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MALKIN: Look Homeward, ‘Change Agents’

Here is my homework assignment for all the fist-clenching, gun control-demanding teenagers walking out of classrooms this week (and next week and next month) to protest school shootings:

Ask not what the rest of the country can do for your local school’s safety; ask what your local school boards and superintendents have been failing to do for you.

Chances are, the adults closest to you — those most directly responsible for your security — have been shirking their primary duties, squandering scarce resources and deflecting blame.

Yes, it’s glamorous and exciting to appear on “The Ellen Show,” rub elbows with Eminem at the iHeartRadio Music Awards, pal around with Anderson Cooper, and soak up praise and donations from George Clooney and Oprah for shouting at the NRA, Republicans and President Trump.

Sure, it’s fun to ditch your homework, parade around in “March For Our Lives” swag, and watch your Twitter mentions explode like SpaceX launches every time you indignantly accuse gun-owning moms of hating their own children.

It’s lit like Bic to be the Democrats’ new junior lobbyists, fundraisers and voter registration captains.

But when the media whirlwind dies down and the Everytown buses ship you back home, mundane realities will set in.

Negligence, incompetence and inattention to the core mission of education and ensuring students’ safety don’t just spring out of nowhere. They are not alien invaders descending upon your neighborhoods from thousands of miles of away to impose chaos and misery upon your erstwhile Edenic existence.

Take Broward County, Florida. The current superintendent, Robert Runcie, was hired to clean up encrusted corruption in the district and school board that dates back to the early 1990s and resulted in three statewide grand jury investigations in 1997, 2002 and 2011. That last report blasted “malefeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance” on the Democrat-dominated school board and within top management at the district. In fact, the grand jury concluded after probing waste, fraud and favor-trading in capital construction projects:

“The culture of misfeasance and malfeasance at the school district is so deeply ingrained, so longstanding and so severe that we believe (employees who blow the whistle) will either be subsumed into the existing culture or drummed out of the District as soon as current attention is diverted from the Board and District.”

Indeed, one former building inspector who was fired in retaliation for warning about building code violations received a $45,000 settlement from the crooked school board. One board member was convicted on extortion, wire fraud and bribery charges involving school construction. Under Runcie, an $800 million renovation bond passed by voters in 2014 for school repairs on moldy, decaying buildings has been abjectly squandered; critics have alleged more bid-rigging, lax oversight and circumvention of graft reforms passed seven years ago.

The grand jury had issued a prophetic warning: “Bad habits and corrupt practices often return when the light of inquiry is turned off.”

Five years later, the district was entangled in yet another fiscal scandal after the state auditor general determined the schools had misallocated $23 million in federal Title 1 funds for low-income students; had “failed to correct safety violations at some schools;” and “paid health insurance premiums for former employees who were ineligible and in some cases dead,” according to the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

When public scrutiny is diverted to red herrings and politically expedient scapegoats, feckless educrats are all too happy to participate in accountability Kabuki theater. After the Parkland, Florida, shooting last month, Runcie immediately pounced: “If we really want to do something, spend money on adding more school resource officers and law enforcement.”

What bunk. Continued profligacy is no violence prevention strategy. If school leaders can’t exhibit basic fiscal discipline and stewardship, how can they be trusted to ensure classroom discipline and physical safety?

Is it any surprise that Runcie’s social justice pandering to dismantle the “school to jailhouse pipeline” won him Obama administration accolades — while endangering the lives of children used as political pawns?

The same set of corruptocrats who were in place while cronies rigged bids for personal gain stood by while book-cookers rigged crime statistics to appease racial bean counters.

There were no district-wide walkouts and nationwide protests when Broward County parents of special-needs students were laughed at during a school board meeting as they exposed how their children had been bullied, beaten and bitten by tormentors without consequences in 2016. Nor was there a massive uproar last fall when the district acknowledged a whopping 480 incidents of alleged sexual harassment and abuse in its schools.

As a famous Chicago community organizer once quipped, “Change is hard.” Selfies with gun control armbands is easy. Cleaning your own house, district and county is hard. Junkets to D.C. are easy. Digging through audits and public records is hard. Regurgitating Mad Libs-like talking points against the NRA and Second Amendment is easy.

Go back to class and look homeward, all you young “change agents.” The faultiest faults are near, not far.

