Category: US Politics

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School District Apologizes for Trump Banner at High School Football Game

School District Apologizes for Trump Banner at High School Football Game

AP

by Tom Ciccotta28 Sep 20170

28 Sep, 2017
28 Sep, 2017

The superintendent of Brooke County School District in West Virginia has apologized for a Trump banner that was displayed at a recent high school football game.

Brooke High School in West Virginia has come under fire after a banner with President Trump’s name was displayed during a recent football game. Their opponent, Pittsburgh Perry High School, a predominantly black school, claims that the sign was intended to intimidate and offend.

“My mostly Black, inner-city school played this team last night & were confronted w/this. Sickening racism,” Perry High School librarian Sheila May-Stein tweeted over the weekend.

Despite the concerns from the Perry High School community, Brooke High School explained that the student section had planned in advance to display patriotic colors and messages for that week’s game.

In a letter, Brooke County School’s Superintendent, Toni Schute, apologized for the decision to display Trump’s name. “On behalf of the Brooke County School System, I apologize for the insensitive, intimidating, and offensive Sign posted in our student section at Friday night’s game,” she wrote. “The sign’s message does not reflect our true beliefs nor what we want to teach our children.”

Pittsburgh Perry High School parent Jessie Ramey penned a later to Schute, lambasting her for allowing her students to use Trump’s name to supposedly intimidate and offend minority students.

“The use of the current President’s name is an intentional signal to opponents that they are in ‘Trump’ territory — and that has real meaning, especially for our Black children in this moment,” she wrote. “… I am appalled that the adults in your school district not only approved of this sign, but are actively celebrating it, making it the featured photograph on the official school team Twitter page. This is what racism in America looks like today.”

Despite the controversy over the banner, the game occurred without incident. Brooke High School defeated Perry High School, 34-20.

via Breitbart News

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Elementary School Librarian Rejects Melania Trump’s Book Donation

Elementary School Librarian Rejects Melania Trump’s Book Donation

by Katherine Rodriguez28 Sep 2017Cambridge, MA0

28 Sep, 2017
28 Sep, 2017

An elementary school librarian in Massachusetts rejected a donation made by First Lady Melania Trump to her school’s library.

CBS Boston reports that Cambridgeport Elementary School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was one of a select number of schools chosen by the White House to receive ten Dr. Seuss books for National Read a Book Day.

The White House chose one school from each state to send the books.

Liz Phipps Soeiro, Cambridgeport Elementary’s school librarian, penned an editorial for the Horn Book Family Reading Blog explaining why she would not accept the first lady’s gift.

“My students have access to a school library with over nine thousand volumes and a librarian with a graduate degree in library science. Multiple studies show that schools with professionally staffed libraries improve student performance,” wrote Phipps Soeiro.

Phipps Soeiro added that her school “does not have a need for these books” while claiming that underfunded school districts who are shutting down their libraries due to school choice programs could put the books to better use.

But her critique of the first lady’s gift did not end there. She also criticized Melania’s choice of books, calling the Dr. Seuss titles “tired cliches” for children’s literature.

“You may not be aware of this, but Dr. Seuss is a bit of a cliché, a tired and worn ambassador for children’s literature. As First Lady of the United States, you have an incredible platform with world-class resources at your fingertips.”

Phipps Soeiro added that the Dr. Seuss books contained illustrations “steeped in racist propaganda” and offered an alternate list of ten books that include two titles advocating for the legalization of illegal aliens.

Cambridgeport Elementary School said that the opinions expressed in Phipps Soeiro’s editorial do not reflect the school district or the school itself. They released a statement clarifying that she has been “counseled” on school policies regarding political activity:

In this instance, the employee was not authorized to accept or reject donated books on behalf of the school or school district. We have counseled the employee on all relevant policies, including the policy against public resources being used for political purposes.

via Breitbart News

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Chuck Schumer Opened Effort to Derail Tax Reform Spreading Fake News

Chuck Schumer / Getty Images

BY:

September 28, 2017 3:25 pm

During his Wednesday press conference, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) announced his opposition to the newly proposed Republican tax plan and used a false statistic to argue it would raise taxes on working Americans.

“By repealing the personal exemption, Republicans are once again raising taxes on middle class and working Americans,” Schumer said. “A family of two, on this framework, with a household income of $45,000 could see their bill increase by $1,000.”

The claim put forth by Schumer does not add up. The proposal’s doubled standard deduction for married taxpayers filing jointly, from $12,600 to $24,000, more than makes up for the elimination of the $4,050 personal exemptions that would be eliminated in the proposal. Despite the tax rate increase, from 10 to 12 percent, the family of two would see its taxes decrease by about $200.

