Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,

The Met Office has been unable to back up a claim that storms in the U.K. are “more intense” due to the effects of climate change.

The claim was made by senior Met Office meteorologist Claire Nasir on January 22nd on BBC 5 Live Breakfast in the aftermath of Storm Isha, and led to a freedom of information request for an explanation by investigative journalist Paul Homewood.

The Met Office has replied that it is unable to answer the request due to the fact that the information “is not held”.

In fact the Met Office could have addressed the claim that storms are growing in intensity by referring to its own ‘State of the Climate 2022’ report:

The most recent two decades have seen fewer occurrences of maximum gust speeds above these thresholds [40/50/60 knots] than during previous decades, particularly comparing the period before and after 2000. This earlier period [before 2000] also included among the most severe storms experienced in the U.K. in the observational records including the ‘Burns Day Storm’ of January 25th 1990, the ‘Boxing Day Storm’ of December 26th 1998 and the ‘Great Storm’ of October 16th 1987. Any comparison of storms is complex as it depends on severity, spatial extent and duration. Storm Eunice [in 2022] was the most severe storm to affect England and Wales since February 2014, but even so, these storms of the 1980s and 1990s were much more severe.

An explanation for the remarks broadcast unchallenged on the BBC was provided by the Met Office, “in order to provide advice and assistance”. The statement about more intense storms being due to climate change was, the Met Office explains, in reference to “our published U.K. Climate Projections, looking at projections in the future”. This is straight out laughable, since it seeks to justify a statement firmly in the present with waffle about future modelled projections. Paul Homewood comments that it is “small wonder that so many have little confidence in the Met Office anymore”. Meanwhile, the Global Warming Policy Foundation has demanded that the Met Office retracts the “false ‘more intense storms’ claim”. The foundation notes that there is no compelling trend in maximum gust speeds recorded in the U.K. since 1969.

Of course these remarks by Claire Nasir are just the latest in a long line of scares that are being spread by state-funded operations promoting the collectivist Net Zero project. In the mainstream media there is little or no push back on often outrageous and improbable claims of climate collapse and potential future human misery.

In December, the headlines were full of the news that London could suffer an endemic dengue plague by 2060 due to changes in the climate. The claim from the Health Security Agency arose from a computer model fed with an implausible rise in temperature of 3-4°C within 80 years. Paul Reiter, retired Professor of Insects and Infectious Diseases at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, called the claims “entirely  fictional” and “shameless”. Andrew Montford of Net Zero Watch commented that science is being misused to generate fear and to ‘nudge’ us in a desired direction. “This kind of shameful disinformation brings the Civil Service into disrepute,” he said.

The cynical might observe that climate Armageddonites know they are unlikely to be challenged on any claim on climate change, however improbable. In mainstream media, politics and academia, the science is ‘settled’. As a matter of policy, the BBC no longer gives airtime to anyone challenging the politicised narrative. As a result, many scientists seem to have lost the ability to engage in a rational debate with anyone taking a sceptical view of their work. Last December, the Daily Sceptic reported on a paper from the Met Office that proposed a radical new method of calculating climate temperature change. The scientific method of calculating trends over 30 years was to be ditched and replaced with 10 years of actual data merged with model projections for the next decade. The motive behind this controversial move was obvious since the hope would be to claim an earlier breach of the 1.5°C political threshold. The paper was led by Professor Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office, and this is what he tweeted as a rebuttal.

The only mainstream broadcast media outlets in the U.K. offering a platform for sceptical discussion of climate change and its role in promoting Net Zero are Talk TV and GB News. Almost all salaried academics working in ‘climate science’ subscribe to the ‘settled’ narrative and will not debate with people they frequently term ‘deniers’. In fact they hide behind this and similar abuse because they fear a forensic examination of much of their fearmongering. Not to put too fine a point on it, they are scared of what might happen in an uncontrolled debating environment. Perish the thought that Professor Betts might be asked to explain how he keeps a straight face when promoting the Met Office’s 40.3°C U.K. temperature  ‘record’. The one recorded for 60 seconds on July 19th 2022 by a runway at RAF Coningsby as three Typhoon jets were landing.