Michelle Malkin is host of “Michelle Malkin Investigates” on CRTV.com. Her email address is [email protected] To find out more about Michelle Malkin and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2018 CREATORS.COM

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OUTRAGEOUS: Ohio High School Student Suspended For Staying In Class During Leftist Gun Walkout

I guess it’s not surprising given that we live in a country where it’s now a faux pas to NOT help illegal immigrants. But it’s still WRONG!

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An apolitical Ohio high school student received a suspension this week for remaining seated quietly in his classroom as about half of his peers participated in a leftist-choreographed march for gun control, and the other non-protesting half were “rounded up in the building” like cattle and marched to a “study hall,” according to The Independent (Massillon).

Stunningly, no other student received a suspension, including the indoctrinated ones who marched onto local streets Tuesday on behalf of the Democrat Party’s mission to enact draconian gun laws on all firearm owners.

The student, Jacob Shoemaker, told The Independent that he had simply sought to remain apolitical about the whole matter:

Jacob Shoemaker felt as though he would be making a political statement about guns by walking outside with those students, his father said, but he’d also be making one if he stayed in and allowed himself to be sent to wherever the non-protesters were being rounded up in the building. Being “middle of the road” politically, he didn’t want to make either statement, Shoemaker said.

Jacob told his father on Tuesday night that he felt like other students and, to some extent, school officials were pressuring him. Each side was judging the other.

″’The biggest problem, Dad, is that there shouldn’t be politics in the classroom… I may just sit in my seat. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the least intrusive of the choices I’ve been given,‴ Jacob said, according to his father. The boy also told him that he was far from the only student who felt that way.

For sticking to his principles, Shoemaker received an out-of-school suspension

“Student refused to follow instructions after being warned repeatedly by several administrators. Student not permitted on school property 24 hours,” his suspension notice reportedly read.

His father wasn’t exactly thrilled about this: “He stayed in the classroom, where he was supposed to be in the first place. It’s kind of ironic,” he said.

You think?!

To be clear, Shoemaker was not suspended for not participating in the march, as some have falsely reported. But this fact doesn’t make what happened to him any less just, as noted by Brandon Morse of RedState.

He pointed eout that the school’s desire “to relocate those who wouldn’t participate in the protest to a single location … exposes those who wouldn’t participate more easily. Remaining in class would have been the better option and the idea that the school punished a student for remaining in class where he would be considered outside of safe bounds is ridiculous.”

Agreed.

There used to be a time in America when students who walked out of class were punished. There likewise used to be a time when illegal immigrants, drug dealers and terrorists were viewed with disdain. Sadly, times have changed, and not for the better.

We now live in a twisted world where principles, facts and basic decency mean nothing. And maybe I’m just a jaded schmuck, but it feels to me like the downward spiral has only just begun.

///

Personal Note: We just took a “yuge” pay cut at Downtrend last night. Why? Because of Adolf Zuckerberg, whose social media platform Facebook has been purposefully targeting conservative publishers. The cut doesn’t go into effect until April, but at this point I’m considering dropping out of political commentary and becoming a full-time copywriter/Web marketer. 

My question is this: If I were to start a Patreon account — which would let you pay a completely voluntary subscription fee to me monthly — would you be interested? If so, how much? $1? $5? Please let me know in the comments section. And if you’re NOT interested, it’s totally fine. I’m just trying to figure out a way to stay in the political commentary business. 

Ideally, I’d like to get picked up by a publisher like The Daily Wire (in which case I could afford to keep writing at Downtrend on the side) but Ben Shapiro is REALLY PICKY (rightly so) about who he hires, so I don’t think it’s going to happen.

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WILLIAMS: Trump’s Steel And Aluminum Tariffs

There are a couple of important economic lessons that the American people should learn. I’m going to title one “the seen and unseen” and the other “narrow well-defined large benefits versus widely dispersed small costs.” These lessons are applicable to a wide range of government behavior, but let’s look at just two examples.

Last week, President Donald Trump enacted high tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum. Why in the world would the U.S. steel and aluminum industries press the president to levy heavy tariffs? The answer is simple. Reducing the amounts of steel and aluminum that hit our shores enables American producers to charge higher prices. Thus, U.S. steel and aluminum producers will earn higher profits, hire more workers and pay them higher wages. They are the visible beneficiaries of Trump’s tariffs.