A spokesman for Schumer acknowledged that the minority leader misspoke during the press conference—the senator meant to say a family of four. Schumer did not correct himself during the press conference.

The spokesman sourced the claim to a string of tweets by Daniel Hemel, an assistant professor at University of Chicago Law School.

Hemel’s quick analysis finds that a family of four’s tax liability would increase by $910 under the Trump administration’s proposal, but, as he pointed out in the thread, his analysis didn’t take into account standard tax credits in either his calculation of the tax liability under the existing plan or the proposed plan.

Applying the child tax credit, $1,000 per child, and the earned income tax credit, which at a $45,000 income would be $1,089, the family would owe no taxes under current law or under the proposal.

Gordon Gray, director of fiscal policy for the pro-tax proposal American Action Forum, was critical of Schumer’s decision to deploy such an incomplete figure: “The calculation was explicitly without any tax credits. He presented the family as having a positive tax liability, which isn’t true under current law or under the proposal.”

“I’d say it’s a fairly suspect argument for the minority leader to be deploying against major legislation,” Gray said.

Gray, who filed a sample tax form for the family under both scenarios that were shared with the Washington Free Beacon, acknowledged the refund for the family would be about $900 smaller if the tax credits remained equal in the current plan, but notes that the proposal explicitly points out plans to “significantly increase” the child tax credit in order to bridge the gap.

“I think its disingenuous when the framework specifically says they’re going to increase the child tax credit to then just go and say, ‘Well, here’s what it would be if they didn’t do the thing they said they were going to do,'” he said. “You only do that if you really want to find fault.”

Increasing the child tax credit is one of the top points on the administration’s one-page summary of its plan.

Gray calculated that it would take a roughly $450 increase of the child tax credit from $1,000 to bridge the gap between the two plans for the family. He argued that the increase is realistically within reach, given the House proposal by Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) to increase the credit to $1,500 and the Senate proposal by Republican Senators Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Mike Lee (Utah) to bring it to $2,500.

Hemel acknowledged on Thursday morning the fact that an increased child tax credit would flip his calculation that the family would be worse off.

The proposed tax reform framework states the “larger child tax credit” would be one of the tools used to make up for the tax increase for families in the lowest bracket, but that the increase would be determined during the committee process.

Schumer has made the argument that taxes would be raised for lowest income Americans a centerpiece to his argument against the plan.

via Washington Free Beacon

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Hate-Crazed Dem Calls for ALL Blacks to Boycott White House Until Trump Apologizes to Players

Democrats are beginning to crack under the strain of terminal Trump Derangement Syndrome and by the President calling a spade a spade when it comes to flag-dissing, NFL players exhibiting their rich black athlete privilege, it is just too much to handle for some.

Considering that the Congressional Black Caucus is already three-quarters of the way batshit and even more than that racist, it only figures that some of the most irrational buffoonery is emanating from this collection of poverty pimps and race-baiters.

Take for example Democrat Rep. Al Green from Texas.

This is the same loon who issued a statement that he would be bringing impeachment charges against President Trump over his disrespect to the multimillionaire one-percenters who have spat on the flag and the troops.

Green followed up his clarion call to the lynch mob with an even more unhinged diatribe on Thursday when he demanded that ALL black Americans need to refrain from visiting the White House until Mr. Trump gets down on all fours, puckers up and plants his lips on the asses of the 200 + oppressed rich crybabies who overreached last week.

Via the Hill “Dem lawmaker: Black Americans shouldn’t go to White House until Trump apologizes for NFL attacks”:

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) is calling on African-Americans to avoid visiting the White House until President Trump apologizes for attacking NFL players who protest during the national anthem.

“Every black person ought to give some serious consideration, if you get an invitation, as to whether you will go to the White House until he either retracts that statement or does something else to atone, because this requires atonement,” Green said in an appearance on SiriusXM radio’s “Joe Madison Show,” as first reported by CNN.

Last week, Trump called on NFL owners to fire any “son of a bitch” players who take a knee during the national anthem.

He doubled down this week, saying the league should institute a new rule mandating that players stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

“The NFL has all sorts of rules and regulations,” Trump tweeted Tuesday. “The only way out for them is to set a rule that you can’t kneel during our National Anthem!”

Green said Trump’s comments were “a new level of indecency.”

“You know that in our community, there are certain lines you don’t cross. You don’t talk about a man’s mother in that fashion,” Green said. “There are consequences when you do that. There are consequences.”

