youll raise those funds to rename the roads, all the signs. Keep it simple, anyway, so we can save money.

The name Liberty would reflect all the things going on at Fort Bragg, he said.

Im just trying to save some money, he said.

Grilley Mitchell, 67, president of the Cumberland County Veterans Council, had a 20-year Army career that ended in 1993.

You know what? They have already made the decision, he said. I have no opinion. Theyre going to do what they want to do. We just get in line with the marching orders. Thats the reality of things. The military makes the decisions.

Mitchell said hes on record saying that the post should remain Fort Bragg but named for Edward Bragg.

He was an ambassador, a true patriot for the Union, he said. I thought there was a better option. Think of the money that was going to be saved.

The young may call it Fort Liberty, he said. For us, the old school, it will always be Fort Bragg. If you told anyone you were from North Carolina, they say, Fort Bragg. They know Fort Bragg. This should be an opinion made by soldiers who served in the military and their families and not the politicians.

The federal commission recommended new names for eight other Army installations. Fort Bragg is the only one that would not be named after a person.

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Reaction to new name for Fort Bragg mixed among veterans, activists - Up & Coming Weekly

Alfonso Pineda Ulloas action-thrillerThere Are No Saintsshouldve worked on multiple levels. Its written by the great Paul Schrader, the man behind such classics asTaxi Driverand the recentFirst Reformed. It boasts a formidable cast of cinema stalwarts. Alas, instead of a scathing critique of racial injustice, a revamping of the man seeks revenge after his family is murdered/kidnapped trope, the director delivers gratuitously violent, vulgar, clichd, jaw-droppingly sexist, and racist cinematic bile.

The plot is barely worth noting, as its as by-the-numbers as it gets. Released from a prison in South Texas, our heavily-tattooed hero, known as the Jesuit (Jos Mara Yazpik), goes after the goons led by a super-evil Vincent (Neal McDonough) who murdered his wife (Paz Vega) and kidnapped his son (Keidrich Sellati). With the cops after him, the Jesuit is running out of time to track and take down those scumbags. Luckily, he receives help from a sexy bartender (Shannyn Sossamon), who can lead him to Vincent. The story then somehow ends up in the Mexican jungle and concludes on the dourest of notes.

What does Ulloa have against the opposite sex? The central protagonist is frequently violent towards women; a multitude of highly graphic sequences portray women as helpless, sex-and-money-craving victims; theyre referred to as gold-digging w****s, beaten, shot, and tortured, their hands impaled by sharp knives.There Are No Saintsseems to regard females as either strippers or scantily-clad, easily-bought, incessantly-blabbering pests. Im far from being a proponent of political correctness, but witnessing such unabashed insensitivity is nauseating.

heavily-tattooed herogoes after the goonswho murdered his wife.

Ulloa never tries to justify his disregard for good taste. Even the Jesuit is frequently referred to as a spic. This is racism for the sake of racism. We all know that it still exists, but theres no point being made here. The same applies to all the over-the-top violence. I normally dig this stuff the gorier, the better but it must either be truly unnerving, played for laughs, or make somesortof a point. In Ulloas film, it just sits there. Shins get blown off, faces smashed, fingernails yanked, bats break bones, boiling water sears off skin, and a child is tortured. Youll wince for all the wrong reasons.

The shaky cam used throughoutThere Are No Saintsdoes the relatively well-orchestrated choreography a disservice. A bathroom brawl, after which our hero casually flirts with the bartender, could have been infinitely more effective if wiser camera placement and editing choices were made. The same applies to a fight inside a moving vehicle later on in the film. Its all sound and fury, signifying zilch. No one learns s**t from anything. Characters dont develop or grow; there are, indeed, no saints nor any redeeming qualities.

Im shocked Schrader wrote this, but then I recollect some of the duds on his mostly-impeccable resume (see, or rather dont,The Canyons). Still, theres no excuse for the vacuum of morals on display. A moral vacuumcanbe pivotal to great cinema, but in a monotonous rehash like this, some humanity is essential. The lackluster dialogue doesnt help. Unless you want to eat a baseball, I suggest you tell me where my money is right now, a character snarls.

I wish I could say that if you were to take out all the offensive s**t, Ulloas film would be silly, bloody fun. Considering the cast and writer, it really should be. However, the result is truly egregious. Id rather eat a baseball than have to sit throughThere Are No Saintsever again.

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There Are No Saints - Film Threat

Yet so much of our national dialogue these days urges a laser focus on notions of privilege, bias, inequity and vocabulary, and while most Americans want some kind of gun reform, most are less on board with the idea that we must revolutionize our attitudes on these other issues. A 2020 Pew Research survey found that in the U.S., only 40 percent say people should be careful what they say to avoid offending others vs. 57 percent who say people today are too easily offended by what others say.

As I read that, more of us feel that guns are a pressing issue and political correctness is not. And yet our discourse frequently centers on that issue, only briefly focusing on guns in the immediate wake of tragedies. For those who think racism is still our main problem, we might even think of a reckoning on guns as a component of antiracist efforts, given the repeated instances of violence motivated by racism.

Knowing this and knowing that legislative efforts at the national level went nowhere after shootings at Sandy Hook, Parkland, a Walmart in El Paso and outside a bar in Dayton, the reckoning now would not only have to be a renewed attempt to change gun laws, but also about confronting the fact that doing so appears impossible, and what this suggests about the very trajectory of the American experiment.

My pessimism may seem unwarranted. After all, there was a time when it was reasonable to think little would ever really change on the civil rights front in America. Black citizens and others of good will had been demonstrating, making speeches and were thoroughly fed up long before the civil rights victories of the 1950s and 1960s, only to encounter resistance from a united cadre of nakedly racist members of Congress hostile to calls for integration.

