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School Choice Is Empowering Students and Teachers — And Devastating Unions

Posted by M. C. on July 8, 2023

Promisingly, 15–20 percent of union workers in education resigned their memberships last year.

School Choice Is Empowering Students and Teachers — And Devastating Unions

Most states provide at least some support for parents who choose to send their child to a private school, such as tax credits, education savings accounts, or vouchers. Historically, this has not been a partisan issue. Among the states that spend the highest percentage of their education funding on choice programs, Florida and Indiana are strongly Republican, Vermont and Maine are strongly Democratic, and Arizona and Wisconsin are split.

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In many states, however, choice programs are limited in the types of students they can serve and in how much public money parents can spend on the school of their choice. As a result, only a minuscule amount of government education funding is expended on any program outside of the traditional neighborhood public school. (READ MORE: The Biden Administration’s Title IX Revisions Provoke Backlash From Left and Right)

But that’s changing.

The American Spectator school choice

The American Spectator

West Virginia, Arizona, Iowa, Utah, and Arkansas have all recently passed universal school choice bills that offer programs to all students. According to school choice advocate Corey A. DeAngelis, similar bills are moving, or likely to move, in Oklahoma, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas. (A majority of lawmakers in Wyoming have also signed on to full school choice, but it is currently being blocked by the Republican House speaker.)

School choice is popular. Even in Democratic-controlled states, lawmakers have not — yet, at least — rolled back private school programs. In Michigan, where private-school choice programs are unconstitutional, about a quarter of students still want choice, attending public schools other than the one assigned to them based on their home address — either a charter school or one in a nearby district. The state’s new Democratic legislature, the first in forty years, has not signaled an interest in restricting these choices.

School choice is also effective: EdChoice, an education-reform nonprofit, found that the vast majority of studies on educational vouchers and tax credits show that choice results in significant learning gains for students, as well as such benefits as increased parental satisfaction and less bullying of students.

There are two main obstacles to expanding school choice: one is the traditional public school establishment, and the other is teachers unions. But the latter’s power and influence are gradually being gutted across the nation.

Why? Because of union choice.

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My Forty-Year War on Reefer Madness | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2023

As I wrote in my 1994 book Lost Rights, “The war on drugs is essentially a civil war to uphold the principle that politicians should have absolute power over what citizens put into their own bodies.” But there is scant hope that politicians will forfeit any punitive power regardless of how many lives they continue to blight.

https://mises.org/wire/my-forty-year-war-reefer-madness

James Bovard

Forty years ago last week, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner published my first attack on the federal drug war. The previous year, the Reagan administration had unleashed its “Just Say No” program, vilifying anyone who smoked a joint, sniffed the wrong powder, or used nonapproved hallucinogens. I was mortified to see Ronald Reagan—who was elected on a promise to get “government off your backs”—double-cross his supporters with what morphed into the most intrusive scheme in American history.

Like kids everywhere in the 1970s, I laughed at the 1936 movie Reefer Madness in my high school health class. I’d occasionally smoked marijuana but hadn’t felt compelled to burn down any orphanages afterward. When Reagan went on the antidrug warpath, I was “laying for him,” as Mark Twain would say.

The Herald Examiner was a conservative-leaning paper, so I slanted my argument accordingly: “Many heavy marijuana users voted Republican in 1982, so there is no proof that it causes irreparable brain damage.” I pointed out that legalizing and taxing marijuana could raise enough money to pay for the MX missile program that Reagan championed. (Pentagon boondoggles were much cheaper back then.) Ending marijuana prohibition would put hundreds of lawyers out of work, I cheerily noted. Reagan’s drug crackdown was playing to a culture war theme which I mocked in the final sentence of my piece: “Personally, I’m all in favor of locking up hippies, but we need to find a better reason.” The editor wisely deleted that last sentence before printing the article.

My attempts at humor were not universally appreciated. When I took the page from the Herald Examiner to a photocopy shop in uptown Washington, the cranky old manager was outraged by the article’s headline: “Making Pot a Crime Is, Well, Un-American.” He railed about how drugs were destroying the nation and wagged his finger so hard he almost threw his shoulder out of joint. The real problem, he said, was troublemakers like me. I just grinned at him and found another copy shop.

Two years later, writing in the San Diego Union-Tribune, I declared, “The only things drug laws achieve is to make drugs more dangerous, crime more prevalent, and government more obnoxious.” I scoffed, “If the FBI didn’t have a thousand agents chasing dope dealers, would the Soviets be having so much success stealing U.S. military secrets?” I also whacked the Feds’ narcotic nitwittery in the Detroit News and other papers.