To ‘balance’ their coverage, and seemingly to keep the state regulator Ofcom happy, Talk TV and GB News are forced to give a platform to  people inhabiting the more colourful end of the climate spectrum. Step forward Jim Dale, one time Royal Navy weather observer, who can be relied upon to point to any bad weather event or natural disaster such a wildfires and claim it is all due to a human-caused collapsing climate. Any reference to actual data is met with shouty denial and frequent abuse. The regular brawls on Nana Akua’s GB News Sunday show with retired hydrologist Paul Burgess are a classic of their kind.

Let’s call it the Daleification of climate science, and as we can see it is not just confined to our eponymous hero.

There can be a tendency to believe that uranium deposits are scarce from the critical role it plays in generating nuclear energy, along with all the costs and consequences related to the field.

But uranium is actually fairly plentiful: it’s more abundant than gold and silver, for example, and about as present as tin in the Earth’s crust.

Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes the distribution of the world’s uranium resources by country, as of 2021. Figures come from the World Nuclear Association, last updated on August 2023.

Ranked: Uranium Reserves By Country (2021)

Australia, Kazakhstan, and Canada have the largest shares of available uranium resources—accounting for more than 50% of total global reserves.

But within these three, Australia is the clear standout, with more than 1.7 million tonnes of uranium discovered (28% of the world’s reserves) currently. Its Olympic Dam mine, located about 600 kilometers north of Adelaide, is the the largest single deposit of uranium in the world—and also, interestingly, the fourth largest copper deposit.

Despite this, Australia is only the fourth biggest uranium producer currently, and ranks fifth for all-time uranium production.

Figures are rounded.

Outside the top three, Russia and Namibia both have roughly the same amount of uranium reserves: about 8% each, which works out to roughly 470,000 tonnes.

South Africa, Brazil, and Niger all have 5% each of the world’s total deposits as well.

China completes the top 10, with a 3% share of uranium reserves, or about 224,000 tonnes.

A caveat to this is that current data is based on known uranium reserves that are capable of being mined economically. The total amount of the world’s uranium is not known exactly—and new deposits can be found all the time. In fact the world’s known uranium reserves increased by about 25% in the last decade alone, thanks to better technology that improves exploration efforts.

Meanwhile, not all uranium deposits are equal. For example, in the aforementioned Olympic Dam, uranium is recovered as a byproduct of copper mining occurring at the same site. In South Africa, it emerges as a byproduct during treatment of ores in the gold mining process. Orebodies with high concentrations of two substances can increase margins, as costs can be shared for two different products.

Authored by Denes Albert via ReMix News,

The European Commission insists on extending the duty-free and quota-free access of Ukrainian agricultural products and foodstuffs to EU markets for another year. EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis recently called on Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to immediately lift the ban on imports of Ukrainian products, which was introduced under national jurisdiction last September.

He noted that trade policy is an EU competence, so unilateral action by member states could lead to infringement proceedings against the three member states, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) could also take action.

The European Commission is pushing for “solidarity” despite the fact that not only Eastern European farmers but also Western European farmers are now facing serious competitive disadvantages due to the influx of poor-quality food from Ukraine. As a result, Ukraine has become a major factor driving farmer protests across the bloc, from France to Poland.

Ukraine’s agricultural products are depressing prices on the EU market, as the costs for large agribusinesses in Ukraine are significantly below those of EU producers. This is because Ukraine has much more permissive rules on production conditions and animal welfare.

Ukraine no longer needs help but benefits from the EU’s open market

Both farmers and countries in Central Europe opposing Ukrainian agricultural imports point out that Ukraine no longer has any problem shipping its agricultural products.

