Why Progressive's Can't Run Cities. Climate Meeting Observation. Provocative Op Ed. A Must Read. Videos. Much More Meaty Items.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/JkBpQG3FJwU

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The arrogance of progressives:

Politics: When the Lights Go Down in the City

By Barton Swaim

Progressive city officials in the 2020s appear determined to make all the mistakes liberal city officials made in the 1970s and ’80s, but with updated language. Michael Shellenberger’s “San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities” chronicles various experiments in unreality conducted by one city’s activists and political class in the 21st century. It is a bracing narrative.

San Fransico: Why Progressives Ruin Cities

San Francisco’s travails with public defecation have made headlines in the last couple of years, and for good reason. Thanks to generous welfare payments, lenient law enforcement and clement weather, thousands of homeless have made their way to the city from elsewhere, and the ranks of the local homeless have swelled, too. They need somewhere to relieve themselves, and the installation of portable toilets doesn’t seem to help. City leaders, trapped by an ideology that equates lawbreaking with victimhood, don’t know what to do about it.

Why so many homeless? Mr. Shellenberger, the author of last year’s “Apocalypse Never,” a broadside against environmental alarmism, suggests one answer: City leaders have decided that public housing, as distinct from public shelter, is the best, perhaps the only, way to deal with homelessness. The premise appears to be that the street-dweller would have a job and live in a home if only a decent job and an affordable house were available. What he needs isn’t a bed for a few nights and some counseling but a proper home—on the taxpayer’s dime.

Even accepting the questionable logic of the city’s premise, there are serious problems. One: Where to put all these homes? Two: How to pay for them? Regulations and taxes put the cost of building a single housing unit in San Francisco at—this is not a misprint—more than $500,000.

Mr. Shellenberger defends redevelopment against its detractors. “Redevelopment makes housing more abundant and can reduce the concentration of poverty,” he argues. “It grows the tax base and generates revenue to improve schools and transportation.” That’s an admirable attempt to win over progressives, but they won’t be convinced. Redevelopment—or “gentrification,” to use the pejorative term—may mean making urban neighborhoods safer, cleaner and more prosperous. But it also means making them, the experts tell us, “whiter.”

That is the animating complaint behind “Thanks for Everything (Now Get Out): Can We Restore Neighborhoods Without Destroying Them?” by Joseph Margulies, a professor of government at Cornell. Mr. Margulies believes the federal government could solve the housing problem simply by building more houses, but that the Reagan administration, “in its passionate embrace of neoliberalism,” gave up on the idea. You won’t find in his book any acknowledgment of the fact that poor minority neighborhoods were razed and replaced with high-rise housing projects under the auspices of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. He does mention that the U.S. government has torn down housing projects but fails to note the reason—that these charmless structures had become filthy, crime-infested and dangerous.

The goal, Mr. Margulies argues, is to create “affordable” housing. How? “In our neoliberal moment, policy makers in the United States have created an elaborate but fragile network of public-private partnerships in the hopes that the private sector, if given the right financial rewards and incentives, will close the gap between demand and supply.” He concedes that this “fragile network” involves an “array of initiatives, all governed by impenetrable statutory language and byzantine regulations,” so you may have to be a professor of government to understand it.

Howard Husock contemplates these and related realities in “The Poor Side of Town: And Why We Need It.” Mr. Husock, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, traces the progress of a seemingly sensible but ultimately destructive idea: that “low-income neighborhoods built by ordinary builders were exploitative, overcrowded, and dangerous.” Beginning with Jacob Riis’s “How the Other Half Lives” (1890), a deliberately shocking work of photojournalism on New York City’s poor areas, well-meaning reformers began advocating the demolition and rebuilding of “slums.” What these reformers failed to understand, Mr. Husock contends, is that the poor neighborhoods of large cities provided what planned and subsidized neighborhoods never could: tightly knit communities, a sense of belonging and attendant political participation, ethnic character and the economic mobility that springs from property ownership.

“The Poor Side of Town” is a sensitive work of history and analysis chronicling a century-long debate between reformers—public housing gurus, champions of zoning laws—and the “unreformers” who favored incremental improvements but defended the virtues of low-cost construction and property ownership. The unreformers, Mr. Husock writes, “understood something fundamental: Community develops when keeping one’s property becomes part of a positive conspiracy of shared self-interest.”

The possibility of shaking up 21st-century public-housing orthodoxy is slim. “Careers and specialties have been built on the frameworks established by housing reform,” Mr. Husock writes: housing policy institutes at major universities, armies of social scientists who can be counted on to interpret the consequences of progressive housing policies in the most favorable terms, and of course municipal, state and federal housing bureaucracies with their tens of thousands of employees.

