Month: March 2019

At what point does support for a student movement constitute indoctrination? Parents in Portland say the public schools there crossed the line during last year’s Parkland-inspired walkouts.

According to KATU-TV, Portland Public Schools is being sued by four parents who say that the schools used taxpayer resources to assist anti-gun students who took part in protests last year.

“It’s wrong for the schools to essentially hijack public resources to push one side of a controversial issue and to misuse children as puppets in their exercise,” James Buchal, the parents’ lawyer and the chair of the Multnomah County Republican Party, said.

According to KATU, Buchal also said that Portland Public Schools “used district resources to coordinate with outside activists, helped plan political activity, including walkouts, and claims the schools ‘indoctrinated’ students in the classroom.”

“It’s a giant scheme of manipulation and it’s not what people want their education dollars spent on,” he said.

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“We think this lawsuit is baseless,” Harry Esteve, spokesman for Portland Public Schools, said. “There’s just no base for what he’s claiming. And the disappointing part about that is that we still have to spend a lot of time and district resources on it.”

However, Portland Public Schools openly supported the March 14, 2018, protest.

“The District’s position is that these are not protests, but organized school activities,” they said in a statement, according to Willamette Week.

“These are efforts to anticipate and safely manage the students who wish to show solidarity with students in Florida. The communications do not say that these are statements against gun violence. These are seen as teachable moments for 17 minutes during the school day, with an opportunity for discussion afterward.”

“In our role as union educators, we cannot legally encourage students to leave campus without permission,” a 2018 statement from the Portland Association of Teachers read.

“However, in preparing for March 14th, I am sure many of you are already planning to incorporate lessons from U.S. history that illustrate the power of civil disobedience and direct action — especially by young people — in creating lasting social change.”

Buchal’s lawsuit makes two claims.

The first is that the First Amendment rights of parents were violated by using tax dollars and resources in support of the protests without parental knowledge. The second is that “intimidation within the Portland schools also unconstitutionally interferes with the free speech rights of students.”

The lawsuit also claims that “those few students who express unpopular beliefs on gun control and other controversial issues — and even those who remain silent — have been subjected to severe bullying, intimidation and ostracism.”

The schools insist that 16,000 pages of documents they’ve turned over to Buchal show that they didn’t stifle the opinions of any students.

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“What those documents demonstrate is the intentional and thoughtful planning that went into ensuring student safety and continued learning while also providing opportunities for students to express their views on a critical social issue and respecting their First Amendment rights,” Portland Public Schools told Willamette Week.

Their statement at the time — combined with the statement from the Portland Association of Teachers — certainly isn’t going to help, however.

Let’s face facts here: Phrases such as “teachable moments” and “lasting social change” usually aren’t thrown into the discussion about a fair, even-handed dialogue where the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms and the demonstrable positive effects of gun ownership on society are respected.

Instead, the statements sound like a prelude to a David Hogg-o-rama in which the debate could be summed up as, “Gun control: good idea or great idea?”

This isn’t what public schools are for, even in progressive utopias like Portlandia. The fact that this has ended in litigation is a clear sign that not every parent was on board with the Gun-Grab Express, even if one guesses the majority were.

Our public schools aren’t designed to take stances on political issues. Without knowing what went on in the classroom, one look at the statements from both the school district and the teacher’s union certainly makes it look like a taxpayer-funded institution was doing just that.

It’s worth noting that there was another walkout scheduled for this week, one regarding climate change. Like the Parkland walkouts, it was part of a larger movement. This time, Portland Public Schools says students participating would receive an unexcused absence.

It’s interesting to note how much the school’s tone has changed in a year, particularly as litigation looms.

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Is there something in the water in New York City? Or maybe it’s the kombucha? Whatever it is, it seems to be turning the city’s Democrats into minor-key Marxists.

Of course there’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a former member of the Democratic Socialists of America who doesn’t shirk the S-word. And then there’s Bill de Blasio, the city’s mayor. While he presides over one of the Western Hemisphere’s great centers of capitalism, he doesn’t seem to be particularly enamored of the system itself.

Nowhere was that contradiction more evident than during a Friday appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where the Democrat declined to endorse capitalism and instead called himself a “social Democrat” and “New Deal Democrat.”

In the exchange, de Blasio was pressured by Republican strategist Susan Del Percio to say, once and for all, that he “believe(d) in the capitalist system.”

“I believe in — I’m a social Democrat,” de Blasio said. “I believe that we’re living in a capitalist system that has strengths and weaknesses and we have to address it with a strong role of government. And right now, that’s not happening sufficiently.

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“Here’s the bottom line: We look at a country where the federal government has substantially, consistently put wealth in the hands of the 1 percent,” he continued.

“That’s why I say very clearly — we have an opportunity to, this year, out loud say our national government, from Ronald Reagan to present, has continued to empower the 1 percent through the policies of the federal government. Working people have created all that wealth in this country, they have not benefited.

“So I say there is plenty of money in this world, and there’s plenty of money in this country, but it’s in the wrong hands. And we have to have policies that give people a chance again by redistributing some of that money back to working people.”

“So do you consider yourself a capitalist?” Del Percio asked.

