Month: May 2020

From his lockdown redoubt, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden gave a ‘virtual’ campaign rally another go — and it was a disaster.

Here’s Tucker Carlson on Fox News, with some eye-rolling disgust not so much at Biden’s general leftwingery, but his failure to muster any basic technical prowess:

We see Biden flopping around, wondering if he was on camera, and generally not getting the gist of how Zoom, or whatever program it was he was using, works. 

“They introduced me? Am I on?” Biden asked someone off-screen as he approached the camera, taking off a pair of dark aviator sunglasses.

“Good evening, thanks so much for tuning in. I wish we could have done this together and it [had] gone a little more smoothly but I’m grateful we’re able to connect virtually and thank you…” Biden continued before his audio feed became unintelligible mid-sentence.

The audio and video problems continued through Biden’s speech, with the former vice president’s lips moving out of sync with the sound and a significant amount of his talk impossible to understand through the tech problems.

Via Fox, someone at Vice described it as:  ”[s]o plagued by technological problems it looked like it was being run by local seniors attempting Zoom for the first time.”

Bear in mind that millions of Americans on lockdown have gotten the hang of Zoom, and now do it for every sort of thing that used to be done in person – from family gatherings, to school courses, to investment talk, to project meetings, to work meetings, to political briefings, to news reports on television. This isn’t to say it’s easy for everyone, but anyone who focuses on learning how to do it can get it right, thousands of people older than 70-something Joe most certainly have mastered it. 

But not Joe Biden. 

It suggests that learning new technical things is for little people. Biden either can’t learn, or won’t learn, or is too lazy to learn.

Carlson points out that that isn’t necessarily a problem, given that Biden’s campaign has plenty of money and plenty of willing helpers from Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the media and other tech-savvy redoubts that would gladly lend a hand for his campaign and get the tech set up and done right. Somehow, the Bidenites haven’t availed themselves of such resources, and opted instead to do it themselves, which in a national presidential campaign signals that Biden isn’t ready for prime time. 

But it definitely suggests a certain kind of arrogance. Biden, who vowed to put coal miners out of business, blithely insisted that those kinds of layoffs aren’t a problem and that anyone laid off in his proposed new green economy, could easily learn to code: “Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake!” he exclaimed.

He can’t even figure out Zoom.

It also calls to mind that there seems to be a management problem for the campaign led by Biden. This isn’t their first technical glitch and obviously, it won’t be their last.

Remember the strange statements from Biden earlier about not having the right ceiling heights at his residence to get the lighting right for televised appearances as the lockdown began, even though he’d done such camera performances from the same place before. Remember this? Here was my blog at the time:

Where’s Joe Biden? 

After promising us he’d play pretend-president with daily briefings about the coronavirus crisis, blasting yet also plagiarizing President Trump, who’s showing himself to be a stellar crisis president, Biden’s now weirdly missing from any public appearances.

Which doesn’t exactly sound like the captain you’d want in a storm. The latest excuse coming from his team is that it’s all due to “lighting issues” which presumably might make his Hollywood smile look less bright to voters on camera. 

Biden’s team has leaked to reporters that their man was back home in Wilmington trying to get the lighting right for his big cavalcade of upcoming play-president events, and well, they’re still working on it. He didn’t have any problems with lighting before, the twitterati pointed out, and the argument has brought out tweets of his luxury digs in Delaware, highlighting that public office has made Biden a very rich man indeed. Biden’s last lost-in-space speech came against a black backdrop and two flags, and was, according to some reports, in any case done at his house. 

It’s the same old idiocy, continuing away, and apparently Biden isn’t even alarmed. Sound like a guy who’s ready to run the country? One can only shudder with dread at the idea of Joe Biden learning to code. And a Biden at the helm of the presidency is exponentially worse.

From his lockdown redoubt, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden gave a ‘virtual’ campaign rally another go — and it was a disaster.