Seth Barron, in a sprightly and unsparing look at Bill de Blasio’s disastrous mayoralty, “The Last Days of New York: A Reporter’s True Tale,” notes that a report by NYU’s Furman Center implausibly “claims that properties near new supportive housing, which is usually built on cheaper land, show stronger than average growth in value in the five years after completion of the project.” If we’ve arrived at a situation in which elite academic experts can claim, with straight faces, that subsidized homeless shelters increase the value of privately held land, then we are well on our way back to the ’70s and ’80s.    

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

A personal observation:

The climate conference is taking place under a cloudy and overcast sky, driven by unresolved and questionable science, a president whose policies have proven to be total abject failures, in every regard, and whose party is historically devoted to spending money based on failed policies in pursuit of questionable. programs.

Will Greens ever learn to come in from the rain?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

A long and fascinating, provocative Op Ed:

The Amendment That Remade America

The First? The Second? No, the 14th—the basis for every claim against a state government for violating individual rights. Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick say it’s time to assert its original meaning.

By Tunku Varadarajan

What’s the most important amendment to the U.S. Constitution? The First, which guarantees the freedoms of religion, speech and assembly? If you favor gun rights, perhaps the Second? Criminal-defense lawyers might be inclined to invoke the Fifth. Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick make a case for an amendment that isn’t even in the Bill of Rights—the 14th, ratified in 1868.

That amendment, among its other provisions, bars states from abridging “the privileges or immunities” of citizens or depriving any person of life, liberty or property “without due process of law.” It’s best known for guaranteeing to all persons “the equal protection of the laws.”

The 14th Amendment “not only changed the structure of our federalism, but it extended the protection of fundamental rights,” Mr. Barnett says. Before its ratification, the Supreme Court had held in Barron v. Baltimore (1833) that the Bill of Rights didn’t limit states’ authority. That started to change in 1897, as the court “incorporated” various rights, holding that the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause obligates the states to respect them.

By the end of the 20th century, all of the First and Fourth Amendments had been incorporated, as had most of the provisions of the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments, along with unenumerated rights such as privacy and travel. In 2010 the court added the Second Amendment to the list, and in 2019 the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against excessive fines. Thus every challenge to a state or local law or action that alleges an improper establishment of religion, the imposition of cruel and unusual punishments, or anything in between is also a 14th Amendment challenge.

Consider New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a gun-rights case on which the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday. It concerns “the right to bear arms outside the home, which most states protect and a few outliers do not, such as California and New York,” Mr. Barnett says. “So that’s a 14th Amendment case.”

In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the high court found that the Constitution protects “individual” gun rights. “That was truly a Second Amendment case,” Mr. Barnett says, “because it was about the federal government and D.C., a federal entity. But the ruling, by itself, didn’t protect the right to keep and bear arms from any of the 50 states in the union.” That protection arrived in McDonald v. Chicago (2010), which held that the Second Amendment is enforceable against states through the 14th Amendment. (Heller and McDonald, unlike Bruen, involved the right to “keep” firearms in the home.)

Mr. Barnett says the historical evidence is overwhelming that Second Amendment rights belong to individuals. “But if there’s any doubt about that, raised by the existence of the Militia Clause of the Second Amendment, there’s no doubt whatsoever that the 14th Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause was aimed at the protection of the individual right—in this case the individual rights of the freed blacks to keep and carry their own weapons.”

Messrs. Barnett and Bernick make their case in a new book, “The Original Meaning of the 14th Amendment.” They are both law professors, and both describe themselves as libertarians, though their politics differ. Mr. Barnett has long been associated with the conservative legal movement and was a leading theorist behind the 2012 challenge to ObamaCare. Mr. Bernick is a self-professed “libertarian of the left” who in 2015 testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights argued for the abolition of qualified immunity for police officers.

Mr. Barnett, 69, is a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown. Mr. Bernick, 35, teaches at the Northern Illinois University College of Law. They met at a 2016 academic conference, where they bonded over the 14th Amendment. Mr. Barnett asked the “very astute” young scholar if he’d like to collaborate on a book. Mr. Bernick readily agreed.

In addition to their libertarian inclinations, the two share a commitment to the constitutional philosophy of originalism, which Mr. Barnett defines as the belief that “the meaning of the Constitution should remain the same until it’s properly changed by amendment.” Mr. Bernick adds: “Randy and I are trying to correct what is a longstanding originalist narrative about the limited force of the 14th Amendment.” They argue instead that it was meant to be sweeping, and that even today the court’s interpretation of it is in some ways too cramped.