“I consider myself a social Democrat,” de Blasio responded. He said that while “we are living in a capitalist society,” he “philosophically identifies” with the social Democrat label. He would also refer to himself as a “New Deal Democrat,” although he sounded a bit more like Huey Long to this viewer.

Oh, and he also said during his appearance that he could have worked things out with Amazon so that it would build its second headquarters in New York City. I mean, he may not be willing to say he’s a capitalist, but he certainly knows where his bread doth be buttered.

Nevertheless, words like these have a tendency to become actions, and de Blasio remains a rising star among the Democrats. At least at the moment, as the mayor of New York City, he doesn’t exactly have the capacity to redistribute much wealth to what he would consider the “right hands.”

However, what you saw on “Morning Joe” is what you’re seeing from more and more Democrats. They believe that the capitalist system — which has given most Americans a quality of life few on earth could have dreamed of even half a century ago — is inherently flawed because some people have a lot of money and that money could be in someone else’s hands.

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Notice, too, that he believes “working people have created all that wealth in this country,” as if entrepreneurs who took risks and created jobs just sat back and let the money flow into their bank accounts. I’m curious what the wealthier denizens of his city, many of whom fall into this category, have to say about this.

You would think, given the implications of this exchange and the fact that he didn’t come off so well, that the mayor would be trying to play it down. If the Twitter account of his communications director is any indication, however, that’s not the case:

hell yeah https://t.co/JJjkrh9l3k

— mike casca (@cascamike) March 15, 2019

Kinda-sorta-socialism: Hell yeah.

Can we please get some sort of check on that water in New York City? Ocasio-Cortez was bad enough, but now we even have the mayor sounding like her.

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Please don’t get me wrong. I like kittens. Cats, well, maybe not so much; I don’t see why you would keep and feed something that won’t even come when you call it and whose only trick is the ability to go to the bathroom in a pile of sand.

But kittens, they’re adorable. I think we can all agree on that.

I think we can also agree on the fact that kittens are less important than babies. No matter how cute the kitten, no matter how meme-worthy it is, human babies take precedence.

So, why is it that Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon introduced a bill that would save the lives of kittens used in research less than a month after helping Democrats successfully block legislation that would protect babies born alive during abortions?

According to NBC News, Merkley’s law was designed “to prevent the Department of Agriculture from continuing deadly experiments on kittens.”

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“The agency has been breeding kittens in Beltsville, Maryland, and infecting them with a parasite that can cause toxoplasmosis, a foodborne illness. Scientists harvest the parasites from their stool for two to three weeks, and then euthanize and incinerate the cats,” they reported.

“The USDA’s decision to slaughter kittens after they are used in research is an archaic practice and horrific treatment, and we need to end it,” Merkley said in a statement.

There were plenty of great soundbites from advocates of the bill, including one individual from a watchdog group who called it “taxpayer-funded kitten slaughter.” (If there’s some sort of award for political blurb of the year, I would urge the judges to please consider that one seriously.)

“The USDA’s archaic kitten experiments are out of step with 21st-century research practices and animal welfare recommendations,” Hannah Shaw, founder of animal advocacy group Kitten Lady, said.

“Continuing to breed and kill perfectly healthy kittens for toxoplasmosis research is unethical and unnecessary, and I’m grateful to Senator Merkley for introducing the KITTEN Act to stop it once and for all.”

When it comes to animal welfare, however, Merkley is a bit less concerned about Homo sapiens.

The Oregon senator, as TheBlaze noted, was just one of the Democrats who blocked the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. The bill would have extended protections for babies born alive during an abortion procedure, something that’s increasingly important now that we’ve seen states such as New York and Vermont pass bills which allows greater latitude when it comes to late-term abortions. (Oh, and there was that whole Ralph Northam kerfuffle we’ve all seemingly forgot about, too.)

In a statement, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins discussed the cruel paradox in Merkley’s votes.

“What do cats have that newborn babies don’t? Democrats’ support,” he wrote.

“In one of the sickest ironies no one is talking about, Senate liberals picked this moment — 17 days after they voted to kill America’s perfectly healthy infants — to fight for the humane treatment of kittens. Maybe the DNC’s strategists are out to lunch, or maybe the Left really is this shameless, but I can’t wait to see some of these politicians standing on debate platforms next year telling the American people that when it comes to protecting living things: We chose cats over kids.”

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“‘The KITTEN Act will protect these innocent animals from being needlessly euthanized in government testing,’ Merkley told reporters, ‘and make sure that they can be adopted by loving families instead.’ Does he even hear himself? They should be treated and adopted? That’s exactly what Americans have requested for living, breathing babies. Democrats said no. Killing a child is a ‘personal decision,’ they said, and Congress shouldn’t get in the way.”

But then, the Democrats have decided to plant their flag upon abortion rights: Any sort of restriction upon the ability of a woman to get an abortion on demand and for the baby to be killed — no matter what — is automatically an interference in a decision that should only be made by a woman and her doctor.

Felines, however, are another story. They need protection. So goes the modern, tone-deaf Democrat Party, unwilling to protect babies born alive during an abortion but ready to expend political capital upon kittens.

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