Senator Richard Russell Jr. a Georgia Democrat for whom the Russell Senate Office Building is named filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and earlier in his career responded to a challenger by stating: As one who was born and reared in the atmosphere of the old South, with six generations of my forebears now resting beneath Southern soil, I am willing to go as far and make as great a sacrifice to preserve and ensure white supremacy in the social, economic and political life of our state as any man who lives within her borders.

Part of what turned the tide in the fight for civil rights was a combination of technology and shame. Television offered visual evidence of the barbarity of segregationist racism with a vividness hitherto unknown to many Americans.

But that wont work this time. The instantly accessible moving image long ago lost its novelty, and most Republicans in Congress give no indication so far of being moved by the images from Uvalde or by the facts. As long as they maintain this posture, they have no more shame than the Dixiecrats of yore and our system has come to a point where those of us who do have shame, and want to vote for people who will do something about it, are thwarted.

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Opinion | Gun Violence Is Like What Segregation Was. An Unaddressed Moral Stain. - The New York Times

Seven candidates are running for San Diego County Sheriff in the race to replace retired Sheriff Bill Gore. The candidates listed on the June 7 ballot are retired sheriffs Sgt. Charles Chuck Battle, police Capt. John Gundo Gunderson, chief criminal prosecutor John Hemmerling, Undersheriff Kelly Anne Martinez, Combat Infantry Capt. Juan Carlos Charlie Mercado, retired sheriffs Commander Dave Myers, and peace officer Jonathan Peck. Mercado did not reply to requests for a Q&A response. Of these candidates Peck is the only Ramona resident.

We are running a Q&A with the candidates, two each week, through June 2. This week we continue the series with Dave Myers and Jonathan Peck.

Name: Dave MyersAge: 60Residence: La Mesa, 29 years. Born and raised in San DiegoFamily Members: Husband of 18 years, two children, one granddaughterEducational Background:2008 Management Certificate, Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST)2004 University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School, Certificate, Finance Management2004 Stanford University - Certificate, Financial Management-Leadership2004 Harvard Law School Certificate, Financial Management1983 17th Regional Law Enforcement Academy, Miramar College 45 units (Deans List for Academic Excellence)Chapman University, Criminal Justice Investigation/Advanced InvestigationCA Department of Justice, Under the Influence/Drug AwarenessSan Bernardino Sheriffs office, Advanced Officer Training/Gang Awareness Train the TrainerInternational Law Enforcement Institute, Gang Awareness trainingCA Gang Investigations Association, Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs

Professional Background: Ive worked in law enforcement for 35 years, starting out as a police officer with the Carlsbad Police Department, and then working my way up the ranks at the Sheriffs Department from a patrol deputy to commander. Ive been tasked with handling almost every part of the Sheriffs Department. As commander, I managed 24 patrol stations and substations encompassing all of San Diego County. In addition, I managed the Special Investigations Division, which included homicide, narcotics, terrorism, and gangs and Courts Division, which is responsible for the security at all Superior Court facilities. I created the Sheriffs Department Border Crime Suppression Team to target cartel drug smuggling, human trafficking and gun smuggling and brought millions of federal dollars to our region to combat murders, robberies and rapes along our international border. For 15 years, I served as an elected trustee on the San Diego County Employees Retirement Association, twice elected board chairman. Ive authored several articles, including one on lone wolf terrorism, LGBTQ In Law Enforcement, and regional law enforcement collaboration.

Current Occupation: Sheriffs Commander (retired)Board member, Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance (MOGO)Honorary Chair, Woody Williams Medal of Honor Foundation (Honoring Gold Star Families)

Dave Myers

(Big Mike Photography)

Why do you want to become sheriff?Ive known I wanted to be a police officer since I was a kid. I was in law enforcement for 35 years and worked for the Sheriffs Department for 33 years. The breakdown of trust between Sheriffs leadership and our communities is unfair to county residents and makes it harder for our deputies to do their jobs. The conditions and record-high death rates in our jails and crime lab mismanagement are unacceptable. Ive been overwhelmed with those in the Sheriffs Department and community members are pushing me to run for Sheriff. I could have stayed retired, but I dont want to leave the department in its current condition. We need to restore accountability and rebuild trust.

The crime rate increased in Ramona by 17 percent from 2020 to 2021, with violent crime increasing 8 percent and property crime increasing 22 percent. How would you address rising crime in Ramona to help reduce those numbers?First, Id hold the command at the Ramona station to account. The Sheriffs Department is a very large organization with access to resources all over the county. Crime trends need to be constantly monitored and when we notice increases, we must adjust resources from around the county to immediately address any possible increases. In the Sheriffs Department, we are one organization. We must know what proactive policing measures are successful and implement successes across the county in crime prevention and policing techniques. We must have open and transparent community involvement.

Drug use and drug-related crimes are a big issue in Ramona, according to the communitys current sheriffs lieutenant. How do you plan to deal with drug issues in Ramona and the backcountry?We are in an opioid crisis in the county of San Diego. Weve seen historically high numbers of opioid deaths. What I wont do is create fear in our communities by perpetuating a false narrative surrounding fentanyl. Sheriffs leadership produced and published a fake news story about fentanyl which creates fear in communities. All local and national medical experts debunked the fentanyl overdose video Sheriffs leadership peddled. As communities we all must work to help long-term drug dependent persons, welcome crisis stabilization centers into our communities and be very proactive in enforcing drug smuggling laws against the cartels and the scourge of prescription opioids.

What is your plan for dealing with homelessness and homeless issues in Ramona and the backcountry areas?For far too long, the unsheltered have been criminalized. In my over three decades of law enforcement, I found very few if any unsheltered community members who enjoy living on the streets. As communities we are defined by our compassion. As communities we must coordinate with local governments to assist our less fortunate community members. I believe government has an obligation to house and assist with hands up not necessarily handouts for community members to gain access to housing, medical care, and education. When a community helps, it creates hard-working, tax-paying citizens who will thrive and contribute to a communities success.

