Monthly Archives: March 2021

Wyoming wind energy proponents dodged a bullet when a legislative committee shot down yet another proposal to increase taxes on the industry.

But some are worried that having a tax debate about renewable energy year after year is taking its toll on wind projects and harming the industrys chances of capitalizing on a robust 2020. It may not matter if any of these repeated broadsides actually land; the uncertainty alone can scare off investors and eliminate the states chance to thrive.

I dont think its necessarily a case of direct assault on wind power in Wyoming. Its more like a steady drumbeat of opposition led by two groups with divergent interests one that genuinely wants equity in taxes on renewable resources and fossil fuels, and a second simply unwilling or unable to accept the end of coals glory days.

The first scenario leads to a fundamental problem, because tax parity cant exist for industries that use such different resources to generate electricity. How does a state assign equal values to a finite product like coal when its ripped from the ground, and an infinite one like wind that must be captured as it blows across our landscape for it to have any value?

The traditional apples-to-apples comparisons dont exist for wind and coal. The challenge for legislators, then, is to create policies that will allow an industry like wind to compete without being taxed out of existence.

For lawmakers intent on propping up the coal industry at all costs, it doesnt matter whether the competition comes from wind, solar, battery storage or some Earth-saving, peace-love-and-harmony inducing miracle energy technology from outer space. If coal doesnt win, these legislators think everyone in the state loses. They are true believers, frustrated that an industry that has brought so much revenue to Wyoming is the victim of what they view as environmental political correctness.

By a 7-2 vote, the House Revenue Committee killed House Bill 108-Wind energy production tax. The measure would have doubled the wind tax adding $1 per megawatt hour to the $1 per MW hour that has been enforced since the state began taxing wind generation in 2009.

HB 108 would have also repealed the three-year tax exemption on power generation once a project goes online now in effect.

Attorney Matt Micheli, former chair of the Wyoming Republican Party, has represented both coal and wind interests. He testified against HB 108, in part because Micheli realizes that raising taxes on any industry does not guarantee more revenue to state or local governments.

In 2010, Micheli recalled, Wyoming had 30 industrial wind farms on the drawing boards. Zero were built after the wind generation tax went into effect.

The industry struggled until last year, when Wyomings online wind capacity statewide increased by nearly 1,000 megawatts. That is second only to Texas in new construction.

Now we have $10 billion worth of wind projects that are once again in the pipeline, ready to come to this state, Micheli said. Were hearing [legislators make] the same arguments from more than a decade ago well get more revenue if we put another dollar [wind generation tax] on top of these contracts.

Randy Fitzpatrick of NextEra Energy Resources said in the highly competitive world of renewable energy, the difference between winning or losing a contract often comes down to pennies per megawatt hour.

Wyoming lost aNextEra project to Colorado over a mere 40 cents per MW hour, Fitzpatrick said. Doubling the current $1 per MW hour tax means Wyoming wind companies might as well just close up shop.

Wyoming is the only state in the nation that requires the wind industry to pay three forms of taxes, Micheli noted: on electricity generation, sales and property. If all of the states wind projects come to fruition, he said, it would mean almost $1.5 billion in state tax revenue over the next 20 years.

But a 100% increase in the wind generation tax that renders Wyoming unappealing would result in no new tax revenue, period.

If we force these projects to other states, where is that money going to come from? Micheli asked. I dont want to increase sales taxes and property taxes. I dont want an income tax.

Wyoming Business Alliance President Cindy DeLancey also testified against HB 108. This is where our money is going to come from, she said of wind energy. Were at a point where we are thinking about our revenue challenges, how we broaden our tax base [Instead of] adding additional barriers to produce non-mineral revenue, we need to be opening our doors.

Indeed, Wyomings major energy competitors, including Colorado and Utah, have paved the way for their success by offering property tax abatements and sales tax exemptions for wind projects.

Micheli asked if Wyoming legislators will be able to resist making the kind of harmful tax decisions that have hampered the growth of the states wind industry until now.

Their vote proved they are able. Thats good news, but the state is lagging. Voters should ask why Wyoming is still having this conversation in 2021.

Veteran Wyoming journalist Kerry Drake has covered Wyoming for more than four decades, previously as a reporter and editor for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle and Casper Star-Tribune. He lives in Cheyenne and can be reached at kerry.drake33@yahoo.com.

Original post:

Can Wyoming get out of its own way in courting renewables? - Wyoming Tribune

Over the last two weeks, Democrats continued passing patently partisan bills instead of working across the aisle to find bipartisan solutions. The most glaring example of this was the rushed $1.9 trillion progressive wish-list shamelessly guised as COVID relief.