But when the government creates a benefit for one American, it is a virtual guarantee that it will come at the expense of another American — an unseen victim. The victims of steel and aluminum tariffs are the companies that use steel and aluminum. Faced with higher input costs, they become less competitive on the world market. For example, companies such as John Deere may respond to higher steel prices by purchasing their parts in the international market rather than in the U.S. To become more competitive in the world market, some firms may move their production facilities to foreign countries that do not have tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum. Studies by both the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition show that steel-using industries — such as the U.S. auto industry, its suppliers and manufacturers of heavy construction equipment — were harmed by tariffs on steel enacted by George W. Bush.

Politicians love having seen beneficiaries and unseen victims. The reason is quite simple. In the cases of the steel and aluminum industries, company executives will know whom to give political campaign contributions. Workers in those industries will know for whom to cast their votes. The people in the steel- and aluminum-using industries may not know whom to blame for declining profits, lack of competitiveness and job loss. There’s no better scenario for politicians. It’s heads politicians win and tails somebody else loses.

Then there’s the phenomenon of narrow well-defined large benefits versus widely dispersed small costs. A good example can be found in the sugar industry. Sugar producers lobby Congress to place restrictions on the importation of foreign sugar through tariffs and quotas. Those import restrictions force Americans to pay up to three times the world price for sugar. A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated that Americans pay an extra $2 billion a year because of sugar tariffs and quotas. Plus, taxpayers will be forced to pay more than $2 billion over the next 10 years to buy and store excess sugar produced because of higher prices. Another way to look at the cost side is that tens of millions of American families are forced to pay a little bit more, maybe $20, for the sugar we use every year.

You might wonder how this consumer rip-off sustains itself. After all, the people in the sugar industry are only a tiny percentage of the U.S. population. Here’s how it works. It pays for workers and owners in the sugar industry to come up with millions of dollars to lobby congressmen to impose tariffs and quotas on foreign sugar. It means higher profits and higher wages. Also, it’s easy to organize the relatively small number of people in the sugar industry. The costs are borne by tens of millions of Americans forced to pay more for the sugar they use. Even if the people knew what the politicians are doing, it wouldn’t be worth the cost of trying to unseat a legislator whose vote cost them $20 a year. Politicians know that they won’t bear a cost from sugar consumers. But they would pay a political cost from the sugar industry if they didn’t vote for tariffs. So they put it to consumers — but what else is new?

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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Rage-Democrats return: Eric Holder vows to knife the GOP

So much for the soft moderate blue wave of Democrats sweeping special elections these days.


The real Democrats – the dinosaurs, the elitists, the detesters of deplorables, the Chicago politics-types, and the arrogant – are back – none more obvious than Eric Holder, who offered this violent language for his political opponents. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:



“We have to be ready to, you know, not do anything inappropriate, not do anything improper, certainly not do anything unlawful,” he said. “But to the extent that they want to have a fight, let’s do it. You want to rumble, let’s rumble. You want to have a knife fight, we’re gonna do it.”


Nice bloody language you got there, Eric. Would you like to elaborate? Will there be rust on the knife and will it be dull? Will you sever an artery and draw gushing blood and will bits of flesh fly and stick to the wall? Which artery do you want, pal? Will you leave your victims in the street or take them to the hospital emergency room? And while you are at it, will you throw in the use of a Fast and Furious scandal gun, which of course happened on your watch during the Obama administration?


Such irony. A statement like this, which is loaded with thuggishness and reflects the interior mindset of the speaker, is actually coming out of a former Democratic Attorney General, America’s top lawman. Which gives a recrudescent whiff of just how Democrats would govern if let into power again.


The vague opening disclaimer of not doing anything ‘inappropriate,’ of course, is Holder’s way of saying: ‘Nice house you got there, be a shame if anything happened to it…’ The rest of the language is sheer violence.


Nobody in the GOP is talking about knife fights against Democratic opponents. They are having a political competition instead of a knife fight.


Holder just wants the knife fight.