Name: Jonathan PeckAge: 41Residence: RamonaFamily Members: Married with four childrenEducational Background: Trained in the San Diego Unified SchoolsProfessional Background: 19 years in law enforcementCurrent Occupation: Law enforcement, five years in Los Angeles and 14 years in San Diego

Jonathan Peck

(Courtesy Jonathan Peck)

Why do you want to become sheriff? People in my community asked for a constitutional candidate to represent them and their interests. I am that candidate. On a personal level, my children and my wife deserve a community like I grew up in. As a provider and protector I intend to fight for that community.

The crime rate increased in Ramona by 17 percent from 2020 to 2021, with violent crime increasing 8 percent and property crime increasing 22 percent. How would you address rising crime in Ramona to help reduce those numbers?The retired Sheriff and the now undersheriff administration has been geared toward the politically correctness instead of the Constitutional rights of the law-abiding citizen. I intend to bring the Sheriff team back to their original constitutional duties to protect U.S. citizens and stay above the political chaos.

Drug use and drug-related crimes are a big issue in Ramona, according to the communitys current sheriffs lieutenant. How do you plan to deal with drug issues in Ramona and the backcountry?The invasion that has been allowed on our southern border is unacceptable. Article VI of the Constitution says to protect the nation from foreign invasion and domestic violence. The political rules in California have stopped the Sheriffs from protecting us from the drug cartels, sex trafficking and foreign invasion across our border. This is directly related to the California elected officials who no one is putting in check to stop these crimes. At the Tri-Community Sheriff meeting, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, San Bernardino Sheriff Shannon Dicus and Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco all talked about their efforts in our backcountry. I intend to team with them to shut down the Chinese and Mexican cartels illegal operations in San Diego County.

What is your plan for dealing with homelessness and homeless issues in Ramona and the backcountry areas?The Sheriff basic duty is to protect the citizens rights, from foreign invasion and domestic violence so they can enjoy life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. The homeless are citizens and need their rights protected. I as sheriff will ensure they are treated equally under the law. Law enforcement doesnt want to arrest a homeless person or any person who is in need in our community. Law enforcement want ways to protect, help and serve. We use to have a community of helpers. Does it still exist today?

Homelessness is a dilemma that our public officials have perpetuated on our citizens of San Diego County long enough. They have thrown give-away programs, housing programs, free hotel accommodations and toleration programs at this situation, all causing an increase in homelessness and vagrancy. The homeless need aid in getting back on their feet, not welfare. There are homeless drug addicts: stop the drug trades. There are homeless who lost their jobs due to the pandemic shutting down businesses: Change elected officials who shut those businesses through emergency policy. There are homeless with mental disorders: give them a place to go to get help: who shut down those institutions or stopped the community ministries doing this. There are homeless who want to be homeless: these need to be given options of becoming a good community member or be encouraged to seek their living elsewhere.

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San Diego County Sheriff's candidates share their views - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Police beat: The Growing Attacks on Cops

Per Fraternal Order of Police data, the number of US law-enforcement officers shot in the line of duty this year through May 1 hit 123, a 35% increase over 2021, reports City Journals Charles Lain Lehman. Long-run data also suggest that policing has indeed gotten more dangerous since 2020, reversing its dramatic decline since the 1990s. And the surge in ambush-style attacks on cops suggests offenders are not only more violent but also feel less inhibition in attacking officers, thanks to increasing hostility toward police from civilian leadership. This rising prevalence of officer injuries and deaths augurs poorly for efforts to curtail the national violent crime spike.

From the right: Orwellian Erasure of Women

During my recent treatment for breast cancer, a nurse assured me that my chest cancer prognosis was promising, notes Patricia Posner at The Wall Street Journal. It was the first time I had personally encountered the effort to degender medicine. Its now widespread: Since 2020, Harvard Medical School has been declaring that not all who give birth are women. But certain biological and physical differences . . . affect only women. I am sorry if this offends anyone, but men dont menstruate or give birth. Women are incrementally being erased in a rush of political correctness to ensure no trans person is offended, yet most women are quiet for fear of being attacked as bigots. But Its Orwellian that today many of us feel compelled to remain silent about our female bodies, motherhood and our health as women.

Conservative: Dems Promised Calm, Deliver Rage

The Democratic Party sold itself in 2020 as Americas choice for calm, cool and collected, recalls The Federalists Eddie Scarry. Yes, the people who whipped up mass COVID hysteria and instigated months of violent Black Lives Matter rioting were the same ones who insisted theyd settle everything down. Two years on, the left is as obnoxious and bitter as ever. Winning the White House and taking full control of Congress only made them worse. When a Supreme Court draft opinion on abortion leaked, Democrats immediately began reminding us how uncomfortable things can be when they dont get their way. Mobs have protested at justices homes, and left-wing pundits say of the court, Lets burn this place down. It seems the angry, vindictive left is here to stay.

White House watch: Joes Anti-Israel New Spox

The new White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, reports National Reviews David Harsanyi, authored a 2019 Newsweek piece urging Democrats to skip the AIPAC conference. It doesnt openly contend that Israel shouldnt exist, but her regurgitation of BDS talking points says just as much. She claims that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee fails to uphold progressive values by inviting a prime minister from the only nation in the Middle East where Muslim votes count. She slams AIPACs severely racist, Islamophobic rhetoric but, Harsanyi notes, doesnt offer a single quote or hyperlink substantiating the contention. She cant, since AIPAC is one of the most milquetoast organizations in D.C. Its so sensitive to partisan criticism that it supported a trip to Israel for antisemites Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Legal desk: Fall of a Dem Superlawyer

Democratic superlawyer Marc Elias, notes The Washington Free Beacons Kevin Daley, is having a bad run. He was laughed out of court over his defense of NYs legislative gerrymander and slapped by special counsel John Durham for an attempt to shield [his firms] communications on Russiagate with smear-merchant Fusion GPS. Elias tactics are now drawing rebukes from judges, prosecutors and even fellow Democrats. All this after blundering into a major defeat in the Supreme Court in 2021 on voting rights. And now Durhams submitted a second filing on Elias relationship with Fusion a sure sign that the special counsel isnt letting the matter lie, and a request for sanctions could be near.

Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

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The growing attacks on cops and other commentary - New York Post

The Pitch:Amidst the post-SNL sketch show boom of the 80s and 90s, The Kids in the Hall stood head and shoulders above the pack. The fivesome of fresh-faced Canadian absurdists Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin MacDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson felt fresh, new, and exciting; their material was edgy and provocative in a way that still leaned into Pythonesque silliness, ruffling feathers without the pain of plucking them.

While the five have worked together off and on since the Lorne Michaels-produced shows cancellation (most notably, in their film debut flop Brain Candy, plusheaps of touring shows across North America in recent years), it took Amazon to bring them back from their 17-year hibernation from sketch television.

And here they are, not as young as they used to be (as theyll be the first to tell ya) but with their comedic sensibilities as sharp as ever. They may not be kids anymore, but in a lot of ways, their comedy feels ageless.

These Are the Daves I Know, I Know:In a lot of ways,this newKids in the Hall is playing straight to their existing cult of core fans, digging (in some cases literally) their old material from the graves in which they sat for nearly two decades. The opening sketch bears out that sense of world-weariness, that furtive step back into the limelight for five white Canadian dudes nearing their sixties: a Lorne Michaels type (McKinney) commissions the revival of the Kids after a garage salefinally makes Brain Candy a profitable film.

The Kids are dug back up from their mass grave; they balk at their wrinkled, sagging bodies. Am I still the cute one? Foley asks feebly. Its fantastically dark stuff, goofy and fatalistic in the way only the Kids can really pull off this time elevated with Amazon-level production values and more localized Canadian references than you can shake a loony at.

Honestly, the smartest move the Kids make is in leaning into their status as legends and, in some ways, relics. Theyre old white men, after all, and they know theyre hardly the freshest voices in comedy anymore; but paradoxically, that gives them the license to poke fun at their own out-of-touch-ness without it reading as acquiescence.

One extended sketch about post-Toobin Zoom etiquette quickly morphs into an extended workplace group masturbation session; another sketch touches on cultural appropriation through the lens of literal clown shoes. There are just enough layers of absurdism slathered on top to keep the digs from feeling reactionary, instead positing a world where all the rules and stipulations of so-called political correctness were taken onlyto their most cartoonish conclusion.

The rest is here:

30 Helens Agree Amazons Kids in the Hall Revival Is Hilarious: Review - Consequence

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The strangest thing about the debate over parents roles and rights in their childrens education is that there is a debate at all.

As former teachers ourselves, we know firsthand that nothing is more valuable to a classroom or school let alone to individual students than parental involvement. Of course they should have access to instructional materials teachers use in class. Of course parents should decide when and how morally complicated issues are introduced into the classroom if at all.

RHODE ISLAND PARENTS ENRAGED AT SCHOOL BOARD FOR REMOVING HONORS CLASSES IN EQUITY OBSESSION

Parent speaks at March 30 Barrington Public Schools meeting. (Barrington Public Schools)

The idea of public school personnel laying claim to children independent of and even confidential from their parents would be laughable if it werent so frightening. Good teachers bend over backwards to be transparent with their students moms and dads. They want parents to be in the loop, part of a team helping each student develop the skills necessary to succeed.

Adults who try to hide what they do with other peoples children for hours at a time, by contrast, have no business in a classroom. Yet somehow a large proportion of Americas school boards, school administrators, and teachers unions apparently take as a given this subverted idea that government officials, not parents, are childrens primary educators.

Sadly, this isnt a new development. Like so many other once-respected public institutions, Americas schools have been breaking down for years now. Declining test scores and political correctness attest to just how far public schools have descended into academic mediocrity and "woke" indoctrination. It took remote learning during COVID-19 to alert parents to the dangers and failings of our school systems.

American students are not just taught critical race theory and other Marxist claptrap, theyre steeped in it. In classes ranking themselves according to their identity privilege, little kids are being forced to celebrate communism. This really happens.

Trans activism in schools, too, has progressed far beyond affirmations of respect and tolerance for all people. On the contrary, in Virginia, one school board shamelessly covered up a sexual assault committed by a trans girl to protect their narrative, and then had the victims father arrested when he called them out. Schools are helping children "transition" and keeping it a secret from their parents.

Meanwhile, our students actual educations are a punchline. Even before COVID, only about one third of students were at grade proficiency or better in reading, and only about 40 percent in math. After two years of anti-science school closures, those unacceptable numbers are only getting worse, and theyll leave poor, minority communities long neglected by our education status quo even further behind.

And yet, caught red-handed in their extremism and negligence over countless Zoom classes, the left doubled down!

They denied CRT is taught in schools. Democrats Virginia gubernatorial candidate said at a debate, "I dont think parents should be telling schools what they should teach." President Bidens advisors orchestrated a contemptible campaign directing the FBI to investigate and label protesting parents as "domestic terrorists."

And now, were witnessing the lefts fury at a new Florida bill that merely delays public school instruction about sexual orientation and transgenderism until fourth grade. The outrage and misrepresentations of the bill reveal that the left isnt interested in teaching, but rather in pushing a woke agenda on our kids that is anti-God, anti-America, anti-free enterprise, and especially anti-Western civilization.

Legislation guaranteeing school transparency and restricting woke content are proliferating in state legislatures across the country, including in Alaska. They represent lawmakers essential first acts of self-defense against theanti-family theories now running too many school districts.