What the media will not report is that we still have nearly $1 trillion of unspent funds from previous COVID legislation. Piling more onto our national debt while this money remains untouched is completely irresponsible. If enacted, our total coronavirus spending will reach a staggering $6 trillion. Folks, thats more than the GDP of every country except China and the United States.

Talk about reckless spending!

Hidden behind this hefty price tag are numerous provisions that have absolutely nothing to do with COVID. In fact, only 9 percent actually goes toward public health funding. But this didnt stop Speaker Nancy Pelosi from including a $140 million carveout for a Silicon Valley subway. After rejecting a Republican amendment to redirect this money for student mental health programs, Pelosi eventually removed her California pet project from the bill. I guess she finally realized partisan pork spending does little for struggling small businesses, students suffering from months away from the classroom, and speeding up vaccine distribution.

Dont be fooled by the title of the Equality Act; this liberal legislation is unjust, unfair and penalizes Americans for their beliefs on biological sex. We cannot punish individuals for their moral values just to appease woke politicians.

Under this bill, biological males can compete in female sports practically guaranteeing that biological females would no longer have a chance to succeed in sports or secure much-needed scholarships. This produces a whole new set of challenges for young women to reach their goals.

Does that sound equal to you?

I proudly voted against this federal overreach that infringes on millions of Americans Constitutional rights in the name of equality and political correctness.

After the 2020 elections raised countless concerns, its clear reform is needed to restore public trust in our elections, and naturally, Democrats thought a big government approach would tackle the challenge. Their so-called For the People Act is just another Pelosi power grab aimed to nationalize our elections and benefit progressive politicians.

Tired of attack ads? Under this legislation, the federal government would help fund them. Authorizing publicly funded campaigns through a 6 to 1 funding match means that for every $200 donation, the federal government will match $1,200. The government has no place in filling campaign coffers.

Additionally, this one-size-fits-all mandate strips states of their ability to make decisions on registration and voting practices. I dont know about you, but Id rather let Alabama choose what works best for us, and not have Californias liberal election laws forced down our throats.

Free, fair, and accurate elections are the bedrock of our Constitutional Republic. Yet through this dangerous bill, Democrats are promoting ballot harvesting, and universal mail-in voting, and discouraging voter ID.

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Please reach out to my office at barrymoore.house.gov, calling (202) 225-2901, or mailing him at 1504 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, Keeping close contact with you is my top priority as I am traveling between Alabama and Washington, D.C. As the 117th Congress gets to work, I hope you will stay updated on my activities by joining me at:

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The Moore You Know | Opinion | southeastsun.com - The Southeast Sun

Its easy to accuse the NRL of wowserism after it sent Cronullas Toby Rudolf an official warning for his post-match comments about his potential post-match antics after victory of the Dragons.

Part of his cunning plan was to have 1000 beers and then try and pull something. Anything will do at Northies Hotel. In reality, he was probably going to have an ice bath and a good nights sleep before recovery the following day.

It was met with merriment on The Matty Johns Show, which was conducting the on-field cross, and shared widely on social media. Rudolf is viewed as a bit of a throwback footballer, a knockabout lad who might play on a weekend and throw a few bricks around the building site bright and early Monday.

Alas, the hilarity ended on Tuesday when NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo swiftly let Rudolf and the Sharks know it was all out of order.

Its clear that those kind of comments are offensive and derogatory to people and thats not how we are as a game any more, Abdo told the Herald. He was trying to make a joke but its not appropriate to joke like that. I think he understands and he appreciates those comments are hurtful.

The response has been met with the familiar cries of political correctness gone mad and that the real characters were being driven out of the code. In rugby league, there is always the undertone from certain sections that the game is slowly being drained of its core macho elements; just look at the reaction when the shoulder charge was rightly outlawed.

Toby Rudolf during his Fox Sports cross. He has been warned by the NRL for the contents of the interview.

But this was the ultimate no brainer for the suits at NRL HQ, especially in the context of a week where the treatment of women has been front and centre in the nations consciousness. On Monday, thousands joined the March 4 Justice rallies around the nation to protest against sexism and gendered violence.

One of its former stars, Jarryd Hayne, has also been in court this week as he faces two charges of aggravated sexual assault inflicting actual bodily harm on a woman in her bedroom on September 30, 2018. He has pleaded not guilty.

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It was a no-brainer for the NRL to warn Toby Rudolf over post-match interview - Sydney Morning Herald

The Washington Post had a story in January I've had in my head since: Civics teachers are our best and maybe our only chance to get this country back on track.