According to Hungarian news outlet Mandiner, It has recently emerged that Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov has said that “in January, Ukrainian grain exports reached pre-war levels, with 14.3 million tons shipped by sea from the port of Odessa, which had previously been blockaded by the Russian army.” He added that more than 650 ships had left the port in recent months, carrying Ukrainian goods to 32 countries around the world.

Before the war, Ukraine used sea routes for the bulk of its agricultural exports, and the infrastructure was built on this form of transport. Previously, these sea routes were blockaded by the Russian army several times during the Russo-Ukrainian war, and they could not be replaced by land transport because the rail infrastructure is not up-to-date to transport large volumes of goods, and the EU and Ukrainian rail gauges are different. However, the immediate danger has subsided, as more and more ships make their way safely to Ukrainian ports and successfully transport agricultural products.

Ever since Brussels decided to temporarily suspend tariffs and quantitative quotas limiting EU imports of agricultural goods and processed food from the war-torn country, Hungary, Poland, and other Central European countries have protested the move. Although the loosening of restrictions on Ukraine’s agricultural products was initially done to support Ukrainian agriculture and ensure agricultural shipments to Africa and the Middle East, multinational corporations have benefited greatly, and much of the grain has remained on European markets instead of being shipped to poorer countries.

This temporary concession was already extended last year by Brussels, and now it has resubmitted its proposal to the European Parliament and the Council, which will be voted on by decision-makers shortly.

Read more here…

Authored by Spike Hampson via the Brownstone Institute,

A solid majority of American citizens now recognize that Biden’s many millions of alleged refugees are anything but the real deal. In all probability, some of these illegal immigrants are members of the “tired and poor” seeking a shortcut into the United States, but also include a number of spies, drug mules, human traffickers, criminals, and convicts. As for legitimate refugees, in all likelihood they represent less than 10% of the total.

The moment Biden took office, he invited the world to come to America — illegally. 

He dismantled the proven methods used to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and publicly encouraged foreigners to come through the Southern border. As the numbers of illegal immigrants increased, the border patrol were shifted from patrolling the border to sitting behind desks and helping illegal immigrants to gain entry into the country. Most of the border patrol resent having been converted into neutered bureaucrats but had to follow orders or else get drummed out of the corps.

In short, Americans (indeed, the entire world) now realize that the Biden administration is dedicated to getting as many illegal aliens into the country as possible. This is, of course, aiding and abetting illegal behavior, but rampant corruption in the media, academia, and politics ignores or dismisses it.  

Captive to leftist agendas, these institutions view citizenship as an antiquated concept that, along with an anachronistic constitution, must be eradicated — no holds barred.

Since Biden became president, his ushers have guided roughly nine million illegals into the United States. By pretending that they are refugees from war or persecution, it was possible to cloak them in sympathetic attire: ‘No compassionate person would ever reject a poor, mistreated refugee.’

At the start of Biden’s presidency, the flow of illegal immigrants originated from relatively few countries, most of which were in central America. In those days, a majority were impoverished people seeking a better life — illegal in their entry but not malevolent in their intent. A certain remainder, however, were not good people.

But over the past three years the border jumpers have started coming from all around the world — so much so that they now represent over 160 different countries. Most of them, by the way, are healthy, single, young men. 

Since war and persecution are considered to be the causes of refugee flows, one should ask if it is reasonable to believe that three-quarters of all the countries in the world are afflicted by war or oppression. Next, one might ask why it is that women and children and the elderly are less susceptible to becoming refugees than healthy young men.  

This refugee epidemic is an orchestrated phenomenon, planned and supported by international organizations in cahoots with the United States government. It is not intended to solve a refugee problem. Its purpose is obviously something other than an amelioration of the suffering of displaced people.

Since this refugee invasion is tearing apart our country, the federal government — especially the Department of Homeland Security — should be publishing detailed statistics regarding daily, weekly, monthly, and cumulative numbers for illegal immigrants admitted into the United States. There should be similar tabulations for deportations, gotaways, etc. Comparable tables should be readily available for age and sex structure. Parallel statistical fact sheets regarding contraband and drug seizures along with relevant data regarding the apprehended smugglers should be made public as well.