The Texas Democrat called Trump’s comments “unconscionable” and said “every black person in this country ought to be up in arms about what he said.”

Green said Tuesday he will move to force a House vote to impeach Trump next week after his comments.

While it’s mighty white of Congressman Green to move the impeachment vote until next week he is yet another shining example of how the Democrats and their media lackeys have weaponized race as just another tool in their refusal to accept the legitimate results of an election.

We now live in an America where the left is engaging in such a divisive and destructive scorched-earth campaign against Trump that we may never be able to normalize race relations which have been in a downward spiral since 2009.

Sorry, the U.S. Constitution term-limited Obama’s ass – deal with it!

via Downtrend.com

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Commander of the VFW Just Laid Down the Law on National Anthem Protests

Culture

Commander of the VFW Just Laid Down the Law on National Anthem Protests

By Davis
on September 28, 2017 at 12:56pm

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America has been fixated on football players who insist on kneeling during the national anthem as a form of protest. Millions of Americans view this as incredibly disrespectful, and are indignant over these protests.

A number of high-profile people have come out against the protests. On Monday, Keith Harman, commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and a Vietnam combat veteran himself, issued a strong statement about the protests, according to the VFW website.

“There is a time and place for civil debate, and wearing team jerseys and using sporting events to disrespect our country doesn’t wash with millions of military veterans who have and continue to wear real uniforms on real battlefields around the globe,” Harman said in a statement.

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These football players are so blinded by their desire to get a little more fame that they forget there are real Americas who fought and died for that flag. Refusing to stand for a few minutes to honor their memory is the height of disrespect.

“My oath to protect the Constitution also protects my right to vehemently disagree with how others may choose to air their grievances,” he stated.

Harman also noted that there are still Americans at war in Afghanistan, dying to defend the flag and all the freedoms it represents. The people our brave men and woman are fighting don’t care about freedom — all they want to do is destroy us.

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“I stand for our flag and anthem,” Harman stated, “And I kneel for our fallen. That’s what patriots do. We rally around the flag of our country, not use it and our Constitution as both shield and sword.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

These NFL players, and the team owners who back them, don’t understand that this protest is accomplishing nothing but angering millions of Americans who hate to see the flag disrespected.

If these players actually cared about the issues that have sparked these protests, they would do something other than kneeling for a few minutes during a football game.

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H/T Breitbart

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School Superintendent Leads Prayer at Church, Now Faces Complaint

Rick McDaniel, the superintendent at McKinney Independent School District in North Texas, is facing a complaint for joining a prayer during a convocation last month.

“I realize that some of you, now you may not feel comfortable. And I’m alright with that. I understand,” McDaniel told the people who attended the event. “For those of you who feel comfortable praying with me that’s fine. At a minimum, we’re going to have a moment of silence.”

TheBlaze reports:

He proceeded to lead a minute-long prayer over the microphone. Fittingly, he was standing at a pulpit with a cross on it.

Still, at least one district employee in attendance filed a formal complaint, according to the Dallas Morning News.

One district employee, along with two others, filed a complaint with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is known for targeting public prayer in schools like the one in western Kansas involving players and coaches praying after games.

Soon enough, McKinney ISD received a letter accusing the school district of violating “its obligation to remain neutral on matters of religion”.

In response to the complaint, McKinney ISD spoke with superintendent McDaniel to discuss any possible discipline for his actions, but the board maintains that it doesn’t have an “official position” about the issue. “I think that’s something Dr. McDaniel feels strongly about,” according to board president Curtis Rippee.

VIDEO

What if the superintendent was Muslim and led a prayer at a Mosque… would the Freedom From Religion Foundation feel the same way? I highly doubt it.

via Downtrend.com

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A Million Christians Showing up at Border… What They Pray for Has Muslims Furious

Culture

A Million Christians Showing up at Border… What They Pray for Has Muslims Furious

By V Saxena
on September 28, 2017 at 1:06pm

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Event organizers in Poland hope to inspire at least a million Catholics to congregate along the nation’s 2,000-mile border next week to pray in celebration of a climactic 446-year-old battle that they claim saved Europe from being overrun by Islam.

According to the U.K. Daily Mail, the organizers’ appeal pertains to the “Rosary Prayer Around Poland,” an annual event where Catholic Poles pray for the well-being of their nation.

The tradition started following the naval Battle of Lepanto in 1571, which Encyclopedia Britannica notes pitted the allied Christian ships of the Holy League against the mighty armada of the Ottoman Turks. As the great battle approached, according to the National Catholic Register, Pope Pious V called upon all of Europe to pray the rosary for Christian victory against the overwhelming force of the Muslim fleet.