This month a group called Educating for American Democracyreleased a report on making civics education a higher priority. We've put ourselves behind the 8-ball for a generation or two. Id wager a sad percentage of millennials think a filibuster is a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

The herculean work is a partnership of the U.S. Department of Education, the National Archives Foundation, the Smithsonian and others who are concerned about how the next generation will practice democracy. Autonomous zones and smashing windows at the Capitol to hang the vice president are not the American way.

We the People unite love of country with clear-eyed wisdom about our successes and failures in order to chart our path forward, says the collective. In recent decades, we as a nation have failed to prepare young Americans for self-government. The time has come to recommit to history and civics."

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I won't kid you. I get uneasy when the government wades into these sorts of things. The government doesnt have a great track record of making things better.

Who gets to pick the standards?

For the third year in a row, Democrats in the Colorado House are trying to pass a media literacy bill for school districts and charter schools. House Bill 1103wouldnt cost anything, but it would require the state Board of Education to expand academic standards for reading, writing and civics to include competency in media literacy, meaning being able to tel the difference between a conspiracy theory and the evening news.

Rep. Lisa Cutter, a Democrat from Littleton with a background in communications, points to the frighteningly high number of people who get their news entirely from social media or news sources more attuned to ratings and clicks than democracy and truth-telling.

This growth coincides with decreased readership and funding for traditional institutions and the robust fact-checking standards, years of editorial expertise, accountability and layers of filters they provide, she told the House Education Committee last week. In this changing landscape the burden of evaluation for the validity of information is shifting from media outlets to the individual.

Republicans are worried about the Democratic majority imposing a leftward slant, stopping barely short of calling it brainwashing.

This brings up all kinds of fear that this is an opportunity for one-sided censorship, along the lines of whats trendy right now with political correctness and censorship, said Republican Rep. Mark Baisley of Roxborough Park.

He called the state Civil Rights Commission as a panel with a partisan agenda, pointing to the case of a baker in Lakewood who refused to sell a wedding cake to same-sex couple, because of his religious beliefs.

The question here is do we trust our teachers? I can only speak from experience, but I know they can do it.

Maurice McGee taught a master class in civics and student psychology 40 years ago at my high school.

He never told us what to think. He told us what to think about. After that, it was up to us to decide what kind of citizen we wanted to be, engaged or enraged. I chose aggravating.

I knew hed make me figure it out for myself, but I asked anyway: Can civics teachers fix our broken nation?

Here's the deal, Mr. McGee started, as my mind began spinning back four decades to see him leaning on the edge of his desk, neatly dressed, arms folded and heavy rimmed glasses affixed above his bushy mustache. The sciences such as math, chemistry, etc. have a set of rules and laws that, if followed, lead to a certain outcome. But individuals and the whole of society have no set of fixed values that leads to a wholly predictable outcome. Past outcomes help predict future actions, but nothing seems to be finite or etched in stone.

There is no set formula. History, civics, government, sociology can predict but not guarantee. I tried to give and teach facts and then hope for feedback. I could give you a thought or an idea and then wait for you to react. Your reaction told me that you were listening and assessing what you had been given. With you I could expect a reaction, and I almost always got one.

So thats how I became an excitable man.

It was not about the right thought or the wrong one, but simply the fact that I was provoking thought, Mr. McGee said. The most difficult students to teach were the ones who never reacted. I didn't know if their brain was turned on or not. So, I would try harder to get a reaction. I wanted my students to know facts, and then be able to associate these facts with the human condition.

Thats how a teacher teaches instead of preaches.

Mr. McGee said critical thinking was the skill he was trying to teach, not stump for votes.

Hope this makes sense, he said, wrapping up another good lesson.

Education has always been the engine that carried our nation forward, more than armies ever could. If we're going to save America, I'll take an army of Mr. McGees.

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INSIGHTS | Civics teachers are our best chance to save the world - coloradopolitics.com

Bill Burr was an unexpected presenter at the 2021 Grammy Awards, and many viewers were upset by his flippant humor. The controversial comedian presented the award for Best Tropical Latin Album at the Grammys premiere ceremony before the main event. Within minutes, videos of his jokes on stage were going viral.

Burr was reviled by some and lauded as a hero by others on Twitter on Sunday evening as footage of his Grammy's performance made the rounds. As always, he was dismissive of others' feelings, throwing out terms like "feminist" and "cis white male" as if they were punchlines in and of themselves. He got few audible laughs within the theater, and sparse ones on social media. Most were simply confused as to why Burr was chosen as a presenter in the first place.