As long as the government was anxious to scare the bejeezus out of everybody regarding Covid-19, it had no trouble publishing data regarding infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. The fact that it is not doing anything similar for the ongoing refugee invasion suggests it is trying to hide something.

Since there are only about 35 countries in all of the Americas, this infiltration out of Mexico across our Southwest border includes invaders from about 130 additional countries located overseas. Those people fly to the Americas, but not to the United States (which is their destination). We can draw a couple of conclusions: they are not poor and they would have trouble getting into the United States legally. Most anybody who could get into the US on a visitor’s visa and then simply overstay would do that rather than flying to, say, Mexico City and then hoofing it northward.

Huge chunks of the American populace have been hoodwinked into thinking that anybody who crosses the border illegally is just trying to grab a share of the good life and should be allowed to remain. But, alas, the invasion is an orchestrated phenomenon. We have known for years that various countries and non-governmental organizations have been organizing and assisting the mass movement of people up through Mexico to and across the US border. 

This was evident even back in the first year or two of the Trump presidency when organized caravans of illegal immigrants were arriving with the specific intent of numerically overwhelming the border patrol.

We now know that even the United Nations is involved in housing, feeding, and transporting would-be illegal immigrants headed north. It follows that our federal government is the main source of funding for much of this UN effort. The American citizenry remains ignorant about this.

Border crossings in Central America are tightly regulated for people like you and me, but clustered hoards of illegal immigrants are magically waved through from one country to the next. There are six or seven border crossings to be made before reaching the United States. Do you really think administrations in those countries are unaware of the situation? The unencumbered passage of millions of migrants is only possible if critical palms have been well greased — by Yankee dollars that Americans have paid in taxes.

For those who are unaware, the frontier zone between Central America’s Panama and South America’s Colombia is called the Darien Gap — a thick, wet jungle of hill country through which no road passes. Until recently, it was rarely penetrated and only by extreme adventurers or suspect characters, but now has three different jungle trails for illegal wannabes headed north. On any given day, thousands of people complete the trek, virtually always in large groups accompanied by several guides.

This 50-75 miles of jungle trekking has become a conduit for those from the Caribbean and South America who can find no easier pathway to the US. It is also favored by many of those coming from overseas since the country of Ecuador does not require a visa for entry and the circumvention of designated border crossings into Colombia is relatively easy.

Those with means but from countries whose citizens are severely restrained from traveling to other countries fly to Quito, circumvent the Colombian border stations, hazard the Darien Gap, and use either their feet or buses and trains to reach the US border. And virtually always this is done as part of a large group consisting mostly of strangers.

Many Americans are unaware of the degree to which illegal migrants are recruited and assisted by international and non-governmental organizations — all of which wish to see the United States Southern border eradicated. The flood of illegal immigrants across the border is clearly an invasion being sponsored by a globalist ideology.  

This Muckraker.com video documents the nature of all that support and the characteristics of the actual migration.

What with the assistance of the UN and nongovernmental agencies, the Panamanian end of the Darien Gap now has established encampments offering meals and dry sleeping arrangements for the clusters of migrants who make the passage. More sinister is a separate camp specifically for Chinese passage-makers.

Evidently, crossing the Darien Gap takes the lives of some who become sick or have an accident, but the attrition is not sufficient to deter the flow. The larger point is that getting into the United States from distant locations involves a support system designed to game the American border controls. Millions of illegal border crossers are part of something bigger and more nefarious than simple, individualistic decisions to sneak into the United States.

American citizens are being exploited by the globalist elite that view countries as anachronisms. So convinced are they of their own moral superiority that the wishes of America’s ordinary people carry no weight. What we on this side of the border view as a chaotic influx of illegal immigrants is in fact a planned effort, a coordinated attempt to break down the integrity of the United States, the only country in the world still in a position to defeat the globalist agenda.