Here’s Tucker Carlson on Fox News, with some eye-rolling disgust not so much at Biden’s general leftwingery, but his failure to muster any basic technical prowess:

We see Biden flopping around, wondering if he was on camera, and generally not getting the gist of how Zoom, or whatever program it was he was using, works. 

“They introduced me? Am I on?” Biden asked someone off-screen as he approached the camera, taking off a pair of dark aviator sunglasses.

“Good evening, thanks so much for tuning in. I wish we could have done this together and it [had] gone a little more smoothly but I’m grateful we’re able to connect virtually and thank you…” Biden continued before his audio feed became unintelligible mid-sentence.

The audio and video problems continued through Biden’s speech, with the former vice president’s lips moving out of sync with the sound and a significant amount of his talk impossible to understand through the tech problems.

Via Fox, someone at Vice described it as:  ”[s]o plagued by technological problems it looked like it was being run by local seniors attempting Zoom for the first time.”

Bear in mind that millions of Americans on lockdown have gotten the hang of Zoom, and now do it for every sort of thing that used to be done in person – from family gatherings, to school courses, to investment talk, to project meetings, to work meetings, to political briefings, to news reports on television. This isn’t to say it’s easy for everyone, but anyone who focuses on learning how to do it can get it right, thousands of people older than 70-something Joe most certainly have mastered it. 

But not Joe Biden. 

It suggests that learning new technical things is for little people. Biden either can’t learn, or won’t learn, or is too lazy to learn.

Carlson points out that that isn’t necessarily a problem, given that Biden’s campaign has plenty of money and plenty of willing helpers from Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the media and other tech-savvy redoubts that would gladly lend a hand for his campaign and get the tech set up and done right. Somehow, the Bidenites haven’t availed themselves of such resources, and opted instead to do it themselves, which in a national presidential campaign signals that Biden isn’t ready for prime time. 

But it definitely suggests a certain kind of arrogance. Biden, who vowed to put coal miners out of business, blithely insisted that those kinds of layoffs aren’t a problem and that anyone laid off in his proposed new green economy, could easily learn to code: “Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake!” he exclaimed.

He can’t even figure out Zoom.

It also calls to mind that there seems to be a management problem for the campaign led by Biden. This isn’t their first technical glitch and obviously, it won’t be their last.

Remember the strange statements from Biden earlier about not having the right ceiling heights at his residence to get the lighting right for televised appearances as the lockdown began, even though he’d done such camera performances from the same place before. Remember this? Here was my blog at the time:

Where’s Joe Biden? 

After promising us he’d play pretend-president with daily briefings about the coronavirus crisis, blasting yet also plagiarizing President Trump, who’s showing himself to be a stellar crisis president, Biden’s now weirdly missing from any public appearances.

Which doesn’t exactly sound like the captain you’d want in a storm. The latest excuse coming from his team is that it’s all due to “lighting issues” which presumably might make his Hollywood smile look less bright to voters on camera. 

Biden’s team has leaked to reporters that their man was back home in Wilmington trying to get the lighting right for his big cavalcade of upcoming play-president events, and well, they’re still working on it. He didn’t have any problems with lighting before, the twitterati pointed out, and the argument has brought out tweets of his luxury digs in Delaware, highlighting that public office has made Biden a very rich man indeed. Biden’s last lost-in-space speech came against a black backdrop and two flags, and was, according to some reports, in any case done at his house. 

It’s the same old idiocy, continuing away, and apparently Biden isn’t even alarmed. Sound like a guy who’s ready to run the country? One can only shudder with dread at the idea of Joe Biden learning to code. And a Biden at the helm of the presidency is exponentially worse.

Conservatives had this Common Core thing all wrong, it was said. We’d be proven wrong by history. Common Core, pushed by President Barack Obama, was going to work. It wasn’t like all the other liberal education plans.

A new study by the Pioneer Institute reveals that, no, we were right all along.