Burr has a long reputation as a provocateur, from his stand-up comedy to his TV appearances to podcasts. He often pokes fun at young people, so-called "cancel culture," "political correctness" and other charged topics.

With no Latino heritage and little regard for other cultures, many viewers were baffled to see Burr presenting the award for Best Tropical Latin Album on Sunday. Scroll down for a look at the fall-out afterwards.

Whether or not Burr should have had a platform to say what he said on the Grammys stage, many fans argued that his commentary was, first and foremost, not funny. The comedian did not so much make a joke as inflect a mocking tone on his political presumptions, which had no apparent bearing on the award show itself.

Beyond that, many thought that Burr's Grammys commentary was disrespectful, especially to the artists who were there to receive what might be the honor of their lives. They accused the Recording Academy of disrespect too by hiring Burr for this position.

Of course, many people believed that Burr knew exactly what he was doing by provoking an angry response from social media at large. This included both fans and wary detractors.

Many critics said that Bill Burr's place on the presenting schedule was an indication of racism from the academy as a whole a common accusation these days as the Grammys face accusations from multiple high profile artists.

Many viewers thought that Burr himself looked uncomfortable with his position in this award show, and speculated that he was trying to deliver what was expected of him but missing the mark.

As Burr's segment went viral rapidly, many Twitter users questioned why everyone seemed to be watching the Grammy's premiere ceremony hours before the main event actually started.

Finally, many fans felt that at this point, Burr should be removed from the cast of The Mandalorian along with his former co-star Gina Carano. The 2021 Grammys begin at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.

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Bill Burr's Grammys Appearance Ruffled Tons of Feathers and Delighted Fans - PopCulture.com

At the same time, Hajkova insists that exposing stories of sexual assault and homophobia is an overtly political act, clearly connecting to contemporary debates over #MeToo and LGBT.

In that, she could risk a backlash. Holocaust history has become something of a minefield in Central Europe, as right-wing regimes seek to mould narratives to suit their agenda.

Terezin sits just 60km from Poland, where the Law & Justice (PiS) government is pressing for tight control of WWII history including the Nazi death camps that were established in the country to mobilise support for its nationalist populism.

This push, which includes a Holocaust law criminalising claims that Poles engaged in any of the Nazis crimes, has put academics on the frontline. Historians straying from the official narrative have faced lawsuits, job losses and persecution in the press.

But the Czech approach to 20th century history is very different. Highly individualistic, Czech society is largely immune to the blood-and-soil rhetoric employed to promote nationalism elsewhere in the region, suggests Ondrej Klipa, an associate professor at Pragues Charles University.

That may have also helped to stymie the relationship of Czechs with Terezin. Hajkova says she has faced no blowback from her work on the camp, though the author suggests there are more specific reasons her work has not incurred the kind of anger that it might meet elsewhere.

There is no real debate over the history of Terezin in Czechia, she says, although is careful to stress that this is her personal, rather than scholarly, opinion. Compared with most countries towards the eastern end of Europe, Hajkova continues, the Czechs understand the Holocaust as a story apart that does not play a large role in national memory.

That, she suggests, may be because the country did not suffer the same depth of trauma as its neighbours. However, the historian also notes the way in which virulent anti-communism has come to dominate the national narrative in the Czech public and political spheres.

Its a dynamic illustrated by recent political episodes. The former Senate president Jaroslav Kubera became a hero last year when his defiance of the Chinese Communist Party ended in a fatal heart attack. Yet that status was bestowed upon him by the nation not long after he told an audience at Terezin that totalitarianism and racism have taken the form of environmental protection, gender equality, political correctness and multiculturalism.

More recently, protestors appeared on the streets of Prague wearing yellow stars, claiming that those refusing COVID-19 vaccination will be marked out in the same way that Jews were during the war. Still, there was little public outcry, save for the objections of stunned Jewish groups.

Thus, Hajkovas book challenges not so much established national narratives of the ghetto and Holocaust, but a virtual wall of silence.

I think its liberating and helps people to think about the societies they live in to tell these silenced stories, the author argues. Czechia has not had this reckoning with its past when it comes to communism, nor the Holocaust.

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The silences of Terezin - Balkan Insight

Before Wakanda, there was Zamunda.

The 1988 film Coming to America, directed by John Landis, depicted a realized African dynasty that could only be described as fit for a prince. Naturally, no better fit for the main role was there than comedic prince Eddie Murphy.

The films release resulted in both domestic and worldwide success at the box office and is now revered as a cultural treasure and a nostalgia-inducing classic in Eddie Murphys royal arsenal of filmography.

