Day: February 3, 2023

Education Freedom is On the Move School choice is picking up steam nationwide – and 2023 promises to be a great year.

BY LARRY SAND

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/education-freedom-is-on-the-move/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Somewhere, the late Milton Friedman is beaming. The godfather of school choice and all-around genius had a vision in 1955 to extricate the government from administering education by giving parents vouchers that they could use for specified educational services.

It took a while to get off the ground, but today Friedman’s plan is flying high. According to EdChoice (formerly the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice), 32 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have some form of private school choice law in place.

At the same time that parental freedom is advancing, the naysayers are having conniptions. In The New Republic, David Marques fumes about the just completed National School Choice Week, referring to it as “that annual right-wing P.R. campaign to defund public schools that pretends to really just care about the children.”

His fulmination is loaded with all the usual bogus tropes – that private schools are “unaccountable” and “unregulated,” and that the goal of National School Choice Week is to “gut public education, destroy teachers’ unions, and enrich unregulated private education companies.”

Not to be outdone, former teacher and uber-grinch Peter Greene wrote a blog post in which he summarizes the move to parental choice in his final paragraph. “It’s all about the three D’s—disrupt, defund, and dismantle. Call the voucher system whatever you would like, but it is about reducing education from a public good and shared societal responsibility to a simple consumer good.”

In Oklahoma, Duncan school superintendent Tom Deighan said supporters of taxpayer-funded school choice aim to “dismantle all public schools.”

The belly-achers also insist that not only will school choice kill the government-run variety, but they also claim that choice is racist and will lead to significant societal intolerance.

But study after study shows that the government monopolists are dead wrong.  Researcher Greg Forster looked at 34 studies on the effects of school choice on government-run schools and found that in 32, school choice improves academic outcomes in public schools affected by the program, while one saw no visible difference, and just one found a negative impact.

Forster also reports that of 11 empirical studies, 8 found private schools in choice programs produced stronger tolerance and civic values than public schools, while three found no visible difference. Additionally, he asserts that ten empirical studies have examined private school choice programs on segregation, and nine found that the programs reduced it, while one found no visible difference. Not one showed that choice leads to racial discrimination. Also, concerning race, a recent poll shows that when given a fair description of school choice types, a great majority of minority parents are in favor of it.

The prophets of gloom also claim that rural areas would be devastated by school choice measures. But in fact, rural families benefit from school choice like everyone else. When parents are given a choice, new private education providers emerge to meet demand.

Florida is a good case in point. Ron Matus, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at Florida’s Step Up For Students, explains, “Rural families in Florida are getting the best of both worlds. The overwhelming majority still choose traditional public schools, which in many cases have ably helped anchor rural communities. (Sixteen of the 30 rural districts earned A or B grades from the state this year; the rest earned C’s.) At the same time, families who need something different are able to access it.”

Perhaps the best endorsement for the educational freedom of all comes from public school teachers. A survey released in 2016 by Education Next found that “no less than 20% of teachers with school-age children, but only 13% of non-teachers, have sent one or more of their children to private school.” And not surprisingly, 42% of teachers don’t send their kids to a traditional public school back vouchers, compared to only 23% of the teachers who send their children to traditional public schools.

These results are similar to a 2004 Fordham Institute study that looked at 50 American cities and found that 21.5% of urban school teachers send their kids to private schools, while 17.5% of non-teachers do. Digging a little deeper, we learn that the disparity is considerably greater for larger urban areas. In Philadelphia, 44% of public school teachers’ kids attend a private school, Chicago 39%, San Francisco-Oakland 34%, and in New York City, 33%.

Polls invariably show widespread support for school choice. A recent survey of roughly 2,000 registered voters conducted online found that 62% of respondents would be interested in such an option, some 30% very much so.

The new year bodes well for educational freedom. In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds just signed the Students First Act, whereby parents can control the portion of education dollars the state appropriates, approximately $7,600 annually. The legislation sets some caps for the first two years but removes them in 2025-26, making the educational savings account (ESA) program available to anyone. (ESAs allow parents to receive a deposit of public funds into a government-authorized savings account with restricted, but multiple uses. Those funds can cover private school tuition and fees, online learning programs, private tutoring, community college costs, higher education expenses, and other approved customized learning services and materials.)

In Utah, Gov. Spencer Cox has just signed a law creating an ESA for all children in the state. Students are eligible to receive $8,000 per year for qualified education expenses, including private school tuition, therapies, tutors, and curriculum.