My pieces had as much impact on the drug war as bouncing a ping pong ball off the hull of a battleship. After the drug war became politically profitable, the number of drug offenders in prisons rose tenfold. More people were locked up for drug offenses than for violent crimes, and possessing trace amounts of cocaine was often punished with longer sentences than rape, murder, or child molesting.

In 1992, I headed to Guatemala to give a few speeches on perfidious US protectionist policies. Outside of Guatemala City, I met farmers and small businessmen who explained to me how the US drug war was ravaging their country. A Guatemalan banker told me that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was involved in shooting down or forcing crash landings of small planes suspected of carrying drugs. A prominent Guatemalan politician told me, “If you criticize the Drug Enforcement Administration, you might lose your visa” and be banned from visiting the US.

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Just What Is the Military’s Image and Reputation?

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2023

Just What Is the Military’s Image and Reputation?

By Laurence M. Vance

…Just what is the military’s image and reputation? Since Rubin never tells us, I guess I will have to:

  • Pretending to defend our freedoms
  • Fighting wars that are not constitutionally declared
  • Obeying immoral orders
  • Serving as the president’s personal attack force
  • Engaging in offense while calling it defense
  • Going where they have no business going
  • Fighting unjust and unnecessary wars
  • Carrying out a reckless, belligerent, and meddling foreign policy
  • Making widows and orphans
  • Policing the world
  • Blindly following orders
  • Invading and occupying other countries
  • Bombing, maiming, and killing for the state
  • Doing the government’s dirty work
  • Destroying property and infrastructure
  • Supporting a network of brothels around the world
  • Helping to create terrorists, insurgents, and militants

This is the image and reputation of the military that we never hear about. Soldiers are not heroes, role models, defenders of freedom, or public servants. They do not protect and defend the Constitution. They are at best pawns in the hands of Uncle Sam, drops of oil in the gears of the war machine, dupes, and cannon fodder.

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Report: US Will Provide Ukraine Cluster Bombs as Part of New Weapons Package

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2023

The news comes after HRW issued a report that said Ukraine killed civilians with cluster bombs used in Izium

antiwar.com

by Dave DeCamp

The Associated Press reported Thursday that the Biden administration has decided to arm Ukraine with cluster bombs and will announce the munitions as part of a new $800 million arms package. The news comes after Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report that said Ukraine has killed its own citizens using the munitions.

US officials told AP that they expect the arms package to be announced Friday. The White House used to be opposed to arming Ukraine with cluster munitions, as they are indiscriminate weapons that cause harm to civilians, but the concerns have waned.

Cluster bombs scatter small submunitions over large areas, making them especially hazardous to civilians who can find unexploded munitions years after they were dropped. Because of their indiscriminate nature, cluster munitions have been banned by more than 100 nations. The US, Ukraine, and Russia are not parties to the treaty, known as the Convention on Cluster Munitions. 

The HRW report said that Ukrainian cluster munition rocket attacks in the eastern city of Izium in 2022 killed at least eight civilians and wounded 15 more. HRW also said Russia’s use of cluster bombs in the war has killed many civilians.

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The World Of DATA Is An Illusion

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2023

According to who?   Are there really 8 billion humans?   Who tells us this?   The same people who tell us algorithmic and data lies all day long.   The same people who declare at the end of every statistic that the number is an ‘estimate’.   Remember when the Data experts declared they would no longer count CoVid cases?   They never did count them – Covid data was assimilated by; Wikipedia, NYT, Johns Hopkins, Facebook, Google and various analytics…, including Bill Gates IHME.

The World Of Data IS An Illusion.

HELENA

The Nationalist Voice

The World Of DATA Is An Illusion

The Job Market is showing signs of cratering.   Real People – not a Matrix Algorithm – but real people are being laid off in hordes.   The Tech market leading the bandwagon is claiming their layoff reaction is due to ‘inflation’.   The claim is that during the online Pandemic panic tech firms over-hired.   Now they are cleaning slate of superfluous employees, particularly highly qualified ones…   Illogical?   Absolutely.   Yet that is the narrative.

Of the $525 or $700 or $800 billion doled out in PPP Loans, the vast majority of the funds went to the Largest Corporations representing just 5% of businesses.   In other words, the PPP Loans which were created to go to small businesses – didn’t.   Tech companies were some of the biggest beneficiaries.   Revenue took a hit between 2021 vs 2022, yet when compared to 2019 – the spikes were higher by 60%, 80%, and double.

A Subsidy.   A Scam.   What happened to $800 BILLION?

For Example: META’s income between 2019 and 2022 rose 66%.  