We got the jump on parental rights in Alaska back in 2016 when as a state senator, I (Mike) teamed up with Rep. Wes Keller on legislation that codified the recognition of parents as the authority in their childrens education. It gives parents the right to review any class, activity, assessment, or program and to withdraw their child if requested without penalty. It also requires two weeks notification about any curriculum covering sexual activity or reproduction with the same power to review.

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But public policy alone cant fix whats wrong in our schools. Americas moms and dads are the "sleeping giants" who will mend our broken education system. At the end of the day, parents must decide what gets taught and who does the teaching at their kids schools and for that matter, which schools their kids attend.

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Public schools today willfully encourage child ignorance and family dysfunction. Conservatives must redouble our efforts to serve parents sacred right to direct their childrens education not because its politically advantageous(though it is), but because Americas boys and girls are worth it.

Kevin Roberts is president of The Heritage Foundation.

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Parents are 'sleeping giants' who will fix American education - Fox News

A security guard is framed inside a coat hanger as demonstrators protest outside of the US Supreme Court, Tuesday, May 3, at dusk in Washington. A draft opinion suggests the US Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide, according to a Politico report released Monday. Whatever the outcome, the Politico report represents an extremely rare breach of the court's secretive deliberation process, and on a case of surpassing importance. [AP]

A decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide would resemble a historic turning point. The courts rulings are usually an indication of how the countrys political pendulum swings; and few issues are more sensitive to the American public than abortion. The planned overturning of the Roe vs Wade ruling is a sign of what we should expect in the coming years from the federal judges appointed by ex-president Donald Trump. These are not conservative, well-informed judges but ultraconservative activists who aim to change the American paradigm and push society in the direction of deep conservatism.

The Supreme Court ruling could, in fact, help the incumbent president, Joe Biden. Large chunks of American society may well be conservative but they are nevertheless against restricting abortion rights. Such a move might mobilize these masses ahead of crucial congressional elections in November, potentially stopping the Republicans from scoring some all-but-certain victories.

An important issue of course is, how did we get here? How did conservative fundamentalism sweep such large parts of American society? The wave of ultra political correctness that appears to have gotten hold of the Democratic Party in recent years (for example the debate over defunding the police or the debate over gender-neutral language) certainly has not helped.

Excessive behavior usually leads to more excessive behavior, particularly when financial conditions are tight and when people question the status quo.

American history shows that the country tends to swing from one extreme to the other. These days the pendulum tends to accelerate in a more violent and unpredictable manner. It also swings higher. The issues which cause the pendulum to swing are almost always identity-related; they have to do with religion, with migration, with peoples right to self-determination. They often veer beyond the classic political diving lines. At times of crisis dormant faults are reactivated. Meanwhile, social media give voice, and power, to those who want to make a fuss on either side. In the middle, the great majority is guided more by reason and moderation. It usually results in developments that pull it back to the center court of politics, as will likely happen again with the abortion rights case.

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Abortions and the pendulum - Kathimerini English Edition

On a filthy night three days before Christmas in 1978, I was sitting on a rather ancient coach travelling across the Pennines towards Lancashire, along with about 50 other football supporters. The Bradford branch of the Manchester United supporters club catered largely for a collection of brickies and other manual workers and that evening we were all on our way to watch a dismal 0-3 defeat at Bolton. As torrential rain poured down on the M62, the bloke sitting immediately in front suddenly turned and, with a hint of menace, said to my brother and me: Youre not really the same as us are you?

It may have been the drink talking after some seasonal revelry during the day, but his analysis was on the money. The sons of an academic and a teacher, Paul and I read different papers, watched different stuff on TV and spoke in a different way. But as aspiring young lefties in the late 1970s, we imagined, or hoped, that this divergence in terms of social class would be redeemed and erased by politics: after all, it was only 10 years after 1968, when radical students and workers attempted to dream a revolutionary alliance into being. So it was mortifying to my teenage self to realise that, even in the context of supporting the same football team, there might be an underlying suspicion towards the middle-class interlopers on the bus.

This uncomfortable moment was a minor lesson in the tricky social dynamics of class and status. Almost half a century later, the future of progressive politics in Britain may depend on a similar kind of learning process writ large. The usual caveats (low turnout, protest voting, local factors) apply to any analysis of last weeks council elections. But in England, the broad picture appears to confirm a changing political landscape that, while it potentially poses deep problems for the Conservative party, also confronts Labour with challenging truths. To quote the Oxford University election analysts Michael Thrasher and Colin Rallings: The urban south is becoming more Labour as the north hangs on to its post-Brexit attachment to the Tories but there is evidence too of a new demographic cleavage. Areas where more than a third of the population are university graduates swung sharply to Labour, those where graduates are thinner on the ground moved almost as much the other way.

Two demographies, two economies and, increasingly, two sensibilities. On one side, liberal-minded, Labour-voting urban professionals and young graduates clustered disproportionately in the cities; on the other, elements of the post-industrial working class (some of it retired) who mourn the loss of something that has disappeared in towns that are steadily getting older.

If it cannot do much better among this second group, Labour will not win a majority in the next election. Even the success of a progressive alliance with the Lib Dems and the Greens depends on Labour doing its job in the red wall. But despite notable successes, such as its victories in Cumberland and Kirklees, the hoped-for revival in the north and Midlands stuttered and stalled last week to an extent that allowed Boris Johnson to brazen out an otherwise terrible night.

Viewed through a purely economic lens, some of the results might appear inexplicable. Polls indicate that a majority of the public views the governments response to the cost of living crisis as woefully inadequate. But in one of the most deprived wards in Walsall where one in five households are fuel poor there was a 35% swing to the Conservatives. While red wall type areas will suffer disproportionately in the hard times to come, it would therefore seem unwise for Labour to rely on attacking the government to solve the problem of its soured relations with the traditional working class. Instead, perhaps the left should widen the horizon of its analysis to address the kind of question that my fellow United fan put to me on the coach to Bolton. Why do substantial numbers of former Labour voters sense a cultural gulf between themselves and what they think the party now represents? Why do they feel Labour is not the same as them any more?