The study, released late last month, revealed there were huge drops in math and reading scores since Common Core was fully enacted in 2013. This was after decades of slow growth in both categories.

“Breaking with decades of slow improvement, U.S. reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other assessments have seen historic declines since most states implemented national Common Core English and math curriculum standards six years ago,” a statement on the Pioneer Institute’s website read.

“While Common Core was promoted as improving the international competitiveness of U.S. students in math, our international standing has remained low while the skills of average and lower performing American students have dropped in reading,” it said.

TRENDING: Mainstream Media Pushes Masks, Ignores Possible Consequences

How low has it remained? Only 10 percent of eighth-grade American students now score at an “advanced” level in math, according to the international study.

While we’re technically in the middle of countries worldwide, we’re much closer to the lower end of the scale (Turkey’s 6 percent and the United Arab Emirates‘ 5 percent) than to the top nations (Singapore at 54 percent, South Korea at 43 percent).

Kazakhstan (15 percent) and Hungary (12 percent) also beat us in that category.

Pioneer Study by The Western Journal on Scribd

Common Core was supposed to help us catch up to other countries — to make us more competitive with some of the world’s top nations in terms of academic achievement. How has that worked?

Since the standards’ full implementation in 2013, “average scores have generally declined and remain at a level that is statistically significantly lower than before Common Core,” the Pioneer Institute found in the study.

“Nationally, fourth- and eighth-grade NAEP math scores were rising gradually in the years before Common Core was implemented (2003-2013).  Post-Common Core, scores at both grades have fallen, eighth grade at nearly the same rate as it was previously increasing,” the group said in its news release.

This is hardly surprising when you consider some of the labyrinthine math problems that ended up going viral when parents posted them on social media.

It’s even worse when you consider who was hardest-hit.

RELATED: We’re Finally Seeing the Full Scope of Common Core’s Damage

“The declines are most acute for the lowest-achieving students, increasing inequality,” the Pioneer Institute found.

“Scores for students at the 90th percentile have mostly continued their pre-Common Core trend of gradual improvement. But the farther behind students were, the more substantial the declines, with the biggest drops occurring for those at the 25th and 10th percentiles.”

It’s roughly the same story when it comes to reading.

“U.S. students fare better in reading than they do in math when compared to international competitors, but U.S. reading trends are similar to those seen in math, with gradual pre-Common Core improvement replaced by declines after Common Core was implemented,” the news release read.

“From 2003 to 2013, national fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores were increasing at an average of about half of a point each year.  Since 2013, fourth-grade reading scores have been falling by less than half of a point each year, while eighth-grade scores have dropped by nearly a full point a year.”

“The sustained decline we’re now seeing, especially among our most vulnerable students, simply cannot be allowed to continue,” Theodor Rebarber, author of the study, said.

“Several of us allied with Pioneer Institute have been pointing out, ever since it was introduced, the deeply flawed educational assumptions that permeate the Common Core and the many ways in which it is at odds with curriculum standards in top-achieving countries.”

Part of this, the news release says, “is a product of the misguided progressive pedagogies and biases of the education establishment that developed it.”

And this is the problem with Common Core: There was always a political element to it.

As the Pioneer Institute study said, “the design of the Common Core math standards assumed and promoted certain flawed progressive instructional assumptions and dogmas. Since the math standards generally rejected the proven approach of high-achieving Asian countries, the final Common Core standards no longer claimed to be ‘internationally benchmarked’ and indicated instead that they were merely ‘internationally informed.’”

English standards were even more problematic.

“The Common Core English standards also incorporated key progressive elements, such as a reduction in challenging, classic literary content and its replacement with simpler informational text supposedly intended to align with a student’s future activities in the workforce,” the study found.

This is Common Core, folks. Thanks to the Obama administration’s insistence on a national set of standards — which, of course, had progressive elements baked into them — we’ve seen math and reading scores collapse.

The more the federal government gets involved in education, the worse it works.