Media 2022 – META shares take a 20% DIVE!   Media Jan. 2023 – META shares soar 20%.   As though it was ‘engineered’.   Between 2021 and 2022, Google/Alphabet added 34,000 jobs – an increase of 22%.   Same period – profits tanked.   For both companies, pretax income in 2021 was stellar.   Alphabet’s income in 2021 more than doubled over 2019.   It’s revenue to date has risen over $100 billion.

These are not causes for layoffs.

Where are the layoffs coming from?  

Many of the tech layoffs are from obscure companies located predominantly in New York and California ~ according to tech-crunch.  212,294 in 2023 so far, and 164,709 in 2022.   Shopify declared their layoffs were “due to a need to be more efficient now that the stable economic boom times were over…”   Dropbox claimed that their layoffs are due to slowing growth and ‘investments that are no longer sustainable’.  META claims it is restructuring.   Yahoo also says it is restructuring.

A closer look reveals these companies have been buying back shares since 2019 while incurring debt.

Who benefits from the share buybacks?   The same trio:   BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street.   Fink, Buckley and O’Hanley are the respective CEO’s of these three giants.   They Control and Dictate the market, the price of shares, the buys and sells, the media press releases, the news, etc…

The economy is virtually an illusion.   White House press briefings continually spike false information to dispel notions that America is in a decline.   A monopoly game with fake money.   Because in reality, the West ran out of money long ago and has been peddling the shell game for a decade or more.

Example:   Germany just announced the purchase of 60 Chinook helicopters from Boeing for a price tag of $7.8 billion.   Germany is in the midst of a recession.   To pay for the deficit spending, Germany has announced they will borrow an additional $18+ billion in 2024.   High unemployment, high inflation, packing on more debt, Germany is simply another Matrix of reality.

Does the US even have ‘gold reserves’ or is that another false piece of data?   How Deep Is The MATRIX?

As I noted above there are 3+ accounts on how much PPP loans were distributed.   Different media = different facts.   Facts are created opinions.   Money is allocated – and suddenly it cannot be accounted for.   Ukraine aid?   The infamous Pentagon Paper Caper wherein they had lost $3 trillion before 9-11.   Remember the $1.2 TRILLION infrastructure bill?   It was labeled The Bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act.   Yet bridges are collapsing, trains derailing and jobs are lost.

Where’s The Beef?

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Meta Launches Data-Harvesting Twitter Clone, Immediately Starts Censoring

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2023

As journalist Michael Shellenberger notes,

Within a few hours of launching, Threads was already secretly censoring users and not offering them the right to appeal.

That crazy guy Zuck, at it again!

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/metas-twitter-clone-reaches-10-million-users-hours-aoc-says-app-bricked-her

Tyler Durden's Photo

BY TYLER DURDEN

Meta claims that over 10 million people had signed up for its Twitter competitor, Threads, in what CEO Mark Zuckerberg framed as a “friendly” alternative to the little blue bird.

“Let’s do this. Welcome to Threads,” wrote Zuckerberg in his first post on the app, which is a “text-based conversation app” where users can publish posts up to 500 characters long, and allows people to post links, photos and videos.

Threads is directly linked to Meta-owned Instagram, which has over 2 billion users. The Twitter competitor is being rolled out in over 100 countries for iOS and Android.

“The goal is to keep it friendly as it expands. I think it’s possible and will ultimately be the key to its success,” wrote Zuckerberg in a Wednesday post, casting the service as a more wholesome substitute to Twitter. “That’s one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently.”

Meanwhile, data privacy and censorship concerns have emerged, with former Twitter owner Jack Dorsey highlighting the vast amount of data collected by Threads.

As journalist Michael Shellenberger notes,

Within a few hours of launching, Threads was already secretly censoring users and not offering them the right to appeal.

…

Meta is already too powerful. One company controls what much of the public is allowed to see. And if Threads succeeds, it will have 80% of the global market outside of Russia and China, according to one industry insider. As such, it’s reasonable to expect that Meta will censor precisely the same way the large news media corporations, including the New York Times, and corporate advertisers want it to. More censorship is what the mainstream news media, big corporations, and their celebrity pitch people have been demanding.

…additionally, Unlike Twitter, Threads collects data about “Health & Fitness,” “Financial Info,” “Sensitive Info,” and “Other Data.”

What’s ‘other data’?

Shellenberger further noted that within hours of launching, Threads was already secretly censoring users and not offering them the right to appeal.