The whole statement calls to mind President Obama’s campaign statement about knife fights, one of the very few things he ever said that was memorable:


Obama also joked about rubbing out his opponents #TheChicagoWay:”If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” #Obama, Philly, 2008


— John Kass (@John_Kass) August 10, 2016 “>http://




 


What’s going on here? Well, remember, Eric Holder is running for president as I argued here. Obviously, he is trying to whip up the vote, and it’s a given he’s trying to rouse the black base of the Democratic Party. Democrats know they can’t win elections without energizing nearly all black voters as they did with the election of President Obama. So Holder is pressing his advantage as a nominally black candidate (out in the Caribbean, where is family is from, he would not be considered black at all, given his light skin.) and it’s pretty disgusting that he considers that voter base responsive to a thuggish appeal. Obviously, he wants to show presumably them, and the rest of the rage-Democrats, still steaming at the election of President Trump, that he’s a fighter.


But it won’t fool all of them and the rest of us can only see an arrogant elitist who likes to thumb his nose at the law. What a gift he is for the Democrats, doing his part through his thugspeak to tamp down the Democrats’ blue wave and remind us all of how Democrats really govern.


So much for the soft moderate blue wave of Democrats sweeping special elections these days.


The real Democrats – the dinosaurs, the elitists, the detesters of deplorables, the Chicago politics-types, and the arrogant – are back – none more obvious than Eric Holder, who offered this violent language for his political opponents. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:


“We have to be ready to, you know, not do anything inappropriate, not do anything improper, certainly not do anything unlawful,” he said. “But to the extent that they want to have a fight, let’s do it. You want to rumble, let’s rumble. You want to have a knife fight, we’re gonna do it.”


Nice bloody language you got there, Eric. Would you like to elaborate? Will there be rust on the knife and will it be dull? Will you sever an artery and draw gushing blood and will bits of flesh fly and stick to the wall? Which artery do you want, pal? Will you leave your victims in the street or take them to the hospital emergency room? And while you are at it, will you throw in the use of a Fast and Furious scandal gun, which of course happened on your watch during the Obama administration?


Such irony. A statement like this, which is loaded with thuggishness and reflects the interior mindset of the speaker, is actually coming out of a former Democratic Attorney General, America’s top lawman. Which gives a recrudescent whiff of just how Democrats would govern if let into power again.


The vague opening disclaimer of not doing anything ‘inappropriate,’ of course, is Holder’s way of saying: ‘Nice house you got there, be a shame if anything happened to it…’ The rest of the language is sheer violence.


Nobody in the GOP is talking about knife fights against Democratic opponents. They are having a political competition instead of a knife fight.


Holder just wants the knife fight.


The whole statement calls to mind President Obama’s campaign statement about knife fights, one of the very few things he ever said that was memorable:


Obama also joked about rubbing out his opponents #TheChicagoWay:”If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” #Obama, Philly, 2008


— John Kass (@John_Kass) August 10, 2016 “>http://




 


What’s going on here? Well, remember, Eric Holder is running for president as I argued here. Obviously, he is trying to whip up the vote, and it’s a given he’s trying to rouse the black base of the Democratic Party. Democrats know they can’t win elections without energizing nearly all black voters as they did with the election of President Obama. So Holder is pressing his advantage as a nominally black candidate (out in the Caribbean, where is family is from, he would not be considered black at all, given his light skin.) and it’s pretty disgusting that he considers that voter base responsive to a thuggish appeal. Obviously, he wants to show presumably them, and the rest of the rage-Democrats, still steaming at the election of President Trump, that he’s a fighter.


But it won’t fool all of them and the rest of us can only see an arrogant elitist who likes to thumb his nose at the law. What a gift he is for the Democrats, doing his part through his thugspeak to tamp down the Democrats’ blue wave and remind us all of how Democrats really govern.






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Hong Kong Plans Three-Year Jail Sentences for Mocking the Chinese National Anthem

Hong Kong Plans Three-Year Jail Sentences for Mocking the Chinese National Anthem

by John Hayward16 Mar 20180



The semi-autonomous government of Hong Kong on Friday announced plans to impose a three-year jail sentence on anyone who disrespects the Chinese national anthem.

AFP explains that China passed laws last year specifying how and when the national anthem can be sung, in particular banning it from performances at parties, weddings, and funerals. Use of the anthem in commercial advertising is also banned.

The punishment specified in the new legislation could be as severe as three years in prison for especially vigorous mockery of the anthem.

The legislation is highly relevant in Hong Kong because soccer fans have a habit of booing the Chinese anthem, turning their backs, and waving Hong Kong independence banners at games.