So when the announcement came that a sequel was in the works, it understandably came with some skepticism. In a world of political correctness and cancel culture, fans of the original film feared that the sequel would not include elements of what made the 1988 film so iconically funny.

Eddie Murphy returns as Prince Akeem Joffer, the heir to the Zamundan throne, now a doting husband to his Queen Lisa, played by Shari Headley. He is also now a loving father to three daughters; his oldest and youngest daughters, Meeka and Tinashe, are played by Kiki Layne and Akiley Love respectively, and Murphys real-life daughter Bella has the role of Akeems middle daughter, Omma.

When Akeems father King Jaffe, played by James Earl Jones, passes away, he must travel once again to Queens, New York, to find the true heir to the throne of Zamunda. With the help of his loyal confidante of 30 years, Semmi, played by Arsenio Hall, Akeem locates his son, Lavelle, played by Jermaine Fowler.

Accompanied by his mother, played by Leslie Jones, Lavelle returns to Zamunda with King Akeem to learn of his newfound princely duties. King Akeem concludes that there is more to being a king than assuming the throne, and that family is the greatest ruler of all.

One of the triumphs of the film is its ability to introduce sociopolitical issues relevant to real-life experiences of Black people. This is displayed in a particular scene where Lavelle is at a job interview at the Duke and Duke firm. The reference to the business is a clever nod to the Brothers Duke from the 1983 film Trading Places, two other antagonists in the EMCU (Eddie Murphy Cinematic Universe).

Interviewed by Calvin Duke, played by Saturday Night Live news correspondent Colin Jost, Lavelle points out the disparities that exist between him and his white interviewer. Much to Dukes chagrin, Lavelle is more than happy to walk out of the interview so as not to feel any further onslaught of microaggressions.

Although there were opportunities in the film where the comedy couldve been taken back to 1988, the fresh take on dry humor and the myriad of cultural references bring the world of Zamunda into the 21st century. As a word of caution, older fans can take note from Akeems daughter Omma: to be on fleek is no more.

The storyline would be remiss if it didnt include some of the original films beloved characters, many played by Hall and Murphy: the neighborhood barbers with their tongue-in-cheek rapport, the musical stylings of Randy Watson and Sexual Chocolate, and the chaotic-but-devout Reverend Brown. Also returning is the head of the McDowells fast-food empire, Cleo McDowell, played by John Amos.

Alongside the characters from the 1988 film, Coming 2 America embellishes a star-studded cast that is on par with the gems of the Royal Jewels. Fans can revel in cameos from Morgan Freeman, En Vogue, Salt-N-Pepa, Gladys Knight, Teyana Taylor, Rick Ross and Trevor Noah, to name a few.

While Coming 2 America may not have met the full expectations of those fans who longed for a film that calls back to the era of Eddie Murphys Raw, the purpose of the film served as a way to blend the generations of fans who consider the original film a staple of Black cinema. Zamunda may be a place of fiction, but the reality of Black excellence lives on.

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'Coming 2 America' is a royal flush 30 years in the making - Mesa Press

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With last weeks introduction in Congress of the misleadingly named Civics Secures Democracy Act, we are headed toward an epic clash over the spread of uber-controversial pedagogies Critical Race Theory and Action Civics to Americas classrooms. I dont know whether the country will wake up to the danger of this legislation before or after it passes. Sooner or later, however, the truth will out. When it does, the culture war will have merged with K12 education-policy disputes to a degree never before seen.

Because this new legislation is a backdoor effort to impose a de facto national curriculum in the politically charged subject areas of history and civics, the battle will rage in the states, at the federal level, and between the states and the federal government as well. The Biden administrations Education Department will almost certainly collaborate in this attempt to develop a set of national incentives, measures, and penalties that effectively force Critical Race Theory and Action Civics onto states and localities. The likelihood of education controversies moving from third-tier to first-tier issues in federal elections has never been greater.

The Republicans who have co-sponsored the Civics Secures Democracy Act in the Senate (John Cornyn) and the House (Tom Cole) have been hornswoggled and hogtied into backing legislation that is about as far from conservative as a bill could be. It should be said in extenuation of their decision that the bill is careful to bury its true ends under anodyne jargon. You have to know a lot about Action Civics, for example, to understand that this bill is designed to force it onto the states. Most conservatives dont even know what Action Civics is, much less understand its misleading jargon. The very term Action Civics is a euphemism for political protests for course credit, something close to the opposite of a proper civics course. Thats one reason why the Civics Secures Democracy Act is so egregiously misnamed.