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After the Christian victory, the pope instituted an annual feast day on Oct. 7 called “Our Lady of Victory.” But two years later, a new pope, Gregory VIII, changed the feast day’s title to the Feast of the Holy Rosary.

This year organizers hope to draw out at least a million Poles. Moreover, the Polish bishops’ conference has reportedly endorsed the event, asking all Catholics to join the prayer, even if they’re unable to be physically present at the border.

“Rosary is a powerful weapon in the fight against evil … and thousands of testimonies and documented miracles prove its extraordinary effectiveness,” the organizers wrote on their website, according to a translation from the Mail.

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“We believe that if the rosary is prayed by about a million Poles along the borders of the country, it may not only change the course of events, but open hearts of our compatriots to the grace of God.”

And divine help might truly be needed if Christianity is to thrive in Europe in the future.

A report published just this week revealed that within 40 years, “the white population in France and the rest of old Europe will recede, creating a Muslim majority,” according to The Washington Times.

And it’s only to be expected that this Muslim majority will seek to usurp Europe’s traditional systems of law and replace them with Shariah law, after which will come the killing of gays, the stoning of “adulterous” women and God knows whatever else.

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As far as I’m concerned, the potential Islamization of Europe needs to be nipped in the bud, and prayer is certainly a strong start on that front.

H/T Breitbart

Please share this story on Facebook and Twitter and let us know what you think about this mass prayer expected along Poland’s border next month.

via Conservative Tribune

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Hugh Hefner Was A Creepy Old Pornographer. So Why Are Leftists Celebrating Him?

On Monday evening, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner died at the ripe old age of 91. He spent his life sleeping with women (he estimated over 1,000 conquests) and pretending to be a deep thinker. But the media’s gushing focus on Hefner is truly astonishing: in an era in which the media routinely condemn President Trump’s “toxic masculinity,” blast the casual vulgarity of Clay Travis’ support for the “First Amendment and boobs,” and complain about exploitation of women in culture, they were willing to overlook all of their basic views about female value in order to laud Hefner. Why? Because Hefner was a creature of the Left through and through, a man who sought to break down traditional sexual mores in favor of a “freer” and more vulgar America.

Let’s be clear about one thing: Hefner’s attempt to glorify the “swinging” lifestyle was a dressed-up version of pure hedonism. While he said he liked to listen to jazz, talk about Nietzsche, and be surrounded by beautiful women, he’s only famous because of the last element: without publishing pictures of bare breasts, Hugh Hefner would have been a nearly-anonymous, seedy-type trying to hit on women who could pass for his granddaughters. Hefner is iconic only because our culture has been so degraded. Yes, Hefner published articles by Norman Mailer and John Updike. So did Picador and Random House. But neither of those publishers have been feted for doing so. The media may pretend that Hefner’s “sophistication” is the reason they’re praising him today, but it’s his obscenity and his open hatred of traditional morality that really turned them on.

None of this is to argue that Hefner’s antics weren’t protected by the First Amendment. They arguably were — although it’s highly doubtful that James Madison and company were particularly concerned about the right of individuals to publish nudity in public. It is to argue that glorifying Hefner for his pornographic use of the First Amendment is ridiculous.

It’s also worth noting that the Left’s attempts to attribute Hefner’s reputation to his forward-thinking on civil rights is an attempt to coat turd in gold. Martin Luther King, Jr. somehow pushed for civil rights without publicly touting a lifestyle straight out of a Saudi harem. Rosa Parks didn’t have to pose as a Playboy centerfold to effect change.

What the Left truly loves about Hefner is that he was instrumental in destroying public support for monogamy. It was Hefner who celebrated polyamory, who suggested that prior generations were repressed and ignorant — as though he was the first man to discover the pleasures of sex. Here’s The New York Times lauding him in a 3,300-word essay (they gave William F. Buckley some 3,000 words):

Mr. Hefner wielded fierce resentment against his era’s sexual strictures, which he said had choked off his own youth. A virgin until he was 22, he married his longtime girlfriend… In “The Playboy Philosophy,” a mix of libertarian and libertine arguments that Mr. Hefner wrote in 25 installments starting in 1962, his message was simple: Society was to blame. His causes — abortion rights, decriminalization of marijuana and, most important, the repeal of 19th-century sex laws — were daring at the time.