The justices’ misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, Messrs. Barnett and Bernick say, began only five years after its ratification and involved three key 19th-century decisions. The Slaughter-House Cases (1873) upheld a Louisiana monopoly that regulated butchers. The justices found that the Privileges or Immunities Clause required states to respect only the rights associated with federal citizenship, not state citizenship. In dissent, Justice Stephen Field wrote that his colleagues had made of the clause “a vain and idle enactment.”

Mr. Barnett says the majority feared the “terrible consequences” of an amendment that would “greatly disrupt the pre-existing arrangement between the states and the federal government.” The majority “really wanted to restore the federalism that they were more familiar with before the Civil War.”

Then, in U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876), the court held that the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply against the states. The justices overturned a white man’s conviction on federal charges of violating the civil rights of black protesters by participating in a Colfax, La., massacre in which scores of them were murdered.

In the Civil Rights Cases (1883), the high court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which barred racial discrimination in public accommodations. The justices said Congress had exceeded its authority under Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, which gives it “the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions” of the amendment.

Messrs. Barnett and Bernick believe the Supreme Court has never given the 14th Amendment its full effect or allowed Congress to exercise all of its delegated constitutional power to enforce it. The justices upheld the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S., decided barely five months after the bill became law, and they have effectively overturned Cruikshank through a series of incorporation cases.

But the Privileges or Immunities Clause is still moribund. In McDonald, Justice Clarence Thomas argued for overturning Slaughter-House and incorporating the Second Amendment via the Privileges or Immunities Clause rather than the Due Process Clause. But no other justice joined his opinion. Had the other conservatives on the court shared Justice Thomas’s approach, Mr. Barnett says, “our book would probably not need to be written. Our book, in some senses, is for the four justices who didn’t want to join with Justice Thomas.”

The 14th Amendment “gave Congress and the Supreme Court the power,” Mr. Bernick says, “to protect individual citizens and persons from having their fundamental rights violated by their own state governments.” This ran counter to the Constitution’s original federalist structure, under which, as Mr. Barnett puts it, states were “on their own” when it came to protecting the rights of their citizens.

“That had to be the case,” he says, “because otherwise slavery would have been unconstitutional under the original Constitution. The most egregious violation of rights that you can imagine is chattel slavery—and chattel slavery was consistent with the federalism originally established by the Constitution.” (Slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865.

The 14th Amendment also undid a basic political premise of the 1787 Constitution. The Framers believed, in Mr. Bernick’s words, that “the primary systematic threats to liberty were going to come from the federal rather than the state level.” Local threats to liberty, they thought, could be countered by vigorous political action. “The entire project of Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875, as well as the Reconstruction’s constitutional amendments”—the 13th, 14th and 15th, which protects voting rights—“rested upon the belief that that older vision of federalism was inadequate to the needs of protecting liberty.”

The most significant misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, as Messrs. Barnett and Bernick see it, is the judicial disregarding of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Judges see it as an impenetrable “inkblot” (to borrow a metaphor Robert Bork used in a different constitutional context), the recognition of which would serve as a license to judges to invent new rights. In its original conception, Mr. Barnett says, the Privileges or Immunities Clause “protects rights that are fundamental to what we call ‘republican citizenship’—citizenship that’s grounded in natural rights and civil equality.”

Those include rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which extended citizenship to all persons born in the U.S. “without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.” They also include rights that are deeply rooted in tradition and history, as evidenced by the laws of the states.

Some of these rights are listed in the text of the Constitution, such as the freedom of speech. “Others are not,” Mr. Barnett says, “like the right of parents to raise their own children.” The key question is what the privileges of citizenship are, not what they ought to be.

Mr. Barnett says the Privileges or Immunities Clause is unpopular across ideological lines. “Conservatives don’t care for the clause,” he says, “because they think it’s going to open up the protection of unenumerated rights, some of which, let’s just say, they don’t really want to see protected.” Liberals think the clause is “going to legitimate the protection of certain rights, like economic liberty rights, that they don’t want to see protected.”

Yet the court since the mid-20th century has read the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses expansively, and the professors agree it would be impossible to imagine modern American law without it. “It’s difficult to think of a seminal Supreme Court case that does not have to do with the 14th,” Mr. Bernick says.

He names Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which held segregated schools unconstitutional; Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), which guaranteed the right to legal counsel for criminal defendants; Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which established a “right to privacy” and accorded married couples the right to obtain contraception; Roe v. Wade (1973), which extended that right to include abortion; and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which found that same-sex couples have the “fundamental” right to marry.