There have, of course, been many important education battles in our time. The conservative movement was founded by William F. Buckleys 1951 book, God and Man at Yale, an early attack on the secular socialism of the university. Cultural issues remained important to movement conservatism, yet the focus soon turned to politics and policy in the ordinary sense. The 1960s gave birth to a series of intense cultural battles, with universities as epicenters of controversy. Yet many of the clashes were over the war and the draft. For the most part, the federal government kept out of higher-education controversies in that era.

The battle over the teaching of Western Civilization at Stanford in 1987 kicked off a decade-long culture war over multiculturalism and political correctness, the ancestor of our clashes today. At this point, education battles began to seep into national politics, especially via the actions of Education Secretary William Bennett and National Endowment for the Humanities chair Lynne Cheney. Even so, universities incubating what eventually was to become todays woke culture were largely insulated from government intervention by academic freedom.

The Obama administration pushed the K12 Common Core on states, but the founders of Common Core made a calculated decision to omit the controversial subjects of history and civics from that effort. They understood the dangers of mixing education policy with high-intensity culture war issues. Now, however, in an attempt to complete the creation of a de facto national curriculum, the top supporters of Common Core (including, sad to say, a few conservatives) have formed an alliance with the top national advocates of Action Civics and Critical Race Theory. The result is what we see in the Civics Secures Democracy Act and what were likely to get very soon from the Biden administration a de facto national curriculum in Action Civics and Critical Race Theory. And all of this is happening as woke culture is spilling out of the campuses and into the wider society. Once the reality of this new push for education reform comes into the open, we will see the culture war merge with the details of federal education policy in unprecedented fashion.

What does the not-so-civic Civics Secures Democracy Act of 2021 actually do? Above all, it appropriates $1 billion for federal grants to support K12 curriculum development, teacher training, and research on the K12 teaching of history and civics. Sounds good, if expensive, until you look at the fine print. Priority for grants is decided according to two basic criteria.

First of all, priority goes to grants that support evidence-based practices. The bill goes on to list these supposedly evidence-based practices, which are essentially the menu of troubling teaching techniques favored by the movement for Action Civics (Bill Page 5, Line 16-Page 6, Line 5). These are the very same practices I have written model legislation to block at the state level. They include: 1) directing teachers to discuss current social and political controversies in class; 2) out-of-class political protests and lobbying (nearly always for leftist causes) for course credit (in the bill, called projects and experiential learning) and 3) internships with (invariably leftist) lobbying and advocacy organizations for course credit (in the bill, called service learning).

Programs in media literacy are also marked as a priority. These programs ostensibly warn students away from dangerous conspiracy theories. In practice, however, they discourage students from looking at conservative sources and hold up mainstream media fact-checkers (largely left-biased) as sources of ultimate authority. Essentially, media literacy programs favored by advocates of the new civics inculcate the Democratic Partys position on fake news.

The upshot is that the lions share of this billion-dollar jackpot will support mandatory leftist protest, lobbying, and indoctrination, while supporters of traditional civics and history will be frozen out.

The second criterion for priority applies to grants that improve knowledge and engagement among traditionally underserved students, as well as grants that promise to close gaps in knowledge and achievement among students of different income levels, racial and ethnic groups, and native languages. This gives the inside lane to Critical Race Theory, while largely disqualifying those who believe that American history and civics can unify if presented in a broadly similar manner to students of all incomes, races, and ethnicities.

That may sound too strong. Keep in mind, however, that the main public justification for the controversial, Critical Race Theory-based Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards just approved in Illinois was that they would be more likely to attract minority teachers and more likely to appeal to minority students, thereby closing achievement gaps. Yet those standards force teachers to call America systemically racist, affirm the fluidity of gender, mitigate their Euro-centrism and whiteness, and substitute activism for achievement when grading students. Finding creative ways to present traditional civics to minorities is one thing. Teaching radical activism is quite another.

Yet the movement for Critical Race Theory in education essentially presents itself as fulfilling both priority criteria for grants listed in this bill: experiential advocacy projects designed to appeal to minority students. We are talking about Black Lives Matter protests outside of police stations for course credit. And the grants will be disbursed by President Bidens Education Department, sure to be staffed by left-leaning bureaucrats who believe as does the president that our country is systemically racist. Put together the priority criteria and a Democrat-controlled Department of Education and you will see a tremendous number of grants going to Critical Race Theory-based political advocacy programs, all under the label of civics.

Critical Race Theory, of course, is antithetical to the classically liberal principles upon which our constitutional republic rests. Teaching it is actually a form of anti-civics. Yet that is what hundreds of millions of dollars disbursed by the Civics Secures Democracy Act is going to be used for.