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Here’s What’s Really Behind the Global Reset and Sustainable Development Agenda 2030

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2023

The answer is that the sociopaths at the UN and in Washington have no real intent for the peasants to continue with their current standard of living. They intend for us all to live in our 15-minute cities, eating bugs, immersed in the metaverse, and hooked up to a neverending feed of pharmaceuticals, which we’ll be forced to take, otherwise your UBI (universal basic income) gets cut off.

Here’s What’s Really Behind the Global Reset and Sustainable Development Agenda 2030

by Chris MacIntosh

Global Reset and Sustainable Development Agenda 2030

 Subscribe to International Man

Captive in the so-called 15-minute cities, eat bugs and no meat, immerse in the metaverse, and a never ending feed of pharmaceuticals, and all that by force, otherwise your universal basic income (UBI) gets cut off.

Energy? Dirty.

Lower motorway speeds and driving ban in plan to tackle oil reliance. Here’s an extract from Daily Echo article

Lowering motorway speed limits and introducing driving bans on Sunday are ideas being suggested to cut Britain’s reliance on oil.

The ideas are part of a ten-point plan proposed by the International Energy Agency in a bid to reduce global oil demand by 2.7 million barrels per day.

Motorway speed limits would be reduced by 6 mph across the country under the proposals, while the plan also suggests a ban on driving in cities every Sunday.

This is horseshit! It has nothing to do with “reducing reliance on oil” and everything to do with the WEF and UN “sustainable development Agenda 2030.”

You know what’s going to happen? The existing stream of folks leaving countries implementing these policies will turn into a flood (more on this in a minute). With it will come capital controls, because the sociopaths driving this agenda will never see their own policies as the problem. No, it’s always those silly peasants who are the problem.

In case you’re wondering… that’s you.

Meat? Dirty.

Irish considering massive cattle culling. We are flabbergasted that killing 200,000 head of cattle is even a consideration…

Wasn’t Ireland “famous” for its potato famine? You would think that people would learn from history. I am coming to the view that little/nothing is learnt by studying history.

When will folks wake up to this delusional stuff going on? Perhaps when their living standards take a bat to the knees.

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Bombshell: US House Bill to Cut Funding for WHO Entirely, Terminate Involvement in WEF, Considers Exiting WHO. Threatens Implementation of WHO “Pandemic Treaty”?

Posted by M. C. on July 6, 2023

Heavy backing will be needed to overcome a Biden veto.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/bombshell-us-house-floats-bill-defund-who-wef-other-misinformation-programs-considers-exiting-who/5824430

By Peter Koenig

Global Research

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The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations (CoA), a highly influential US Congressional body on US budget proposals, has advised cutting government funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) entirely, as part of its budget proposal for fiscal year 2024.

The CoA’s bill would also block funding to the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology, the EcoHealth Alliance, as well as gain-of-function research. In addition, the legislation would terminate US government involvement in the World Economic Forum (WEF).

This bombshell report was published a few days ago by RFK Jr’s Defender, based on extensive interviews with concerned US Congress people. See this full report by Michael Nevradikis, Ph.D, a regular contributor to the Children’s Health Defense Newsletter.

U.S. House Floats Bill to Defund WHO, WEF and ‘Misinformation’ Programs

By Michael Nevradakis, July 03, 2023

The proposal would enhance the US government’s attempt to ban “misinformation” and “disinformation” programs, and to retain – and even bring back – the US’s Constitutional sovereignty and citizen’s right to free speech and expression.

Cutting US funding to the WHO would amount to about US$ 700 million savings per year. With Big Pharma, Bill Gates and other interest groups funding more than 80% of WHO’s budget, the US$ 700 million – though by far the largest country contribution to the “health organization”, may not be a lot, but it has significant symbolic and political meaning.

Other nations look to the US, since many, especially from the Global South, are fed-up with WHO’s scandalous Covid imposition during the past three years, WHO’s impending health tyranny through the planned revised International Health Regulations (IHR) and the fully integrated so-called “Pandemic Treaty”. If the US dares take this drastic, but necessary step, others who feel likewise may follow suit.

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How Should We Regulate the Sun (Since Our Government Regulates Nearly Everything Else)? | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on July 6, 2023

While the candlemakers of the world may want to use the government to deprive us completely of sunlight, we must not go the other direction and act as though we have a so-called right to the sun. While, obviously, sun rights are not the battle of today, every time we hear an advocate coming out with a different idea of new positive rights, we must remember that each and every one of them is as ridiculous as a right to the sun.

https://mises.org/wire/how-should-we-regulate-sun-our-government-regulates-nearly-everything-else

Connor Mortell

When we think of “solar power,” we picture a field or a roof full of glass panels churning out electricity. However, this is just a more recent development in channeling the sun’s energy. Most histories of solar power will begin with stories regarding the use of magnifying glasses and mirrors to make fire. From the first to fourth centuries, the Romans began including large south-facing windows in their famous bathhouses, optimizing the heat energy the sun provided to heat the buildings.