It is a difficult battle since much of America’s elite has been seduced into believing that globalism imposed from the top down is the ideal way to achieve the “unification of all humanity” — an idealistic goal that would just happen to put many of those same elite in control of the envisioned New World Order. The ordinary American who disapproves of illegal immigration wants it to stop but many of the national leaders want it to continue (although they hide their true intentions).

For all its flaws and weaknesses, for all its corruption, the United States remains the final bastion for protection of individual rights. The system being imposed from the top down will inevitably sacrifice the will of the people to the globalist vision — and that will prove to be the essence of tyranny and a wellspring of untold suffering.

Those interested in this topic might appreciate the more detailed observations of Bret Weinstein in the Dark Horse Podcast. He develops a hypothesis (i.e. a possible explanation of a phenomenon) that there are in fact two different migrations going on, one involving very large numbers of people from a great variety of source areas and evidently motivated by a desire for a better life, but the other being a purely Chinese flow that enjoys greater affluence and therefore less hazardous transit. 

Bret explores the possibility that this sub-stream is in fact a Trojan migration designed to inject into the United States a sort of fifth column of healthy young males that with the ripeness of time will be well-positioned to undermine America whenever a US-China conflict becomes kinetic. He observes that this stream maintains a separate identity until having completed the journey through the Darien Gap but then presumably becomes integrated into the larger flow before reaching the United States border, thereby masking its distinct character. The meat of Bret Weinstein’s hypothesis is discussed between the 10th and 110th minutes of the podcast.

A retired academic, Spike Hampson did a PhD in population geography at the University of Hawaii and the affiliated East West Center. For most of his career he was a geography professor at the University of Utah and a ski instructor at Deer Valley.

Authored by Steve Cortes via RealClear Wire,

Remember when Democrats advocated for working-class Americans?

My maternal relatives were all Irish Catholic Democrats in decades past. They were deeply conservative in their personal lives and social views, and concurrently deeply committed to the party of John F. Kennedy and Tip O’Neill.

Those days now seem like an era of antiquity compared to the radical, even Marxist, Democratic Party of the 2020s. The Biden-Harris Democrats push secular humanist ideology while acting fully in concert with the economic ruling class of America, all at the cavalier expense of middle- and lower-income citizens.

This observation is not merely my opinion, but rather the widespread view of working-class Americans, as revealed by the latest battleground state polling conducted by my labor advocacy organization, the League of American Workers. These surveys of swing states, conducted by North Star Opinion Research, reveal a stark and consistent class divide in America. Those who are already financially successful are thriving under Biden and approve of his job performance, while the masses of wage earners fall behind, endure economic anxiety, and blame Joe Biden and the Democrats.

For example, the latest poll of 600 likely voters in battleground North Carolina shows Trump with a commanding 7-point lead over the president in a three-man matchup. If you add Robert F. Kennedy’s 16% in the poll, an impressive majority of North Carolina voters favor the populist candidate. The survey’s details and crosstabs make clear that the primary driver is economic anxiety, especially among those of modest means. For instance, overall sentiment for Biden on the economy remains brutal, with only 35% approval and 61% disapproval. But numbers for Biden on the economy are even worse among working class and aspirational constituencies.

In answering the question, “Does Joe Biden’s economy provide the opportunity for working-class Americans to improve their standard of living?” only 31% of North Carolinians overall said yes. But the voters of Appalachian North Carolina, in the less-affluent western portion of the state, were even more pessimistic with only 23% affirming that Biden provides opportunities for working-class voters.

Among hard-working Hispanics in the Tar Heel state, only 13% believe Biden provides upward mobility. Hispanics are the most entrepreneurial demographic in America, and overwhelmingly, they reject the crony capitalism of the current Democrat Party which is fully co-opted by big business and unconcerned with Main Street prosperity.

This pessimism tragically sours citizens on the American Dream as a whole. In our survey, among non-college graduates in North Carolina only 25% believe that the “American Dream is still attainable.”