So, the Civics Secures Democracy Act is a massive boondoggle in support of politicizing students and teaching them to trade away equality and individual liberty for identity politics and the redistribution of . . . well, pretty much everything. But theres more. On top of its billion-dollar lure, the bill revamps a key national test as a backdoor way of imposing a de facto national curriculum on the states.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), famous as the nations report card, is the national test that allows us to tell how well the states are doing at teaching basic knowledge and skills. NAEP allows us to see that, whereas Americas reading and math scores had once been headed up, Common Core has brought them down. Yet NAEP was never intended to create a national curriculum. On the contrary, NAEP was deliberately designed to make it difficult or impossible to link its results to state or local curricula. If anything, by revealing the failure of Common Core, NAEP has already discredited the very idea of a de facto national curriculum.

For decades, however, some have dreamed of using NAEP as a way of imposing what amounts to a national curriculum on the states. If NAEP could be aligned to specific history or civics standards, and administered in such a way as to facilitate state-by-state comparisons between results, the test could effectively force a federal curriculum on states and localities. Variable state NAEP results could then be tied to the awarding of federal grants. State-by-state rankings would have a profound effect on parental satisfaction with schools, and thus on migration in and out of state by both individuals and businesses.

The Civics Secures Democracy Act of 2021 is very much part of an effort to use NAEP to force a revisionist history and civics curriculum down the throats of unsuspecting states and localities. The bill would increase and regularize NAEP assessments in history and civics, facilitate state-by-state comparisons, and condition grants on the willingness of a state to participate in the history and civics portions of the test on a regular basis. Grant renewals would also be conditioned on statewide performance on the reorganized NAEP.

Combine this with the ambitions of the new, supposedly bipartisan, Educating for American Democracy (EAD) initiative (aptly described as a Trojan Horse for Woke Education). The leftist leaders of EAD, who just happen to be the chief public backers of the Civics Secures Democracy Act of 2021, issued a draft report on implementation that I have seen, but that seems not to have been released to the public in final form. That draft report calls for NAEP to be redesigned to align with EAD. This would be an inexcusable national power-grab and an affront to the proper purpose of NAEP. Its clear, however, that this is exactly what the bogus leftist civics coalition wants. (For a new report by the Heritage Foundation critical of EAD and its national ambitions, go here. For more critiques of EAD, go here and here.)

In effect, we are looking at an effort to impose a new federal Common Core in the politically explosive subject areas of history and civics. Worse, the program in each of these areas does more than just lean a bit toward the left side of the political spectrum. Instead, it sharply breaks with fundamental assumptions in American education, first by promoting illiberal Critical Race Theory, and second by turning what should be a politically neutral classroom into a training ground for leftist advocacy and lobbying.

All around us, the culture war has broken the bounds of the university and spilled into our day-to-day lives. Conservatives and traditional liberals are rightly up in arms about the woke assault on our most fundamental freedoms, extending to inculcating guilt and shame in elementary-school students for the color of their skin. The Democrats in Congress, in league with the Biden administration and the leftist Action Civics movement, are about to supercharge this culture war by injecting it into the heart of federal education policy. Whether sooner or later, this is destined to become the greatest education battle of our lifetimes.

See more here:

The Greatest Education Battle of Our Lifetimes - National Review

When Jennifer Lopez sang "This Land is Your Land" at the presidential inauguration in January, my phone blew up with messages saying, J. Los singing your song!

Its understandable why so many friends and peers associate the song with me: I talk about Woody Guthrie an awful lot. Ever since I first read Bound for Glory in high school, Ive never quite been able to shut up about the man: this Walt Whitman with a James Dean sneer, this Will Rogers with a razor in his shoe, this proto-punk poet who was just anarchic enough to believe in human decency, American potential, and though he sprouted from deeply racist roots in Jim Crow Oklahoma a racially inclusive society.

And so, as youd expect, his anthemic, tongue-in-cheek retort to Irving Berlins God Bless America has a special place in my heart, too. Its long been a central pillar of both my public performances and my educational programs for kids.

In theschool programsI teach on social justice, I use the song to unpack the idea of ownership. Whereas the chorus and first two verses speak to what we collectivelygetfrom America, the rarely sung additional verses ask what weowe to each other, specifically.

In the squares of the city, in the shadow of a steeple;By the relief office, I'd seen my people.As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,Is this land made for you and me?

In the programs I teach on writing, meanwhile, I use the song to teach about structure and rhyme scheme, and the ways in which a masterful lyricist like Guthrie is able to break all the rules.