However, this led to an interesting development. In the sixth century, not only bathhouses but also many Roman houses and public buildings all trended toward having a sunroom. As such, the Justinian Code actually enshrined “sun rights” so that each individual would be guaranteed access to the sun. Once the government enshrines access to the sun as a right, it is easy to compare “sun rights” to Murray Rothbard’s hypothetical government’s right to shoes:

The libertarian who wants to replace government by private enterprises in the above areas is thus treated in the same way as he would be if the government had, for various reasons, been supplying shoes as a tax-financed monopoly from time immemorial. If the government and only the government had a monopoly of the shoe manufacturing and retailing business, how would most of the public treat the libertarian who now came along to advocate that the government get out of the shoe business and throw it open to private enterprise? He would undoubtedly be treated as follows: people would cry, “How could you? You are opposed to the public, and to poor people, wearing shoes! And who would supply shoes to the public if the government got out of the business? Tell us that! Be constructive! It’s easy to be negative and smart-alecky about government; but tell us who would supply shoes? Which people? How many shoe stores would be available in each city and town? How would the shoe firms be capitalized? How many brands would there be? What material would they use? What lasts? What would be the pricing arrangements for shoes? Wouldn’t regulation of the shoe industry be needed to see to it that the product is sound? And who would supply the poor with shoes? Suppose a poor person didn’t have the money to buy a pair?”

Once the right to sun is enshrined, all these same questions can be asked. A sunroom raises the price of a home, and the poor will be priced out without a guaranteed right to the sun. One could cry that if one didn’t support this right, one would be opposed to people having sun and receiving vitamin D. In fact, there is a stronger argument to regulate the sun. While the sun is not an economic good—it is not scarce—it far more meets the definition of a public good than shoes do.

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Nikki Haley turns hawkish takes on China up to 11

Posted by M. C. on July 6, 2023

The Republican presidential candidate has no interest in dialing back tensions with Beijing amid a burgeoning cold war.

Why am I thinking there may be a lot of military business done in SC? Those scrapes on her knees are from bowing at the entrance to the pentagon.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/06/29/nikki-haley-turns-hawkish-takes-on-china-up-to-11/

Written by
Daniel Larison

Speaking before the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute Tuesday, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley laid out a hawkish policy for China. Sharply critical of the Biden administration’s alleged ineptitude in confronting China, Haley, who served briefly as Donald Trump’s UN ambassador, made a series of proposals that were actually not all that different from the current policy, only with a greater emphasis on economic decoupling and a dash of extra fearmongering. 

She would take a policy that is already heavy on building up the military and coercive tactics against Beijing and make it heavier yet. This is unfortunately typical of the debate over China policy in this country. It is often taken for granted that the only “realistic” alternative to the current policy of containment and rivalry is a more intense and reckless version of the same. But America deserves better options.

Notably lacking in Haley’s plan is any discussion of positive economic statecraft in the Asia-Pacific region, diplomatic engagement with non-aligned countries, or working with Beijing on mitigating the effects of climate change. On bilateral trade, her only suggestion was to reduce it due to the role played by Chinese manufacturers in the fentanyl crisis. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that previewed her speech, she wrote, “I will push Congress to revoke permanent normal trade relations [with China] until the flow of fentanyl ends.” 

If the U.S. acted on this threat, it would result in significant costs for American businesses and consumers, but Haley spoke as if revoking PNTR would harm only China. Moreover, during questions afterward, Haley entertained the possibility of “full-on decoupling” from China if it was “necessary” for national security. The former governor and ambassador sounded every bit like the hardline ideologue that we saw during the Trump years. 

At one point in her speech, she called Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing a “gold-plated invitation for more Chinese aggression.” She later tried to walk this back a little during the questions, saying that she objected to the way that the Biden administration was doing things, but it’s hard to see what kind of diplomatic engagement with China she would support other than issuing threats and ultimatums. 

Like other hawkish critics of Biden’s China policy, Haley ignored much of what Biden has done that those critics support while emphasizing the president’s supposed weakness. For what it’s worth, the Biden administration recently made an effort to address the crisis directly when it expanded interdiction efforts by the Department of Homeland Security. To the extent that she acknowledged any of what Biden has done on export controls, it was only to fault him for not going far enough. She wants the U.S. to “deepen” military ties with regional allies and with India, but then this is exactly what Biden has been doing for the last two years. 

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