The last two are still controversial; most legal conservatives think they were wrongly decided. “I don’t think those are originalist decisions,” the liberal Mr. Bernick says. “They make claims about the meaning of the 14th Amendment, and Roe in particular has a long discussion of the history of abortion law, but neither of them is an example of public-meaning originalism in practice. So they’re not entitled to any presumption of correctness that might attach to a good-faith, reasonable effort to determine public meaning.”

Which brings us to another pending case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. On Dec. 1, the state of Mississippi will ask the high court to uphold a law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, in what Mr. Bernick calls “a frontal challenge to Casey v. Planned Parenthood and the rule that effectively prohibits restrictions on abortion prior to the point of viability.” (Casey is the 1992 decision that upheld what a three-justice plurality called Roe’s “central holding.”)

The legal arguments on both sides of the abortion issue are ultimately about the 14th Amendment, Mr. Bernick says. “Is the right to terminate a pregnancy among the privileges or immunities of citizenship? Are unborn fetuses constitutional people?” The answers “turn on the original meaning of ‘persons’ and ‘citizens’ in the 14th Amendment.”

Mr. Varadarajan, a Journal contributor, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at New York University Law School’s Classical Liberal Institute.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Rest of this memo devoted to random postings and personal thoughts:

This comprehensive and brilliant op ed sent by a dear friend and fellow memo reader. 

A MUSTREAD!

Treachery

A Commentary by Lloyd Thompson

If you scan the pages of American history or the pages of your mind, you’ll not find a more incompetent, mendacious or dangerous Administration than that fronted by Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. It is painfully obvious  this Mortimer Snerd-like president is controlled by the extreme Left of the Democrat Party; a party driven by a variety of anti-American doctrines aimed at destroying this Republic. At every level of this sorry executive branch one cannot find competence let alone loyalty to the oaths each lackey swore to uphold. 

The White House, the nerve center, is “led” by a man visibly in mental decline. His spouse should be ashamed for condoning this adult abuse. Possibly this charade is an attempt to gain sympathy for Biden and thus reverse his plummeting approval.  As ruthlessly conniving as they may be, it’s not working.  While the likes of Anita Dunn, Susan Rice, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, fibber Psaki and others put words in his mouth, ‘Ol Joe delivers them with the eloquence and glassy-eyed stare of a marionette.  What is remarkable is that the babble he utters is the babble he’s given. Apparently, his interlocutors aren’t very bright either. 

This same thespianism contaminates the leadership of the entire government.Witness the recent performances of our esteemed Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Both would make Benedict Arnold blush.  The testimony last week by the Attorney General of the United States, the chief law enforcement official in this government, rivaled that of mobster Frank Costello several decades ago, but only in his denials. (Garland was nervous and defensive. Mr. Costello was cool and confident.) And then we come to the Secretary of Transportation; his comments on the supply chain crisis, after a two-month paternity leave, strongly suggest he return to playing with his toy trucks. 

All the while, the “Woke” Leftists are pushing their transformational agenda of rule and control. First, control free speech through censorship, then rid the military of conservatives, indoctrinate children to hate their country, denigrate religion, use mandates as weapons, open our borders and overwhelm rightful authority, deride police, allow criminals to ply their trade unscathed, and criminalize parents for challenging Marxist school curricula.  On the global scene, this corrupt crowd cozies up to Beijing, the Kremlin and Baghdad.  Blinken’s representative even praised the Taliban as candid and professional so as to ensure their help after our shocking, cowardly and criminal exit from Afghanistan.  An unholy alliance as ever was.  Who cares if young American military members were murdered and thousands of our citizens and allies were left behind, or that our national honor was tarnished?  Not this amoral, cover-your-ass, pass-the-blame crowd!  That’s the script.

Has this tragedy played long enough to awaken the American spirit? Is the curtain coming down on extremism?  Let’s hope so. The positive signs are there and the “School Board Moms” may be the vanguard. Note, over 20 percent of Biden voters have serious voter remorse; some 16,000,000 citizens.  Legions of Independent voters are turning their backs on Biden and his gang, as are minority voters.  Nationwide the Republicans are fielding some very strong candidates for the House and Senate, and Democrats in both houses are retiring in large numbers…a crisis for the Left.

So, don’t let this crisis go to waste.  Use every waking moment you can spare to support a candidate who is committed to returning America to a place we recognize.  We are witnessing why elections matter, and why we cannot allow politicians driven by subversion to hold office, whether local, county, state or federal.

America is an exceptional place, and no place for treachery.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Man is fascinating:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In 2008 I was a member of St John's College Board and Advisor's and threw a birthday party for myself and some friends. I chose the topic for discussion to be : "What It means To Be A Good and Participating ."