AFP quotes pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo denouncing Hong Kong’s effort to mirror the Chinese legislation as a “psychological weapon” to make residents “feel more Chinese rather than being Hong Kong.”

“If the bill becomes a reality, this would harm the public’s basic rights,” said opposition leader Wu Chi-wai. “If protesters argue with people who play the national anthem or make gestures at them, even if they do not intend to insult the national anthem, they may get charged by the authorities.”

“If passed, the proposed bill, submitted to the Legislative Council, would also make it a legal requirement for schools to teach the anthem, the ‘March of the Volunteers,’ its history and its ‘spirit,’” Channel News Asia notes.

The South China Morning Post writes that the Hong Kong bill does not clearly define what constitutes an “insult” to the Chinese anthem, which makes “the intention behind any perceived abuse crucial to deciding whether offenders should be jailed.”

Neither is the government source who told the SCMP that a group of people booing the anthem at a soccer game would more likely be charged with contempt than “an individual coughing at that moment,” or diners at a restaurant who forgot to stop eating and pay respects when the anthem is played on television.

“There is still much grey area … and issues that require further clarification,” conceded Civic Party leader Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu. “The bill will prompt caution and make a lot of people stay away from touching the national anthem; I’m not sure if that’s beneficial to our creativity.”

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Gun Owners of America: ‘No Guns Allowed’ Signs Less Effective than Teachers that Shoot Back

Gun Owners of America: ‘No Guns Allowed’ Signs Less Effective than Teachers that Shoot Back

No Guns Allowed Sign

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

by AWR Hawkins16 Mar 20180



During the March 15 airing of Breitbart News Daily, Gun Owners of America’s Erich Pratt stressed that students need more protection than that which comes from a “No Guns Allowed” sign.

Pratt was reacting to the left’s two-prong approach of keeping teachers defenseless while trusting criminals will obey signs that say guns are not allowed on campus.

He suggested this same approach is being demonstrated by Congress as a whole, inasmuch as they just voted to spend incredible amounts of money on new school security measures while overlooking the “cheaper” proven solution, which is armed teachers.

Pratt said:

Utah has been arming teachers since 1995, and when I say arming teachers I mean concealed carry holders…are allowed to bring [guns] into school rather than being told, ‘No, you can’t have them here.’ And so there’s never been a school shooting in Utah. And Ohio is training teachers, it’s actually a private organization that’s training the teachers. There are, depending on the laws and how you look at the them, anywhere from 12 to 25 states that are already to some degree allowing teachers to be armed in schools.

While Pratt stressed that teachers should under no circumstance carry unless state/local law allows, he did note that now is the time to change laws so more teachers can be armed for self-defense.

He added, “We protect our President, Congressmen, and banks with guns, why is it that we protect our schools with just a sign that says, ‘No Guns Allowed’? That doesn’t work.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

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Chinese Reporter Goes Missing After Viral Eyeroll Embarrasses Emperor Xi

Despite a frenzied over-reaction that practically nuked Liang Xiangyi off the Internet, the tyrants of Beijing cannot quite make the exasperated reporter in the blue dress disappear.

Perhaps there is some hope to be found in the notion that a woman can still speak truth to power in authoritarian China, or at least say, “Oh, give me a break.”

Liang is the reporter who very visibly displayed her impatience with a toadying question from another journalist at a press conference on Tuesday. The other woman, Zhang Huijun, asked a “question” that was really just an obsequious recital of China’s recent achievements and ended by asking a government bureaucrat how the government of President Xi Jinping planned to be even more awesome in the future.

Liang’s increasingly surprised and fed-up response to Huijin’s performance set the Chinese Internet on fire. Of course, the massive Communist censorship apparatus was standing by with fire extinguishers. They went to incredible lengths to make it hard for Chinese users to find this video or learn much of anything about Liang Xiangyi:

Nevertheless, Liang quickly became an iconic symbol of mild defiance, a way for younger Chinese to let the big bosses know they have little choice but to go along with the party line, but they do not actually believe it. It seemed like the perfect way to come up just short of challenging party propaganda, but remind the Party that everyone knows it is propaganda.