On the other side of the economic ledger, the credentialed elites of America grow downright ebullient with their circumstances, the direction of the country, and Biden’s job performance. The Wall Street Journal highlighted this massive chasm in sentiment in a recent Kimberley Strassel column, “The US vs. Them Election.”  

To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, the rich in America in 2024 are very different from the masses, and not just in bank account size, but also in worldview. Strassel cites polling from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity of citizens with incomes above $150,000 per year and advanced graduate degrees who live in high-density metro areas. A stunning 84% approve of Biden’s job performance in the White House.

In addition, 74% of those highly credentialed voters said their finances are getting better, compared to only 20% of non-elites. A big part of that ruling class optimism flows from the stock market at all-time highs as Biden’s inflation helps lift asset prices. But regular Americans largely miss the benefits of asset appreciation since they do not enjoy substantial equity and real estate holdings. (The top 10% of households own 93% of all stock holdings in America, including retirement accounts.)

Aside from economic issues, the credentialed elites also embrace a totally divergent culture and worldview from the masses in America. For example, a whopping 84% of elites with an Ivy League degree have a high opinion of journalists. That approval, not coincidentally, exactly matches elites’ approval of Joe Biden. Simultaneously, overall trust in media plunges to match an all-time low, with only 32% of Americans reporting trust in media per Gallup, which has surveyed trust in the press since the 1970s.

Looking toward November, this macro divide provides opportunity for patriotic populists, from Trump to down-ballot candidates. The Democrats have lost their way and now surrender to the whims of the elites.

In contrast, the populist right can highlight the class divide in America and provide workable fixes that will restore broader prosperity. Ending the flow of illegal workers and trade protectionism for American laborers will form pillars of a true America First workers’ agenda. Such an agenda will win elections and, more importantly, win back prosperity and confidence for the forgotten American middle class.

Steve Cortes is former senior advisor to President Trump, former commentator for Fox News and CNN, and president of the League of American Workers, a populist right pro-laborer advocacy group.  

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Teachers are suing California Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta in federal court over policies they say force them to conceal the transgender status of young students from parents.

The lawsuit comes after the governor signed several laws in September 2023 that expanded California’s protections for LGBT individuals.

One law establishes timelines for required so-called cultural competency training for public school teachers and staff. Another law creates an advisory body to determine the needs of LGBT students. A further law requires families to demonstrate willingness to meet the needs of a child in foster care, regardless of the child’s sexual orientation or gender identity. There is also a law requiring elementary and secondary schools to have gender-neutral bathrooms for students.

“California is proud to have some of the most robust laws in the nation when it comes to protecting and supporting our LGBTQ+ community, and we’re committed to the ongoing work to create safer, more inclusive spaces for all Californians,” Mr. Newsom said at the time.

“These measures will help protect vulnerable youth, promote acceptance, and create more supportive environments in our schools and communities.”

At the same time, the governor vetoed legislation that would have compelled judges making custody and visitation orders to consider whether a parent accepts a child’s professed gender identity.

In the lawsuit, San Diego-area teachers Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, who are devout Christians, filed suit to object to policies they say mandate dishonesty.

The legal complaint in the case, Mirabelli v. Olson, was originally filed in April 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California against the Escondido Union School District (EUSD), in San Diego County, and officials with the California State Board of Education.

The lawsuit was prompted by the K–8 school district’s recent policies affecting transgender students.

The policies require teachers to assist in a student’s transgender “social transition” by accepting a child’s assertion of a transgender or gender-diverse identity and, during school hours, using any pronouns or a gender-specific name requested by the student.

At the same time, the policies allegedly require teachers to revert to biological pronouns and legal names when speaking with parents, in an effort to conceal information regarding a child’s asserted gender identity.

The teachers objected on moral and religious grounds to the policies and said they were uncomfortable at the prospect of keeping secrets from parents about their children’s gender identities at school. They asked the district to exempt them from the policies but their requests were denied.

On Jan. 29, the teachers amended the complaint to add Mr. Newsom and Mr. Bonta, both Democrats, as defendants in the lawsuit.