Last year, the UK in a Changing Europe thinktank published an important paper co-written by the sociologist and social mobility expert John Goldthorpe. Entitled Meritocracy and Populism, a section of it summarises two main findings from red wall focus groups convened by Deborah Mattinson (now Labours director of strategy). The first was that these (predominantly leave) voters felt that good jobs and opportunities for younger people were no longer available in their communities. A sense of grievance at this was compounded by the perception that, as old industries had faded away, the world now belonged to new generations of degree-holders who, bluntly, looked down on them. Politically, write Goldthorpe and his co-author, Erzsbet Bukodi, such views translated into a deep disillusionment with the Labour party. This was seen as now dominated by graduate, metropolitan elites whether Blairite or Corbynite obsessed with political correctness and more concerned with telling the people they were supposed to represent that they were wrong than with trying to understand the conditions under which they were living. Depending on how things play out, Keir Starmers current woes over Beergate feeding a narrative of elite hypocrisy could prove particularly damaging in this regard.

This alienated perspective, which is almost certainly shared by large numbers of lost Labour voters, may be an unfair caricature. But if Labour is to bridge generational and educational divides in an era of culture wars, it should admit that there is a kernel of truth here. The mass expansion of higher education has helped Britain become a far better place when it comes to addressing, for example, race and gender inequality. But the widespread characterisation of Brexit as a purely xenophobic, reactionary project demonstrated that highly educated liberals are also capable of myopic intolerance. To reconstitute a relationship with leave-voting constituencies, Labour needs to do more than move on from 2016 and its aftermath, as Starmer has understandably but mistakenly sought to do. It needs to re-engage with why so much of its working-class support voted the way it did.

A starting point for that exercise might be the seminal essay Culture is Ordinary, written by Raymond Williams in 1958. In it, Williams describes the postwar blue collar environment in which he grew up as defined by commitment to neighbourhood, mutual obligation and common betterment. Mattinsons leave voters were evidently preoccupied by the perceived loss of this sense of solid community, and clearly ill at ease in an age of more freewheeling individualism. These are not in themselves reactionary sentiments; in fact they belong to a venerable Labour tradition that includes RH Tawney and William Morris. But in the context of Brexit, they were far too easily dismissed and misrepresented, and the scars from that are still there. If they are to be healed in the places where Labour so badly needs to reconnect, the modern left needs to travel outside its cultural comfort zone with an open mind, listen properly to the messages it receives, and admit that it can learn from the red wall as well as lecture it.

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Labour may think its moving on, but working-class voters arent following - The Guardian

NPR is such an absurd organization these days. I cannot wait until some future Congress and president remove all federal funding from it, given what it has become. As far as I know, this major player in the Cathedral (the neoreactionary term for the informal system of American elites) have never paid a bit of attention to Orthodox Christianity in America. But now theyve come out with a hit piece on how Orthodoxy is attracting far right converts.

Heres how it appears on the website:

This is a biased article, even by NPRs standards. Reporter Odette Yousef begins by talking about right-wing converts to ROCOR (the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia the exile church, though it reconciled in recent years with the Moscow Patriarchate) in a single West Virginia congregation. More:

The case study that Riccardi-Swartz provides adds detail and color to a trend that a handful of historians and journalists have documented for nearly a decade. In publications mostly targeted toward an Orthodox Christian audience, they have raised the alarm about a growing nativist element within the church. Despite Orthodoxys relatively small imprint in the U.S., they warn that, unchecked, these adherents could fundamentally alter the faith tradition in the United States. They also warn that these individuals are evangelizing hate in the name of Orthodoxy in ways that could attract more who share those views.

Its an immigrant faith. Its now being sort of colonized by these converts in many respects, said Riccardi-Swartz. Theyre vocal in their parishes. Theyre vocal online. Theyre very digitally savvy and very connected to other far-right actors in the United States and across the globe. And thats really changing the faith.

Now, before I begin to deconstruct this ridiculous propaganda piece, I concede that it is based on a kernel of truth: some outsiders are finding their way to Orthodoxy, thinking that it will be the far right at prayer. A friend who attends a large parish told me last year that they are seeing some young men showing up with that in mind, only to find out otherwise. Let me be clear at the start of this essay that I concede that this phenomenon is not invented out of whole cloth.

In my own small parish, we have seen a surge of young inquirers, but they are coming not with far-right politics in mind, but because they are looking for something more stable and deeper than the churches they had been attending.And yes, it is true that some come because they correctly sense that Orthodoxy is much less likely to surrender to the wokeness that is infesting many Protestant and Catholic congregations. Note well, though, that to NPR, all of this is far-right.

This Riccardi-Swartz talks about how these people are really changing the faith. Are they? In my experience of being within Orthodoxy for sixteen years, these leftists like those quoted in Yousefs story are angry at converts like me because they want to change the faith to make it more compatible with American liberalism. Converts like me come into the Orthodox Church warning the unsuspecting cradle Orthodox what people like these activists within the Church are really doing and how if the Orthodox congregations dont wake up, they will find themselves turned into Baklava Episcopalians.

The NPR story focuses mostly on ROCOR, which is a tiny jurisdiction in America. There are single megachurches in Texas with more members. From the piece:

This is in line with American mainline religion, [where] everyone is shrinking in size except nondenominational churches, Krindatch said. But ROCOR, which Krindatch estimated in 2020 to have roughly 24,000 adherents, experienced a striking shift. While the number of ROCOR adherents declined by 14%, Krindatch found that the number of parishes grew by 15%.