The scary thing for American parents shouldn’t be Common Core, though. It should be whatever ends up replacing it.

At least we can take some cold comfort in the fact that conservatives were right all along.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) launched a digital platform on Friday called “Protect the Vote” as a response to the left’s increasing attempts to use the coronavirus pandemic to push their election agenda items, such as universal mail-in voting.

“The RNC and the Trump campaign are aggressively fighting back against the Democrats’ assault on the integrity of our elections,” the website states, noting the left’s attempts to “use coronavirus and the courts to legalize ballot harvesting, implement a nationwide mail-in ballot system, and eliminate nearly every safeguard in our elections”:

Voters are on our side. Nearly two-thirds (62%) say there is fraud in U.S. elections, and that fraud would concern them under Democrats’ nationwide mail-in ballot system. Americans overwhelmingly approve of the safeguards Democrats are suing to eliminate like signature matching (84%), voter identification (80%), and a ballot receipt deadline of election day (83%). Voters also oppose (67%) allowing campaign workers to collect mail-in ballots, a practice known as ballot harvesting.

“Americans deserve to have confidence in their elections, and we will not stand idly by while Democrats try to sue their way to victory in November,” it adds.

Protect the Vote outlines a series of principles it adheres to in combating the left’s agenda to overhaul the way Americans vote in elections, reaffirming its belief that ballot harvesting is “unacceptable” and adding that “states should maintain primary responsibility for their voting laws.”

“Democrats couldn’t even count votes in Iowa, and now they suddenly believe they can redesign the entire U.S. election system in a matter of a few months,” it continues.

Nationalizing our elections, it stresses, is unacceptable:

Democrats have a radical plan to change our elections.

*Remove election safeguards
*Eliminate signature verification
*Increase risk of voter fraud

We are fighting back. Join us. https://t.co/Lvr5jinjL1 pic.twitter.com/AOHztGgj2A

— GOP (@GOP) May 8, 2020

The website also has a section specifically devoted to Marc Elias, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign attorney and chair of the Perkins Coie’s Political Law Group. He has remained at the forefront of the Democrat Party’s push for overhauling the way citizens participate in U.S elections, seeding lawsuits across the country in attempts to make it a reality through the court system.

Via Protect the Vote:

If you need a refresher, Perkins Coie is the Democratic law firm, paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign, that hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Donald Trump in 2016. They failed, but still compiled a dossier full of foreign-solicited lies about Trump and Russia, which was leaked by Obama intelligence officials to try to sabotage the new president’s administration, sow doubt in his election victory, and invalidate the votes of 63 million Americans. Not the best track record on “integrity.”

It’s no wonder that Elias is taking the phrase “never let a crisis go to waste” to heart during the coronavirus. From Wisconsin, to Nevada, to California, Marc Elias and the Democrats are continuing to push their liberal agenda disguised as supposed “election reform.” But what they really are doing is watering down important election safeguards and increasing the opportunity for rampant fraud, abuse and corruption.

In recent weeks, Democrat party leaders have upped their calls to nationalize the U.S. election system, calling for universal vote-by-mail and citing the fears surrounding the current public health crisis. However, progressive lawmakers are already revealing that they view the change as more than a temporary emergency measure for times of crisis or uncertainty, specifically.

“How can we ask voters to risk their heath [sic] to show up in person and cast a vote? We can’t. Which is why Congress and state leaders across the country must move immediately to implement vote by mail for the remainder of the 2020 election cycle — and beyond,” Democrat Reps. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) wrote in an op-ed this week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who attempted to pack an early Democrat version of the coronavirus relief with party goals such as vote-by-mail and ballot harvesting, has signaled that the next Democrat-penned relief measure will pursue similar agenda items.

“We have to think big,” Pelosi told Democrats during a private call on Monday.

Joe Biden (D), the party’s presumptive nominee, has also revealed his party’s hand, stating during a live stream this week that “we have an incredible opportunity to not just dig out of this crisis, but to fundamentally transform the country.”