“These previously named defendants are all operating under the supervision and control of the governor, who has ultimate responsibility for overseeing the state’s education system,” said Paul Jonna, an attorney from the Rancho Santa Fe-based law firm LiMandri and Jonna. Mr. Jonna is also serving as special counsel for the Thomas More Society, the public interest law firm that filed the lawsuit.

“The Escondido Union School District has asserted that it is compelled by the state to adopt and enforce parental exclusion policies in which California dictates the deception requiring teachers to lie to parents about their students.

“That leads to the conclusion that the state, and therefore, the governor is the driving force behind the violation of Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West’s constitutional rights.”

EUSD requires all elementary and middle school teachers to “unhesitatingly accept a child’s assertion of a transgender or gender diverse identity, and … [to] ‘begin to treat the student immediately’ according to their asserted gender identity,” according to the legal complaint.

“There is absolutely no room for discussion, polite disagreement, or even questioning whether the child is sincere or acting on a whim,” the complaint continues. “Once a child’s social transitioning has begun, EUSD elementary and middle school teachers must ensure that parents do not find out.”

“EUSD’s policies state that ‘revealing a student’s transgender status to individuals who do not have a legitimate need for the information, without the student’s consent’ is prohibited, and ‘parents or caretakers’ are, according to EUSD, individuals who ‘do not have a legitimate need for the information,’ irrespective of the age of the student or the specific facts of the situation.”

The teachers, removed from the classroom by management, have already won several rounds in their legal battle against EUSD policies. The teachers claimed that the school district retaliated against them for filing suit and harassed them.

Last month, District Judge Roger Benitez ordered the school district “to return plaintiffs Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West back to the classroom.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Mr. Newsom and Mr. Bonta for comment but didn’t receive a reply as of publication time.

President Biden’s attempt to sell Americans on ‘Bidenomics’ could be one of the most significant marketing failures by an administration in an election cycle in modern times. 

According to Bloomberg data, the number of news stories mentioning “Bidenomics” in corporate media erupted in June 2023. This was around the time when the White House launched its propaganda campaign to persuade trick the American people about the alleged successes of the president’s economic policies. 

As the number of “Bidenomics” news stories soared, polling data via Real Clear Politics shows the president’s job approval rating fell. In other words, the American people quickly called bullshit on this PR campaign. 

In this era of failure, legacy media told consumers inflation is their fault. But ignore the Federal Reserve’s massive easing program during the Covid era and the federal government helicopter dropping trillions of dollars blindly across the economy. 

Remember this Bloomberg opinion piece from 2022 that told readers who made under $300k and suffer from high inflation: “Try lentils instead of meat.” 

And now, the Wall Street Journal told readers: “To Save Money, Maybe You Should Skip Breakfast.” 

As another reminder, lower inflation touted by the White House does not mean lower prices.

And the consumer environment is getting worse – not better ahead of the elections. 

The Atlantic pointing fingers at consumers for inflation, Bloomberg advising readers to eat lentils, and WSJ suggesting skipping breakfast are all indicators of the US economy’s distress, in stark contrast to the White House’s continuous assurances that everything is fine.

Authored by Jason Rantz via KTTH (emphasis ours),

Students in a Seattle English class were told that their love of reading and writing is a characteristic of “white supremacy,” in the latest Seattle Public Schools high school controversy. The lesson plan has one local father speaking out, calling it “educational malpractice.”

As part of the Black Lives Matter at School Week, World Literature and Composition students at Lincoln High School were given a handout with definitions of the “9 characteristics of white supremacy,” according to the father of a student. Given the subject matter of the class, the father found it odd this particular lesson was brought up.

The Seattle high schoolers were told that “Worship of the Written Word” is white supremacy because it is “an erasure of the wide range of ways we communicate with each other.” By this definition, the very subject of World Literature and Composition is racist. It also chides the idea that we hyper-value written communication because it’s a form of “honoring only what is written and even then only what is written to a narrow standard, full of misinformation and lies.” The worksheet does not provide any context for what it actually means.