So what it means [is], we have more parishes, but which are smaller in size. And if you look at the geography, those parishes were planted not in traditional lands of Orthodoxy, said Krindatch. The growth occurred in less populated areas of the Upper Midwest and Southern states, places with fewer direct links to Russia.

So for me, those are a bunch of new ROCOR communities which are founded by convert clergy or by convert members, Krindatch said.

OK, but why should we assume that these converts are far rightists? I worshiped in a ROCOR church from 2012-16, and my priest, a convert, was especially vigilant against far-right infiltration of Orthodoxy. He was a former cop, and understood that this was a potential threat. He was instrumental in educating Orthodox bishops, who were clueless. Again: this was a ROCOR priest who took the lead to fight racist infiltration of the Church by radical converts. And in our church, we founded a mission within ROCOR because it was the only Orthodox jurisdiction willing to send a priest into a mission in south Louisiana. Nobody cared about politics at our parish well, except for this one elderly man, who seemed perpetually disappointed that nobody wanted to talk politics with him. My experience is subjective, of course, but I have had nothing but warmth, kindness, and normality in my interactions with ROCOR people.

Anyway, these tiny little ROCOR mission parishes within a small and shrinking jurisdiction so alarmed NPR that it decided to do a big story on it. And by implication, the bullying liberals of NPR who just love diversity, as long as diversity goes one way smear all of American Orthodoxy, as youll see if you read the whole thing.

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Aram Sarkisian, a postdoctoral teaching fellow at Northwestern Universitys Department of History, said this new growth from converts has helped some branches of Orthodoxy offset a decline in multigenerational families in the church. Sarkisian said these converts often find their way to Orthodoxy because they seek a haven for what they consider to be the most important cultural issues of the day.

Theyre drawn to what they believe to be conservative views on things like LGBTQ rights, gender equality. Abortion is a really big issue for these folks, the culture wars issues, really, Sarkisian said. And so they leave other faith traditions that they dont believe to be as stringent about those issues anymore.

Thats true. If you want a more traditionally Christian church, youll want to investigate Orthodoxy. But look, Sarkisian is a left-wing smear artist, as I wrote last year when he attempted to demonize Southern converts to Orthodoxy as neo-Confederates.

He focused in part on my praise for the proposal that St. Vladimirs Orthodox Theological Seminary relocate from Yonkers, NY, to Dallas this, because Orthodoxy is dying in its historic American heartland (the Northeast), but booming in the South. And, unlike in New York state, legal protections for actually orthodox institutions are likely to be greater than in a hostile woke state like New York. I wrote:

The historic regions where Orthodoxy was first planted in the United States are turning away from God. Nobody can deny that. You might want to make an argument that a seminary should be in a place where the need for proclaiming the Gospel is greatest, but that fails to address the concern that St. Vladimirs board has over the legal and regulatory environment in the New York area.

It is a very, very serious concern for any faithfully Orthodox Christian institution, particularly when it comes to LGBT-focused legislation and cultural norms. For now, the First Amendment protects the rights of seminaries to teach according to religious orthodoxy, even if it contradicts the law governing homosexuality and transgenderism (of which New York is one of the most progressive states). But that says nothing about rules for academic accreditation. It is entirely possible that if SVOTS remains in New York, or another deep blue state, that it could face uphill accreditation battles that could put the very existence of the seminary in jeopardy. Relocating to a red state would mean going to a place that is both more culturally conservative, and, being more religious, better understands the importance of religious liberty.

Naturally this upsets the people atPublic Orthodoxy, who are eager to liberalize including to queer the Orthodox churches in our country. It appears that these theological progressives fear that they are losing influence over the direction of Orthodoxy in America, and are resorting to neo-Confederate smears to justify their anxiety. The Fordham Orthodox guys helped lead the charge to get my Schmemann lecture at SVOTS cancelled, but they failed. I talked aboutLive Not By Lies,and the crisis all small-o orthodox Christians and especially Orthodox Christians are facing in this post-Christian culture. I know exactly why they hated having me speak there: because I have their number. You rarely if ever hear progressive Orthodox voices complain about the rising soft totalitarianism against moral and theological conservatives because they themselves think oppression of the orthodox Orthodox by the state and by other institutions is a good thing. What these people cant do within the institution move it leftward they are hoping that the state will do for them.

You want to talk about those trying to change the church? NPR quotes Inga Leonova, a lesbian[a reader says she is not necessarily lesbian, but a divorced straight woman who writes about LGBT all the time; Im seeking to confirm this, but retracting lesbian until I verify; I was under the impression that she was an out lesbian RD] activist trying to queer the Orthodox Church in America. It quotes the militantly leftist academic Aram Sarkisian. And it quotes one of the two founders of the Orthodox Study Center at Fordham, the most important center of the attempt to liberalize and queer American Orthodoxy.

The frustrating thing about this NPR piece is that most people in America have never heard of Orthodox Christianity, or if they have, associate it with Greek food festivals. Now, though, NPR has brought all of us Orthodox under suspicion. From the piece, way down:

Those who have followed the influx of extremists into American Orthodoxy agree that those individuals are fringe within the church and are mostly concentrated in newly founded ROCOR parishes. But they also warn that it would be foolish to ignore them.

They are fringe people in one of the smallest jurisdiction of American Orthodoxy, representing only three or four percent of all Orthodox in the US! But NPR devoted ten minutes to sounding the alarm about their supposed threat. Sarkisian told NPR:

This is how people are finding Orthodoxy now. Theyre finding Orthodoxy through these YouTube shows. Theyre finding it through these podcasts. Theyre finding it through these blogs, said Sarkisian. Theyre being radicalized by these folks on the internet, and thats really dangerous.