Citizen."

Some 13 years later, Professor Victor Hanson has designed a course around this same theme:

In Hillsdale's free online course, “American Citizenship and Its Decline,” historian Victor Davis Hanson reveals how citizenship—and the principles of freedom, equality, and consent—is under attack by global elites and their decades-long effort to transform America’s institutions.   You can watch an exclusive video of Dr. Hanson and pre-register for the new course at this secure link:    https://lp.hillsdale.edu/citizenship-course-pre-registration/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  First the soccer mom's have begun to rebel and slowly the tide may be turning as Lloyd Thompson's plea is beginning to awaken a response to the elite woke crowd. I pray the beauty of free speech will begin to resonate. It is our only hope but could prove too late. Prosecuting Attorneys In San Francisco Quit Jobs To Join With Effort To Recall Socialist District Attorney When Chesa Boudin, a former worker for Venezuelan socialist dictator Hugo Chavez... Read More ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I do not see this as a prelude test to a potential attack on Iran but it could be:

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/middle-east/syria/syria-rare-daytime-israeli-strike-hits-targets-in-damascus-region/2021/10/30/

Syria: Rare Daytime Israeli Strike Hits Targets in Damascus Region

25 Heshvan 5782 

And:
Nor do I believe this is the beginning of a cold war between America and Israel. That began the day Biden was elected because he is nothing but a Catholic Obama and his Party has become increasingly radicalized and dictated to by a growing number of anti-Semites, many parading as Trump Haters..

https://www.jns.org/opinion/is-this-the-beginning-of-a-new-cold-war-between-biden-and-israel/?utm_source=The+Daily+Syndicate&utm_campaign=f66a64eb60-Daily+Syndicate+10-24-21+%28new%29_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8583953730-f66a64eb60-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&ct=t%28Daily+Syndicate+10-24-21+%28new%29_COPY_01%29

Is this the beginning of a new Cold War between Biden and Israel?

The administration’s harsh criticisms, combined with renewed appeasement of Iran, bode ill for the alliance. How serious is the president about demanding that Israel bow to his demands?

By Jonathan S. Tobin

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A fascinating issue to which you may never have given much thought.

Were I arguing the case, I would  squeeze the issue before the court based on the right to pursue happiness.  How can you be happy if you live in a nation where ignorance of governance is rife because it is not required and yet you are required to obtain an education.  Obviously the purpose of an education is to enhance one's quality of life.

BREAKING NEWS: Democrat State TARGETED By Students - Shocking Resistance Reported This is only the beginning >>

Who’s Responsible For What Your Kids Are Taught in School?

 Don Purdum, Independent Political Analyst

(RightWing.org) – For centuries, Americans viewed education as the means to escape poverty and acquire wealth. Society expects that children attend school from kindergarten through 12th grade and earn a high school diploma. However, America is getting schooled on what state governments can force children to learn in recent months.

In Rhode Island, an issue crept up recently that made its way to federal court. A group of young people sued to ask a federal court to recognize that all students have a Constitutional right to civics education. They argued a lack of teaching on the Constitution and how government works led to the horrific January 6 riot on Capitol Hill. They appealed to a higher court when a lower court praised the students but threw the suit out. Shockingly, state officials argued that the court should dismiss the lawsuit because the state didn’t need to teach civics. They also stated that there is no Constitutional guarantee to an education.

Is There a Constitutional Guarantee to an Education?

The short answer is no, there is no Constitutional guarantee of public education. Don’t tell that to public school districts, teachers, and their teacher unions. They want you to believe there is a guarantee to a public education. In 1787, the framers did not include education as a right. According to the 10th Amendment, anything not explicitly given to the federal government belongs to the states. While some states may guarantee an education, others don’t.

The students make a good case that civics is a vital subject to the success of America’s future. Those unaware of civics often don’t participate in government through voting and public service because they are uncertain of the process. The students argued that people don’t know how to exercise their constitutional rights appropriately and can’t defend against misinformation if they are unaware of how the government works. They argued that the January 6 riot occurred because too many people were unaware of the congressional role in counting electoral college votes and certifying the election according to the US Constitution.

Whether or not they are right isn’t the question. The question is, can federal courts force schools to teach civics?

As long as parents disengage from their children’s education, others will decide what they learn. It’s that simple. Teacher unions are vital Democratic constituents, and they have a lot of say about the curriculum being taught. They don’t trump school boards, but they have a considerable say in what teachers teach our children. Just look at the fight over COVID-19 for much of the past year, or Critical Race Theory across the country happening right now.

Why Are We Sending Kids to Public Schools If the Constitution Does Not Require It?