“I feel bad for any students who actually internalize stuff like this as it is setting them up for failure,” the father explained to the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH.

The father asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution against his child by Seattle Public Schools. He said the other pieces of the worksheet were equally disturbing.

The worksheet labels “objectivity,” “individualism,” and “perfectionism” as white supremacy. If students deny their own racism — or that any of the nine characteristics are legitimately racist — is also white supremacy. Denialism or being overly defensive is a racist example of an “entitlement to name what is an [sic] isn’t racism and that those with power have a right to be shielded from the stresses of antiracist work.”

The father argues the concepts are “incoherent and cannot stand any sort of reasoned analysis.” And he notes that it’s set up to ensure students accept every concept without ever questioning the claims.

“How is a 15-year-old kid supposed to object in class when ‘denial and defensiveness’ is itself a characteristic of white supremacy? This is truly educational malpractice.”

White students told to apologize in yet another Seattle high school controversy

Another aspect of the white supremacy lesson at this Seattle school involved a video titled “Getting Called Out: How to Apologize” by Franchesca Ramsey. It’s reportedly presented in the context of white students expressing what the teacher views as “white supremacy.”

Read the rest here…

In a press briefing earlier this week IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi said, “We know that it is more difficult for us to fight in an environment where there are over a million people and another 10,000 Hamas operatives” – as we highlighted previously.

There are now some 1.5 million people crammed into the far southern city, which is more than six times its pre-war population, according to UN estimates. Egypt is now fearing the crisis will spill over its border, and is racing to erect a large walled compound to physically keep refugees from Gaza out, amid fears a bigger Israeli ground assault is imminent.

Egyptian officials have said they are constructing an 8-square-mile walled enclosure in the Sinai Desert close to the border, in an anticipation of at least some Gazans getting into Egypt. It appears this a ‘plan B’ of sorts in order to contain the anticipated swarms of refugees coming into the Sinai desert, but without allowing them freedom of access to the rest of Egypt.

According to the The Wall Street Journal, this would be a massive military guarded camp of sorts, which could see over 100,000 people settle there: 

For weeks, Egypt has sought to bolster security along the frontier to keep Palestinians out, deploying soldiers and armored vehicles and reinforcing fences. The massive new compound is part of contingency plans if large numbers of Gazans do manage to get in.

More than 100,000 people could be accommodated in the camp, Egyptian officials said. It is surrounded by concrete walls and far from any Egyptian settlements. Large numbers of tents, as yet unassembled, have been delivered to the site, these people said.

With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying his army will need to fight Hamas in Rafah, a Palestinian city on the Egyptian border, Egyptian officials think a broad Israeli offensive could happen within weeks.

But officials say Egyptian border security would still seek to limit refugee numbers coming into the camp to around 50,000 or 60,000 people. 

Assuming a brutal Israeli military siege of Rafah happens as anticipated, and as Gazans essentially have nowhere else to go, this Egyptian camp has all the makings of what will likely to become the next permanent Palestinian refugee camp – as is the case with similar settlements which have long been in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

Already large tent cities have popped up after months of Israel’s campaign in Gaza…

Meanwhile, Hamas and Israel are no closer to a ceasefire, and a new report has emerged Thursday strongly suggesting the Biden administration in reality has no interest in peace, and is staying mum while Israeli decision-making gets more hawkish. According to Axios:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Secretary of State Tony Blinken last week that a direct or indirect U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state “would be a prize for those who planned and orchestrated the Oct. 7 massacre,” two Israeli officials told Axios.

Such recognition by the U.S. would change decades of American policy that advocated for a Palestinian state only as a result of direct negotiations with Israel. The Israeli government is increasingly concerned if that happens, it would put more pressure on Israel to accept a Palestinian state.

One displaced Gazan has been cited in WSJ as follows: “Some people are already on the Egyptian border, and if the bombing intensifies, they will go directly to Sinai. It’s the worst of decisions.”