Is that really how people are finding Orthodoxy now, through far-right videos? I hear all the time from people who have found Orthodoxy through reading my blog or my Substack, where I talk not at all about Orthodoxy and politics. Undoubtedly, some people do find Orthodoxy through extremist videos. But the idea that the people coming into Orthodoxy through this narrow gate is significant is not demonstrated at all in this article.

So what is its point, other than to tar a Russian church, in a time of Russophobia, as an anti-American menace? Let me give you a little more background on the kind of Orthodox people Odette Yousef quotes. The two Fordham Orthodox guys are George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou. Back in 2014, the Orthodox theologian Vigen Guroian wrote a negative review of a book about Orthodox political theology by Papanikolaou. Excerpts:

In the end,The Mystical as Politicalis not about theology. The book makes much of theological concepts liketheosisbut deploys them as tropes or gestures to smooth the way for the Orthodox faith to be put in service of a distinctly American religious project, one launched principally from within the academy.

In a telling admission, Papanikolaou writes that, when it comes to political theology I do not think the transcendent referent need be to the divine, but can take the form of a common good. In other words, whatever conduces to democracy and justice is of God. The sacramental realism and eschatological maximalism of Orthodoxy evaporates and is replaced by a consecration of the democratic communion of the secular liberal state.

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Papanikolaou asserts that in relation to the democratic form of the common good, the church must accept its own limits and recognize that the goal is not the formation of a eucharistic community through persuasion. This is an astounding pronouncement. The Church must renounce not only the use of the states coercive power, something Orthodoxy often depended on in past centuries, but also her ambition to draw the world into the eucharistic celebration.

In the place of this ecclesial vision of transformation, we are served the claptrap of diversity and political correctness. The goal of Orthodoxy, according to Papanikolaou, is the construction of a community in which diversity and cultural difference must be affirmed and protected and in which the recognition of such diversity must be enforced if they are not voluntarily accepted. Enforced? Does this not imply that the liberal state has a responsibility and right to coerce the Church when the Church does not affirm diversity and cultural difference? Surely, Papanikolaou knows that these terms are the property of the progressive left that insists on same-sex marriage, among other things Orthodoxy refuses to recognize.

And:

Weve sadly seen this within contemporary mainline Protestantism and liberal Roman Catholicism. In those contexts, talk about justice (or social justice) has displaced the language of holiness. This has been accomplished at immense cost to the eschatological dimension in both Protestant and Roman Catholic social ethics. In the effort to insinuate the Churchs mind into public policy, weve seen the Churchs singularly biblical and Christian speech stripped away. Papanikolaou would do the same for Orthodoxy.

None of this is meant to minimize the threat, such as it is, from a handful of far-right nativists infiltrating a tiny jurisdiction of Orthodoxy. But it is to point out for non-Orthodox readers that NPR aligns itself with an academic faction within American Orthodoxy that really and truly does want to change the Church to make it more like, well, NPR.

I do give the Fordham guys credit, though, for publishing this essay from Sister Vassa Larin, a well-known Russian Orthodox nun who explains why shes not leaving ROCOR. Excerpt:

In conclusion, let me say a few words in support of sticking it out within ones own church community, at this Time of Troubles.I, for one, am not going anywhere, from my jurisdiction, which happens to be the ROCOR (the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia), also known as ROCA (the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad). Why am Inotleaving, even while we commemorate Patriarch Kirill, and many of our clergy sympathize with Putinism?Because I love my Church.Thats my best answer. And as Ive said jokingly, you cant take the broad out of the Russian Orthodox Church A-broad, just like you cant take the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad out of the broad. I do feel quite devastated by the whole situation, and I do feel betrayed by the utter failure of some of my fathers to discern the truth of this horrible war in Ukraine. I have not been able to post my usual reflections on Scripture on social media, nor have I updated our coffeewithsistervassa.com website, since the war began. I have been at a loss for words, frankly, and instead Ive been focusing on helping a Ukrainian refugee family here in Vienna, which has been a great blessing to me; this opportunity somehow to help the situation has been healing to me.And as I move forward, I see my now more-difficult vocation as witnessing to the truth within my beloved Church, however insignificant that witness is, or how uncomfortable for me, or whether it matters to anyone. I could just leave, but I dont think, in my case, that leaving my marriage to this Church is warranted. I think that God calls me to love, and to truthful witness, to my church family, and thats where I will remain.I also embrace the promise of St. Paul, quoted at the beginning of this post, that I might become one of the approved or in Greek thedokimoi, if I stand in truth at this time of divisions.Thank you to those of you who have read this to the end.Let us love one another, that we may with one mind confess, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

I wonder if NPR has any interest in ROCOR people like Sister Vassa who deplore Russias war on Ukraine, and the feeble response of many Russian hierarchs to it, but who stay anyway. Do they think Sister Vassa is a closet Putinist? Actually I dont think NPR cares. I think theyre just slinging snot at the Orthodox Church to see what sticks.

Well, look, if NPR hates an institution, that might be a recommendation for it. I hope you will go find an Orthodox Church this weekend and see what it has to offer. You will almost certainly not find politics, far-right or otherwise, despite what youve heard on taxpayer-funded state radio. Allow me to finish by quoting once again this line from Odette Yousefs report:

Those who have followed the influx of extremists into American Orthodoxy agree that those individuals are fringe within the church and are mostly concentrated in newly founded ROCOR parishes.

So by NPRs own admission, these menaces to society are a handful of people who are even on the margins within their marginal Orthodox jurisdiction (our word for denomination within Orthodoxy). Yet they gave ten minutes on Morning Edition to this story. How do you think NPR would have handled it twenty years ago if a fringe number of Islamic extremists were attending mosques belonging to a tiny conservative Islamic fellowship of mosques in America? I think we all know the answer to that question.

Yall better all get used to it, you Christians from non-tame churches. This is what its going to be like going forward. Dig deep, pray hard, and never surrender.

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The Cathedral Vs. The Orthodox Church - The American Conservative