So, why are we sending our kids to school, and why are there legal consequences if we don’t? In the 19th century, literacy rates were almost non-existent, and child labor practices were abhorrent. State laws were put in place to solve both problems. Among them were compulsory laws that required children from 6 until 16 to attend school, with homeschooling as a notable exception.

The first law appeared in Massachusetts in 1852. It required every municipality to offer primary schools that focused on grammar and basic math. If parents refused, they faced fines and, sometimes, officials stripped them of their parental rights. In 1917, Mississippi was the last state to enact compulsory education laws.

So, the question is, if by law one must attend school, what are schools required to teach? That could be a tricky legal question for the federal courts. Education is not a purview of federal jurisdiction according to the Constitution. What one state requires may be different from another.

While students may not need civics as much as reading and math, it’s ultimately up to the states to decide the matter. The federal judge hearing the Rhode Island case praised the students for taking action. Unfortunately, he said there wasn’t much he could do and dismissed the case. Will the appeals court feel differently? Probably not, but that shouldn’t stop them from trying.

Ultimately, parents must demand the school boards require civics instruction. When parents put enough pressure on their local elected officials, they have the power to enact swift changes. The best way for students to learn civics is for parents to engage their elected officials.

Is there a better place to learn civics than the local level?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To date I have received several thumbs up for my new memo format.  I owe it to my computer guru who, in helping me resolve the video issue and  also came upon this format.

I hope it is more readable.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

Finally a few personal thoughts:

I happened to catch an interview by JUDGE  Jeanine Pirro of Trump

 

tonight and I was finally able to answer something that

  

I have never been able to articulate but have always 

understood. Trump is a complex person and is many

things.  

Most of all, he is a billionaire, hands on real estate 

developer, who is most comfortable around the blue

collared working man. Much of his persona has been

shaped by his association, even his language.

I believe this explains why his presidential manner in 

The Oval Office was brusque and less presidential.

I do not offer this as an explanation to let him off the 

hook for his boorishness. Just trying to understand

why he may be the man he is.  Just one more piece

of the Trump Puzzle.

+++

If one is prone to conspiratorial thinking, it is possible

someone, who wanted to get back at Baldwin for his

despicable Trump hatred, purposely slipped live

ammunition in the gun Baldwin used to kill the

cinematographer.

+++

The mere fact that members of The Biden 

Administration are even contemplating rewarding

illegal immigrants with a munificent jack pot for

overwhelming our system is an affront to every 

American citizen. 

This is another reason to throw the rascals out of 

office and there are plenty others.

Politicians are trustees and were they not shielded

they would be guilty of mishandling that which has 

been entrusted to them, ie. "OPM."

Furthermore, this is why Americans have such a low

esteem for their pubic servants and why the article on 

a civic education is so critical.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Soros and San Fran. Don't Believe Budget Figures. Biden Lays Another Up For Putin. Indigenous Apache Red. Dirty Tricks. More

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

We are leaving for Halloween with the Maitland grandkids. It has become a scared ritual and they and their parents go to great length to adorn themselves in amazing costuming. Even the family pooches are commanded to participate. 

Lynn has responded by acquiring items from Walmart. Following the evening festivities, the next day Dagny is in a school play, We are returning very late on Wednesday. There will be no memo's written over the next few days but those already written have been pre-scheduled to be sent.

One day, after I die, there will probably be a similar situation so do not believe I have been resurrected nor that I walk on water. 

I have many amazing attributes but I have not perfected life after death.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

JUST IN: George Soros Joins NASTY Scheme By Democrats
He's totally behind it >>

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Believe nothing you are told when it comes to budget projections. More importantly, do you truly believe all these new proposed programs will end? If you do you are the problem. Whatever you are told is in the billions is simply a prelude to them eventually costing trillions down that bumpy road.