But lately, Ive been rethinking my reliance on the song in my teaching, and the unintended message I may be sending to kids through its lens on American history a lens that obscures the fact that our land was, in fact, taken from its native inhabitants by force.

In 2019, Mali Obomsawin, a member of the folk trio Lula Wiles, wrote a piece for Folklife Magazine on how the song speaks to her as a citizen of the Abenaki First Nation: This land is your land, this land is my land These lyrics shake me up like a soda can every time I hear them. She makes a compelling case for why the lyrics, intentionally or not, reinforce Native oppression.

The article was met with quick backlash. Conservative papers reacted about how youd expect, but the reaction from many on the left was damning too. What both sides shared was a breezy dismissal of the concerns of a woman of color one with multi-layered expertise on the subject by largely white male authors.

Obomsawin is not the first Indigenous American musician to object to how This Land is Your Land has been sung and used over the years. Raye Zaragoza has spoken out about it too, and Buffy Sainte-Marie, one of the best-known Indigenous performers of all time, has long voiced her objections.

Somehow, though, Id never heard these perspectives until recently. Maybe its because the media is publishing wider perspectives than they used to. More likely its because Im paying more attention.

I dont want to throw away my beloved This Land is Your Land. But the opinions of musicians like Obomsawin and Sainte-Marie matter to me.

Like many white Americans, I was jolted out of a complicit slumber by the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor this past year. Instead of just shaking my head and dashing off another ineffectual social media post, I decided to go deeper this time. I helped start a racial justice coalition in the Boston suburb where I live and another in children's music. I worked more closely than I ever had with Black and brown peers in these groups. I heard their stories, I asked questions. I learned to talk a little less and listen a little more.

And then, a few months ago, I was faced with a dilemma: I received a Grammy nomination, along with four other white nominees, for Best Childrens Album of the Year. Unlike when I was nominated as part of an all-white slate in 2013, this timeI recognized that there was a problem.

Artists of color have been deeplyunderrepresented in this category over the years. While there are complicated and nuanced reasons for this, the end result is a lack of representation that is not OK especially in a genre like childrens music, where musicians are uniquely tasked with modeling fairness, kindness and inclusion.

So, after much deliberation and communication with others involved, I and two of the other five nominated acts decided to respectfully decline our nominations. An NPR story on our decision led to a rash of national coverage. Like Obomsawin, we were trolled by white nationalists, but we also heard from many on the left who felt our move was misguided. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of those who weighed in were white.

I dont want to throw away my beloved This Land is Your Land. Its one of the songs that made me want to be a songwriter and that, despite its shortcomings, still resonates with me deeply. But the opinions of musicians like Obomsawin and Sainte-Marie matter to me. If I value their worth and intellect as musical peers and human beings, then I need to make a genuine effort to hear them to check my defensive instincts and be willing to reconsider my assumptions, even around something I love.

This is the work of allyship. Its not about political correctness. Its not even about getting it right. Its about trying to create more space for other voices and being willing to loosen our grip on the things weve convinced ourselves we need.

In this case, it may mean coming around to the idea that the best way to honor Woody Guthries vision of an equitable and inclusive nation is to live his famous words rather than sing them.

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Why I'd Rather Live Woody Guthrie's Words Than Sing Them - WBUR

How much blood has to spill on the streets of a city before elected officials give up political correctness and embrace tough policing.

Seattles murder rate rose more than 60 percent last year and violent assaults are up this year too.

Portlands worse. Shootings more than doubled last year.

Mayor Ted Wheelers cave-in to his violent Antifa and BLM friends led to cuts of tens of millions in police

That left the city with 55 homicides in last year: the highest number in a quarter century.

For context, only 20 people were murdered the year Wheeler first took office in 2016

This year, so far, we are already on track to top 100 murders.

And whats city halls solution? Portland has one of the lowest number of officers per capita anywhere in America.

And were short 90 cops right now. The city hasnt hired a single cop in the last 8 months.

And now the city council, unbelievably, wants to cut police 5% more with the promise it will put back 1 percent next year

How does this hit YOU?

When youre hurt or dying or in trouble and you call 9-1-1 for a lights and siren cop at top speedthe bureaus GOAL is to get to you 8 minutes after dispatch.

Theyre currently averaging 11 minutes.

My suggestion? Buy a gun, spend time at the range, get your shots inside the ten ring, and aim for center of mass.

The post Northwest Government Seems To Urge People To Buy A Gun For Protection appeared first on The Lars Larson Show.

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Northwest Government Seems To Urge People To Buy A Gun For Protection - 550 KTSA