Within twenty-four hours, China’s censors had not only blocked web searches for anything related to Liang, but they actually ordered all Chinese media to refrain from mentioning her in any way and delete every single online post referring to the incident. Her own news network, Yicai, tried to regain control of the narrative by posting noncontroversial footage of her asking businesslike questions at an official press conference last weekend, but the government forced them to take even that video down.

CNN notes that one reason the incident caught fire with China’s population is that the National Party Congress has been so tightly scripted. President Xi Jinping is taking dictatorial powers and lifetime tenure. The Party knows this makes many citizens uncomfortable, so they have gone to great lengths to create an impression of enthusiastic national unity behind Xi. In contrast, Liang’s hilarious reaction was like blowing a kazoo in the middle of a funeral procession.

As one Internet wag put it, “A huge production with thousands of actors had failed to top the box office for a week, until two extras on set suddenly captured everyone’s imagination. There are no small actors, only small parts.”

China’s rivals in India are greatly enjoying the show, comparing Liang to a young actress named Priya Prakash Varrier who became a comparable Indian Internet sensation with a saucy wink in a movie scene. As in Liang’s case, GIF satirists quickly went to work with Varrier’s wink and created some hilarious parody mash-ups:

The difference for Liang, alas, is that Varrier’s wink was not as a gesture of defiance against a brutal Communist regime that puts a great deal of effort into stamping out dissent. Liang’s swelling fan base tells her she is the only thing they remember about the National Party Congress. The Party hates that.

Liang’s press credentials have reportedly been revoked, and her personal page on Weibo (China’s Twitter) has been taken down. Foreign journalists noted she was curiously absent from an event on Wednesday that she would normally have covered. The company she works for, Yicai Media, did not respond to questions about her status.

According to the Hong Kong Free Press, the last information about Liang was a leaked screenshot from a Yicai Media chat room in which she explained she was exasperated with Zhang, the reporter in the red outfit from the famous video, and not the Chinese government. “Her question was even longer than the answer,” Liang grumbled.

If she is lucky, the government will decide that going any harder on her would be counterproductive.

A footnote for those concerned about the Chinese government’s growing influence over Western companies and media: Zhang, the reporter in the red outfit that drove Liang to distraction by asking such an obsequious question of a Chinese minister, works for an American company called American Multimedia Television. CNN notes the company is based in California and “boasts close ties with China’s state broadcaster CCTV, Zhang’s former employer.”

“Reporters from media outlets based abroad but with ties back to China’s state media apparatus are often called on at government events so that Beijing can appear to cede the floor to ‘foreign’ journalists—who will nonetheless toe the party line,” the Hong Kong Free Press explains.

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Calling America ‘Land of Opportunity’ Is a ‘Microaggression’ Says University of California

The University of California has published a list of unacceptable “microaggressions” on its official website, which includes offensive statements such as “America is the land of opportunity.”

The Academic Affairs department of the University of California Santa Cruz provides the list of politically incorrect expressions and actions to students and faculty to equip them to recognize microaggressions and eliminate them.

Examples of allegedly “racist” microaggressions furnished by the university include statements such as: “When I look at you, I don’t see color,” “There is only one race, the human race,” and “America is a melting pot.”

It is also a microaggression to say that “the most qualified person should get the job” or to express doubts about the effectiveness of Affirmative Action programs, the website claims. Moreover, to say that “America is the land of opportunity” propagates the “myth of meritocracy,” as do statements such as “Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough.”

The University of California offers a helpful definition of microaggressions to better educate the academic community in politically correct behavior.

“Microaggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership,” the website states.

“The first step in addressing microaggressions is to recognize when a microaggression has occurred and what message it may be sending,” the university declares, before proceeding to enumerate common offenses.

According to the Academic Affairs department, microaggressions vary with context and race, so saying something to a black or Asian person is different from saying it to a white person.

For example, it is perfectly acceptable to ask a Caucasian student “Why are you so quiet? We want to know what you think,” whereas to ask this same question of an Asian, Latino or Native American constitutes a microaggression, because it implies that they have not successfully assimilated to “the dominant culture.”

Similarly, asking a black person “Why do you have to be so loud/animated?” is strictly verboten, while asking a white person this question is completely fine.

Moreover, whites should never use the expression “You people” when speaking to blacks, whereas blacks may address whites in this way, the university suggests.

In the eyes of the university, microaggressions also extend to the area of sexual identity or orientation, and include limiting options on official forms to “Male or Female” when identifying one’s sex, or offering only two options for relationship status: married or single.