A Jerry-Rigged Budget ‘Framework’ The $1.75 trillion cost is phony, but the social and fiscal damage are real. By The Editorial Board Nothing like an artificial political deadline to concentrate the warring liberal minds. Before departing Thursday for next week’s climate gabfest, President Biden declared he has sealed an agreement with Democrats in Congress on a “framework” for a spending bill that he declares will make a “fundamental change in America.” He’s right about that last bit, but the blueprint the White House released is more frame than work. The jerry-rigged plan is an enormous expansion of government with quarter-baked entitlement programs that will retard work and $1.85 trillion in tax increases that will distort and limit investment. The $1.75 trillion cost that Democrats have assigned their bill is an illusion. They use phony accounting to finance a few years of new spending with 10 years of tax increases. For example, the plan extends the $3,600 child tax credit for one year at a cost of $110 billion. But Democrats will inevitably extend the credit next year. If Republicans oppose this or try to scale the credit back, they will be attacked for raising taxes on middle-class families. The true 10-year cost is about $1.1 trillion. The agreement drops the House’s proposed Medicare vision and dental expansion. But it preserves a new hearing benefit, which the White House claims will cost a mere $34 billion and start in 2024. The annual cost of the hearing benefit once fully phased-in is some $16 billion. Congress will invariably make it permanent. True cost: $160 billion. Democrats also plan to extend ObamaCare subsidies through 2025 for higher earners and broaden them to low-income folks in states that rejected the Medicaid expansion. The White House says this will cost $130 billion, but the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that providing coverage to these folks would cost north of $500 billion over a decade. These programs are merely illustrative of how Democrats are desperately trying to squeeze a menagerie of spending into their negotiated $1.75 trillion top-line cost, with the real cost likely to be closer to $4 trillion. At the same time Democrats are inflating the revenue estimates to pay for it. They claim $145 billion in phantom savings from repealing a controversial Trump Medicare drug rebate rule that was unlikely to take effect. They also claim $400 billion in revenues from $80 billion in IRS “investments”—a 66% budget increase—including to hire more auditors to harass taxpayers. CBO has estimated this would only yield $200 billion in revenue for a net $120 billion. The $1.85 trillion in tax increases include a 15% minimum tax on book income of large corporations, which will become Swiss cheese after Democrats add carve-outs for progressive interests. Corporations will also be taxed 1% on stock buybacks (which is another way of taxing shareholder dividends). Instead of buying back their shares, companies may hold more earnings in cash or channel them into unproductive investments. Despite its anti-corporate advertising, the bill represents the biggest expansion of corporate welfare in history. Much of the $555 billion for climate spending will go to businesses for investing in renewables, nuclear, hydrogen, carbon capture, electric vehicles, batteries and transmission lines. This is on top of tens of billions in green-energy handouts in the Senate infrastructure bill. And don’t believe Mr. Biden’s malarkey that taxes won’t go up for non-millionaires. Small business owners will get slammed by a 3.8% Medicare surcharge on active-investment income. A 5% surtax on income over $10 million and 8% above $25 million will hit the ephemeral rich who experience a windfall, say, after cashing in stock compensation after decades of work. These surtaxes will raise the top marginal personal income tax rate to 45% or so and around 60% in New York and California, which would be higher than in European welfare states. The top rate in the U.K. is 45%, Italy 47.2%, Germany 47.5% and France is 55.4%. Congrats, Mr. President, you’ve won the tax race to the top. The best we can say about this exercise is that it could have been worse. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin managed to purge drug price controls, some tax-rate increases, and a renewable energy enforcement measure. Those excisions have progressives upset, and there’s still a chance all of this collapses when the fine print arrives. It would be far better for the country if it does. +++   Meanwhile: Another Biden "lay up" gift to our dear friend. More Russian Energy Bullying Putin presses home his advantage as Western Europe flails. By The Editorial Board Vladimir Putin can smell weakness like a wolf, and these days he’s preying on Europe’s energy emergency to increase his influence at the European Union’s periphery. Consider Moscow’s pressure on Moldova. The small country’s gas contract with Russia’s state-owned Gazprom expired in September. Moscow, which had provided 100% of the country’s gas, promptly cut supplies by a third. Gazprom then asked for a major price hike to keep the gas coming, and Moldova eventually declared a state of emergency. Mr. Putin says the idea of Russia weaponizing the European energy crisis is “complete rubbish.” Yet the Financial Timesreports that in exchange for cheaper gas, “Gazprom has proposed that Moldova adjust its free trade deal with the EU and delay energy market reforms agreed with Brussels.” Moscow wants to keep its monopoly on gas while coercing Moldova to sign up for its Eurasian Economic Union. Brussels is providing a €60 million grant to the country, which shares a border with Ukraine and EU member state Romania. Polish state-controlled PGNiG delivered an experimental one million cubic meters of gas this week, and Romania also could become a bigger player. But it’s unclear whether European suppliers can get Moldova through the winter. Europe should retaliate against this Russian bullying, but the Continent is consumed by its own energy problems. Germany has spent years pushing for deeper European dependence on Russian gas through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a project President Biden conceded to. Reducing nuclear power as European economies invest heavily in unreliable solar and wind projects has made the problem worse. Much of the former Soviet Union is turning toward the West, but Western Europe’s strategic incompetence, with White House assistance, is making that harder. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