“In battleground states across the country, Democrats are using the coronavirus as an excuse to push through their long-sought partisan agenda, but we are fighting back to protect the vote,” RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement, according to Fox News.

“The RNC will stop at nothing to ensure the integrity of our elections is upheld in the face of Democrats’ brazen assaults,” she continued:

Democrats will stop at nothing to defeat @realDonaldTrump, and that includes trying to sue their way to victory.

We are fighting back to protect the integrity of the vote!https://t.co/Wb4XcAU6BC

— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) May 8, 2020

“Americans deserve to have confidence in their elections, and we will not stand idly by while Democrats try to sue their way to victory in November,” McDaniel added.

Commissioner Chairman Dan Camp of Pennsylvania’s Beaver County on Friday slammed Gov. Tom Wolf (D) over his order excluding the county from moving into the next phase of reopening.

On Friday, 24 counties moved from Wolf’s “red” phase to “yellow,” allowing in-store retail operations but barring bars and restaurants from offering dine-in services and requiring salons, barbershops, theaters, and fitness centers to remained closed. Counties that moved to the “yellow” phase on Friday include Bradford, Cameron, Centre, Clarion, Clearfield, Clinton, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Forest, Jefferson, Lawrence, Lycoming, McKean, Mercer, Montour, Northumberland, Potter, Snyder, Sullivan, Tioga, Union, Venango, and Warren.

Noticeably absent in the cluster of counties is Beaver County – a decision that drew frustration from residents and the county commissioners.

“While the Governor has consistently preached a regional approach to reopening, it has become evident that his previous comments were merely another example of saying one thing and doing another,” Camp said on Friday, explaining that local officials can no longer remain silent and ignore the cries of residents.

“The governor’s double-talk means that Beaver County finds itself singled-out as the only Western Pennsylvania county in his administration’s red category, surrounded by a sea of yellow counties,” he continued, lamenting the “invisible wall surrounding and isolating Beaver County residents and businesses. “

“Our business owners and residents cannot become prisoners of our county because of this unwarranted double-talk,” he continued, slamming the governor for forcing them into an “exiled economic island.”

The governor’s decision is both “unwarranted and irrational,” Camp said, because “our hospital systems are not being overrun by COVID-19 patients, nor is there some communal spread within our community. And, those are the ignored facts!” he exclaimed, adding that the governor’s decision is “simply based solely on one outbreak” in a county nursing home.

“It’s no secret that nearly 70 percent of our COVID-19 cases and more than 90 percent of Beaver County’s COVID-19 related deaths are attributed to one nursing home within the county,” he emphasized.

Because of that, the Board of Commissioners announced that they will “stand behind our District Attorney in his decision not to prosecute any case against a business that chooses to open following the mandated guidelines as laid out in the yellow phase of reopening PA.”

Beaver County had 479 confirmed cases of the virus as of Friday.

Wolf on Friday announced 13 additional counties that will be permitted to move to the “yellow” phase of reopening next week, on Friday, May 15. Those include Allegheny, Armstrong, Bedford, Blair, Butler, Cambria, Fayette, Fulton, Greene, Indiana, Somerset, Washington, and Westmoreland.

The stay-at-home order remains in place for counties that remain in “red” phase. That order expires June 4.

Friday, former Republican Party chairman Michael Steele said to “bet on” President Donald Trump would bring back former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn to his administration “in some form.”

Steele called Flynn Trump’s “Russia guy,” adding while Democrats may be “upset” about the move, Republicans will likely not voice any issues with it.