What a fellow. He hated that he stayed a virgin until he got married — clearly that cut off his creative juices. He loved abortion and he disliked traditional marriage. Feminists used to be wise enough to understand that Hefner’s brand of female objectification didn’t liberate women; now, feminists suggest that Hefner, who built his infamous grotto into a “squalid prison” for buxom younger women, was somehow a breaker of chains. Hefner didn’t make women more respected; he made men more open in their piggishness.

But he broke the old consensus about the value of marriage, so bully for him.

All of which shows that for many on the Left, principles about female value and opposition to men acting like garbage are disposable, so long as the man in question fulfills certain anti-traditional standards. From Bill Clinton to Teddy Kennedy, political leftism is the golden ticket to enjoying all the rewards of personal depravity. That’s why Hefner was treated as a cultural hero rather than as a pornographer masquerading as a highbrow philosopher.

via Daily Wire

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Hmmm: Supreme Court to reopen debate on forced union “fees”

Will the fourth time be the charm? The Supreme Court has granted cert in a challenge to the forced payment of union dues by non-members, a dispute that the court has failed to resolve three times in the past. As one of the first actions the high court took on its return from recess, they agreed to hear arguments on Janus v AFSCME, and the new composition promises a resolution to the question — one way or another:

The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear a challenge to the so-called “fair share” fees public employee unions collect from non-members, posing a major threat to organized labor.

Unlike the past three times the court has considered similar cases, its five-member conservative majority appears poised to rule that workers opposed to union representation cannot be forced to pay for collective bargaining and other benefits.

The new case comes from Illinois and raises the same issues as a California case on which the court deadlocked, 4-4, following the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016.

The case provides an almost perfect parallel to Friedrichs v California Teachers Association, the first case decided — or really not — after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016. Two months afterward, the court split 4-4 on a challenge to a lower-court ruling that kept forced union “fees” deductions in place for non-union workers. The split was announced “per curiam,” with no opinion attached, and the split kept the lower court’s order in place without any precedential weight for other circuits.

The new case involves the same issues, giving the Supreme Court another shot at a conclusion:

The Illinois case involves Mark Janus, a state employee who says Illinois law violates his free speech rights by requiring him to pay fees subsidizing a union he doesn’t support, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. About half the states have similar laws covering so-called “fair share” fees that cover bargaining costs for non-members.

Janus is seeking to overturn a 1977 Supreme Court case, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, that said public workers who refuse to join a union can still be required to pay for bargaining costs, as long as the fees don’t go toward political purposes. The arrangement was supposed to prevent non-members from “free riding,” since the union has a legal duty to represent all workers.

Forbes’ Brian Miller says it will all come down to Gorsuch — and that’s a bad sign for the unions:

In his eleven years on the federal bench, Justice Gorsuch has not had an occasion to consider the free speech rights of public employees. He has, however, taken a strong position against compelled association.

In 2013, then Judge Gorsuch authored a concurring opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby when that case was before the Tenth Circuit. That case was like Janus in one important way. The owners of Hobby Lobby and others – like the Little Sisters of the Poor – were told by the Obama administration to fund access to contraceptives through their insurance policies.

Much like Mark Janus is arguing that compelled union dues require him to support activities he disagrees with, Hobby Lobby argued that the Obama administration compelled them to violate the teachings of their faith by providing financial support for activities they fundamentally opposed.

Justice Gorsuch sided with the owners of Hobby Lobby. In a concurring opinion, he justified his decision by saying, “All of us face the problem of complicity. All of us must answer for ourselves whether and to what degree we are willing to be involved in the wrongdoing of others.”

That seems like a reach. There is a fundamental difference between religious belief and political ideology, one that Gorsuch intended to protect in his Hobby Lobby opinion. That doesn’t mean that Gorsuch would be likely to side with the unions — he’s probably much more inclined to go the other way — but the connection here seems pretty tenuous at best, and not all that predictive.

This does seem like a slam dunk to go 5-4, but … which way? Anthony Kennedy may have gone with the conservatives to get to the tie in Friedrichs, but who’s to say that wasn’t a strategy to force the issue to wait for a full nine-member panel for a precedential decision? Kennedy usually has an eye for stare decisis, and he’s not going to vote lightly to overturn Abood. On the other hand, Miller reminds us that it was Kennedy who sharply criticized the Abood fees during oral arguments in Friedrichs for making non-members “compelled riders” on the unions’ political agenda.

One thing we know for sure is that the court definitely wants to set precedent this time. The case will come up for argument in the winter, and it seems like a safe bet that the decision will probably come out near the end of the term as most controversial decisions do.

The post Hmmm: Supreme Court to reopen debate on forced union “fees” appeared first on Hot Air.

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