While I am on my soap box, I was listening to Treasury Secretary Yellen today and she was speaking about the proposed tax program and she kept using the phrase "fair share." No one has ever properly defined what "fair share" means because it is squishy, subjective, in the eye oft he beholder and D.C nonsense. It has become part of the political lexicon that allows liberals to get away with their form of murder while committing it under a rug of seeming munificence. Second, it appears the world is prepared to allow China to escape, not even with a wrist slap, for launching Covid,  then keeping the facts to themselves and not allowing any investigation.  What a message of utter fecklessness this sends to a nation led by vultures. Third, unlike Trump, there seems to be no one in the Biden Administration that has a background in business. All key personnel and advisors are political types and you are witnessing the results. Fourth, Corporate America has proven it is run by a bunch of overpaid, over indulged wimps. The latest case is AT&T.  Today it was revealed senior management has urged Ma Bell's white employees  to read about America the systematic race hating nation. Were I still working, I would be losing one job after the other and in the case of AT&T, I would have been fired for sexual misconduct as I would have told Ma Bell to go screw herself. In fact, I have become a seething  racist and have turned an indigenous color - Apache Red! Fifth, Biden has proven his governance approach is to become a mandating dictator.  I remember this was the charge against and warning about Trump. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Throw in the water wings: Biden's Approval Rating Drops in Yet Another Poll, As He's Really Underwater in Particularly Relevant Issues  Rebecca Downs ++++ Strange, how does a Country with more oil than Saudi Arabia have an energy crisis!   Ask Biden, he knows. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ In a memo I posted October 30, I stated Democrats will do anything to win and now we apparently have evidence of McAuliffe's staff goons engaged in dirty tricks. Democrats are basically sick and untrustworthy and McAuliffe is desperate.  They engage in puerile politics but are still dangerous. Republicans are too patrician and lack aggressiveness to engage in such shenanigans. They often do not even know what they are up against when they campaign. I am reminded the Democrats impeached Trump for illegally  listening in on his conversation  with the prime minister of Ukraine when Trump inquired about the degree to which Ukraine was engaged in questionable activities with Biden's son, Hunter. Meanwhile, nothing happened when Biden bragged, on open TV, how he got the Ukrainian  investigator of his son fired. https://www.westernjournal.com/fake-news-white-supremacists-viral-pic-front-youngkin-bus-actually-dem-staffers/?utm_source=conservativenewsapp&utm_medium=westernjournalism&utm_campaign=newsleap&utm_content=2021-10-29 Fake News: 'White Supremacists' in Viral Pic in Front of Youngkin Bus Are Actually Dem Staffers By Grant Atkinson Commentary  By Grant Atkinson   On Friday morning, supposed “white supremacists” clad in white button-down shirts greeted Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin’s bus with tiki torches. Leftists immediately claimed they were Youngkin supporters showing their true colors. “To my fellow Virginia residents: please vote against this blatant display of racism, hatred and intolerance,” NBC News legal analyst Glenn Kirschner wrote in a since-deleted tweet. “Please vote FOR a kind, welcoming, diverse Virginia. Please vote @TerryMcAuliffe for governor. Because #JusticeMatters.” deleted, but the List comes for all, @glennkirschner2. But as the morning went on, other Twitter users began to notice the “white supremacists” were not Youngkin supporters at all. Instead, they appeared to be former Democratic staffers in the state of Virginia. Virginia Young Democrats financial director Camden Layton and Democratic Party of Virginia staffer Colleen Wachenfeld were among the alleged participants in the stunt. OMG LOL Va Dems did *not* just send a black man to play a ‘white supremacist for Youngkin’  pic.twitter.com/h0SZujvKX1 — Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) October 29, 2021  I am now confident that we have identified the woman in this group of political actors as Colleen Wachenfeld, with @vademocrats. pic.twitter.com/qySknRSUrd — Alec Sears (@alec_sears) October 29, 2021 BREAKING: Financial director for Young VA Dems has gone private after being exposed for posing as a white supremacist pic.twitter.com/fbCbafIiZf ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  Boskin schools Biden in the no cost theory of spending: The True Costs of Government Spending By Michael J. Boskin via Project Syndicate Michael Boskin writes that there are fundamental flaws in President Biden’s argument that his infrastructure proposal will cost the US economy zero dollars. One, the cost of government spending is the value of foregone opportunities resulting from shifting resources from the private sector to the government; two, new taxes on corporations to pay those costs will crowd out private consumption and investment; and three, incentives that ignore market forces cause inefficiencies and enormous damage to the economy. Boskin adds that a proposed tax hike on capital income would harm future economic growth and create larger obstacles for people who want to build their wealth and reduce their dependency on the government. And: My favorite politicians advises Biden: And more: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++