“The president is talking about possibly bringing Michael Flynn back into the administration in some form. Bet on that,” Steele told MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” “That’s his Russia guy. Bet on it. If he can get Flynn in the back of the door, he will. And there won’t be a peep. Probably Democrats will be upset. Republicans, what are they going to say? What have they said so far? And so, you know, I look at this more broadly for folks who are sitting in jail right now who pled guilty, you know, to a crime, they’re sitting there going OK, so when does the DoJ or prosecutor come back and throw my conviction out? I mean, it just undermines the entire criminal justice system and the justice system overall to see the attorney general just sort of willy-nilly come to the table and go, OK, you’re free to go. We don’t want to prosecute this anymore. Everybody was worried about the president’s pardon power. Little did we know the attorney general also had a pardon power, and that was just not to prosecute, just to throw it out.”

He continued, “I think the judge should make them earn this. And I get they generally don’t want to go against a prosecutor’s recommendation, but in this case, they have to look hard and long at it and really ask the question, given what we said as a court to Mike Flynn a year ago, what position do we take down? What’s changed? The only thing that’s changed is the attorney general said, ‘Nah, we think we should just let him go now.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

Despite more than 33 million Americans filing for unemployment in recent weeks due to the Chinese coronavirus crisis, business is continuing to demand more foreign workers to take jobs in the United States.

On Thursday, a coalition of Republican House and Senate lawmakers sent letters to President Trump asking that he expand his immigration executive order to suspend foreign visa worker programs like the H-1B visa, the H-2B visa, the H-2A visa, and the OPT program while millions of Americans remain jobless.

Even with unemployment reaching record levels, businesses relying on foreign visa workers continue to claim there is a labor shortage.

Proponents of the various foreign visa worker programs told Newsweek that businesses need imported foreign labor even during times of mass unemployment:

Advocates who spoke with Newsweek said that the problem with carving out an exception for agricultural workers but targeting the rest of guest workers, is that those with H-2B nonagricultural visas for example, include seafood processors in Louisiana, and meatpackers in places like Iowa. The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) estimates that 80 percent of meatpacking plant workers are undocumented workers or refugees, many of whom would be directly impacted by the Republican plan. [Emphasis added]

Saket Soni, the executive director of the National Guestworker Alliance, said that for an employer to bring in a guest-worker they must attest to a labor shortage, calling into question whether the lawmaker’s goals are simply to go after guest workers indefinitely, even after the crisis has passed. [Emphasis added]

Seafood processing companies in Maryland and Virginia told local media that they need foreign visa workers because there are no Americans to fill the jobs. The seafood processing industry has repeatedly been accused of abusing foreign visa workers.

Maryland Matters reported:

“What college graduate can you train to pick a can of crab meat in six minutes?” said Dayme Hahn, the manager of Faidley Seafood, a famous crab cake purveyor in Baltimore. “If you sit there and watch these people, you would say, ‘I could never do that.’” [Emphasis added]

And few workers want a seasonal job. Crabbing is a heavily regulated industry, with the Department of Natural Resources deciding when the harvest starts and ends each year ― usually sometime between April and November. [Emphasis added]

In Chesapeake Bay Magazine, seafood processing companies complained that they are running at lower capacity because they have not been able to import as many foreign visa workers:

Many of the crabmeat processing businesses around the Bay are short-handed because they failed to get federal approval to bring in as many foreign workers as they have in previous years. [Emphasis added]

…

As a result, only three of Maryland’s nine “picking houses,” as the crab processors are known, received any visas in the initial drawing. After missing out on the lottery, Lindy’s Seafood on Hoopers Island was looking at limping along with a half-dozen local workers. [Emphasis added]

“We could sell more product, we just can’t produce it,” said sales manager Aubrey Vincent. [Emphasis added]

Specifically, the employers want more H-2B foreign visa workers — those who mostly arrive from Mexico and Central America to take nonagricultural jobs that could otherwise go to working class Americans.

Already, more than 66,000 H-2B foreign visa workers are admitted every year. The State Department, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, is allowing employers to fast-track these foreign workers by waiving certain visa requirements with no additional medical screenings.

Officials have suggested that Trump is considering expanding his immigration executive order to protect unemployed Americans from being forced to compete against foreign workers in the labor market.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.