UC Santa Cruz has been a pioneer in the war against microaggressions and in 2016 hosted a forum titled “Microaggression in the Classroom.” The event was part of UCSC’s “Mentoring Program for Faculty,” sponsored by the Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

If you find the double standards and outright foolishness of academic political correctness off-putting, you are in good company.

In a brilliant article in Forbes during the 2016 presidential campaign, the celebrated British historian Paul Johnson called political correctness “one of the most dangerous intellectual afflictions ever to attack mankind.”

PC has “enormous appeal to the semieducated,” Johnson observed, and it “appeals to pseudo-intellectuals everywhere, since it evokes the strong streak of cowardice notable among those wielding academic authority nowadays.”

“Any empty-headed student with a powerful voice can claim someone (never specified) will be ‘hurt’ by a hitherto harmless term, object or activity and be reasonably assured that the dons and professors in charge will show a white feather and do as the student demands,” he said.

“Thus, there isn’t a university campus on either side of the Atlantic that’s not in danger of censorship,” he concluded.

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U.N. Envoy: Turkey ‘War Crimes’ Against Christians in Syria Foreshadow ‘Genocide’

Turkish troops fighting to conquer the Kurdish-held region of Afrin in Syria are committing “war crimes” against Yazidis and Christians that mirror the “ethnic cleansing and genocide” in the region at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), declared a top United Nations envoy in a letter published this week.

Echoing Kurdish Christian leaders in Afrin and some analysts, U.N. Goodwill Ambassador Nadia Murad, a Yazidi human rights advocate who survived the ISIS genocide in the Middle East, noted in a March 12 statement:

I received information that the area of Afrin inhabited by Kurds, Yazidis and Christians is under siege from all sides. There is only one road through which people can leave the city. 200 civilians have been killed, including 3 Yazidi children. Shrines and religious sites have been destroyed or forcibly converted into mosques. People’s homes are being looted, and minorities are being shamed by extremist militias.

She went on to say that Turkey’s actions against Christians and Yazidis amount to “war crimes.”

“This horror is reminiscent of the initial actions of ISIS in Iraq. Medical and healthcare services are urgently needed. This situation foreshadows ‘ethnic cleansing’ and genocide,” stressed Murad.

The Turkish military claims it has “neutralized” 3,530 so-called terrorists and “assumed control of at least three-fourths of the city from the U.S.-allied People’s Protection Units (YPG) since it began Operation Olive Branch in Afrin on January 20, reports Daily Sabah.

Christians are among the people killed by Turkey in Afrin, according to local pastors and some analysts.

Consistent with a desperate plea for global assistance made by Pastor Hakim Ismael from the Kurdish Church Network International early this year, Murad urged U.N. member states like the United States and the European Union to “demand” that Turkey stop attacking Afrin.

In open letter dated January 20, the day that Turkey began its Afrin operations, Pastor Ismael implored the international community, “Please help us,” noting:

As  the  Leaders  of  the  Christian  churches  in  North  Syria,  in  the  town  of  [Afrin] we  hereby  confirm that we are under attack by Turkey.

The lives of our women and children are in danger. The city of Afrin is being bombarded by Turkish  airstrikes. We  are  asking  for  intervention, and protection against the violent attacks which are being levied against us at this moment.

Many lives are in mortal danger. We are requesting aid and assistance. We are unable to protect ourselves or our families against these attacks, neither are we able to offer assistance or shelter to the innocents.

In early February, Lela Gilbert, an expert on religious freedom at the Hudson Institute, cautioned that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had declared “jihad” on ethnoreligious minorities in Afrin, mirroring actions taking by ISIS in the region.

Echoing the U.S. Departement of State, Dr. Y. Alp Aslandogan, the executive director of the non-profit Alliance for Shared Values, told Breitbart News that Erdogan’s authoritarian government has deemed members of religious minorities, such as Christians and Jews, “enemies of the state” in Turkey.

The U.N. and the American government have officially determined that ISIS committed “genocide” against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minority groups in Iraq and Syria.

Gilbert noted that now Turkey is slaughtering Christians and other religious minorities in neighboring Syria.

Via Twitter, local Kurdish Pastor Valentine Hanan has pleaded for international assistance and protection for Christians in Afrin.

Pastor Hanan reportedly wrote on Twitter, “As the Good Shepherd Church in Afrin city, we demand urgent international protection for the believers in Afrin and the cease of this Turkish shelling. We are also against the heavy Turkish shelling and the return of Islamic groups to the region.”

Various news outlets, like the Independent in the U.K., have described that Turkish military effort in Afrin as ethnic cleansing targeting the Kurds and their allies.

In March, the Independent reported:

Syrian Arab militiamen leading the Turkish attack on Afrin in northern Syria are threatening to massacre its Kurdish population unless they convert to the variant of Islam espoused by Isis and al-Qaeda. In the past such demands have preceded the mass killings of sectarian and ethnic minorities in both Syria and Iraq.

Ankara-allied Syrian Arab opposition groups like the Free Syrian Army, which has received U.S. taxpayer-funded assistance, are lending support to the Turkish operation, dubbed “Olive Branch.”

Although the Kurdish YPG forces taking on Turkey in the Afrin helped the United States deal a defeating blow to ISIS in the Middle East, the American military has stressed it has no intention of helping its ongoing partners.

U.S. NATO ally Turkey has long described the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which both Ankara and Washington have deemed a terrorist group.

Despite Turkey’s concern, the United States continued to lend support to the Kurdish troops, except for those fighting in Afrin.

The U.S. continues to praise the YPG as significant allies in the war against ISIS.

via Breitbart News

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Leftists Will NOT Like This Prediction About The Outcome Of A Potential Second Civil War

They have a lot of courage NOW, but would they still have it if shit got real?

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Sometimes it feels as if the fascist left craves another civil war.

Just consider their nonstop protests and riots, their nonstop censorship of opposing views, their nonstop oppression of Christian beliefs and their nonstop attacks on basic decency, rules and laws, common sense, basic facts and history.

Their attacks are relentless, and so is their willingness to use any tactic — deceit, manipulation, intimidation and indoctrination — to achieve their goals.

And don’t even get me started on their rhetoric:

It’s an endless torrent of hatred all based on the lopsided belief that the world would be a more compassionate and tolerant place were conservatives or whites or or Trump supporters or whatever other enemy silenced and perhaps even killed.

Uh huh …

But have you ever actually wondered what might happen were this leftist psychopathy to actually drive us into another civil war?

Townhall contributor Kurt Schlichter pondered it, and I got a feeling that his prediction regarding the outcome of another potential civil war will make a lot of liberal heads explode:

The Democrat threat to peace is based on its policies designed to deprive Normal Americans of their right to speak freely, to worship freely, and to defend themselves and their rights with firearms. Make no mistake – millions of Normal Americans are willing to risk death to defend those rights. In fact, many swore to do so when they entered our military and law enforcement.

But who is the leftist big talker willing to die to impose the fascist dream of censorship, religious oppression, and disarmament on Normal American citizens? Is the screeching SJW at Yale going to suit up in Kevlar? Is the Vox columnist going to grab a M4? Is the Hollywood poser going to switch her gyno-beanie for a helmet?

No. Hell, we just heard our liberal opponents explaining why a cop shouldn’t be expected to go fight a scumbag murdering kids because it’s scary. America might split apart, but it’s highly unlikely Team Kale n’ Vinyl would fight should their big talk finally push Normal America too far.

He wasn’t kidding either.

Here’s a look at our potential opponents:

I could bench, squat and deadlift every one of these tools, not that I’m even a fighter. Unlike Sean Hannity, who seriously knows how to kick ass, I train more-so for aesthetics than strength/power. Even then, I could still crush these puny schlubs like bugs.

That’s not even accounting for firearms.

A University of Kansas study highlighted in The Washington Post last year found that in 2012, only 23 percent of Democrats “reported having a gun in the home,” whereas a whopping 54 percent of Republicans had a gun handy.

And with the leftist media striving so diligently daily to brainwash the masses against guns, it would not surprise me if that 23 percent of Democrats has fallen even lower since 2012.

Just to be clear, neither Schlichter nor I believe another civil war is actually likely: “Do I think there will be a civil war? No, but there could be,” he opined.

Exactly, but if there were one — hypothetically speaking of course — it’s pretty clear which side would get its ass walloped.

Hint: It wouldn’t be us, esé!

via Downtrend.com

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