Additionally, just a month into the new year, ten states are gearing up to add choice programs or increase their existing ones. Idaho lawmakers are expected to introduce a bill to create a universal ESA in the state. In Florida, a Republican proposal would extend the state’s already extensive choice programs to any student in the state.

While educational freedom is typically a red-state phenomenon, this could change. Democratic Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro was elected governor after campaigning hard for school choice. Also, Illinois Democrat J.D. Pritzker supported his state’s tax credit scholarship program during his campaign.

Do you go to the government-run supermarket near your home to feed your family? Of course not. You find a local, privately-run store with the food you want at the best price. Just imagine if the government forced you to buy food from that awful government market down the street that sold contaminated meat, overripe fruit, and moldy bread, and was staffed by incompetent store employees.

We have had universal grocery choices forever. It is now time to implement educational freedom for all.

*   *   *

Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.

U.S. Lifts Oil Sanctions in Venezuela Amid Energy Crunch

U.S. Lifts Oil Sanctions in Venezuela Amid Energy Crunch

BY ANGELINE TAN

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/u-s-lifts-oil-sanctions-in-venezuela-amid-energy-crunch/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

SINGAPORE — Venezuela has resurfaced as a prominent player in the world’s energy market, as the U.S. lifts oil sanctions on the country amid a global energy shortage.

The South American country produced more than three million barrels of oil daily 20 years ago, exporting 1.8 million barrels of that to the United States, but its abundant production was undermined by corruption and a fall in oil prices.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump enforced sanctions against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in 2019, but the Ukraine-Russia crisis since 2022 has tweaked U.S. priorities, and the U.S. has had to recalibrate relations with oil producers like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia on the grounds of reducing dependence on Russian energy.

In late 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden loosened sanctions on Venezuela in exchange for democratic reforms, which caused Venezuela to emerge again as a major oil source for the U.S. and Europe.

ORC Consulting Firm director and political analyst Oswaldo Contreras remarked: “The reality is that Venezuela became a real focus of attention for this reason. For the western world, it can be a relatively secure and trustworthy oil provider that can also support Europe.”

The last ten years witnessed the shrinking of the country’s oil sector by about two-thirds, and currently, Venezuela produces less than 700,000 barrels daily. The loosening of sanctions could gradually increase that figure to over a million barrels, though observers contend that it still would require over a year for the country to attain that target, as considerable investment is needed in the oil sector following years of mismanagement.

In November, the U.S. said it would permit Chevron, the last American company to operate in Venezuela, to start obtaining oil in limited amounts there again. Chevron is involved in five onshore and offshore production projects in the country and owns stakes in four joint ventures with state oil company PDVSA.

Mariana Vargas Carballo, an oil expert from Gas Energy Latin America, commented: “This license states that they are going to renew every month. It will be renewed every month for a period of six months maximum. And that gives you the perception that it is a trial test. It is not a long-term permit.” “We cannot expect a large increase in production,” she said. “At the beginning, it is expected to extract about 100,000 to 150,000 barrels per day, but the maximum they can reach is 250,000 barrels per day.”

The recent U.S. move has been lambasted by Venezuelan opposition and activists, as well as some American lawmakers. These critics think that Washington is ignoring human rights abuses in the country.

Since 1999, Venezuela has been governed by an authoritarian socialist regime that holds a tight grip on all of the country’s public institutions and branches of power. The regime has unlawfully held on to power since 2019 via sham presidential elections in 2018, and control of the National Assembly through another round of sham elections in 2020.

Maduro, high-ranking members of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), and the nation’s military have been singled out by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other international organizations for helming the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), one of the largest intercontinental drug trafficking networks in the region.

The leftist regime in the country also enjoys widespread networks among other international criminal organizations, such as Colombia’s Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and members of the socialist regime have been directly blamed for their ties to international terrorist organizations. For instance, the regime’s oil minister, Tareck el Aissami, has been criticized for having links to the terrorist organization Hezbollah, to whom the Maduro regime has sold Venezuelan passports.

Additionally, a Transparency International report revealed that illegal business accounted for 21 percent of Venezuela’s entire GDP in 2021. The report also broached the issue of Venezuela’s mining arc, where criminal organizations “exercise vast control over gold mining operations, using extortion and paying off military commanders to maintain their illegal activities.” “These groups are responsible for human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, the killing of indigenous leaders and the displacement of their communities, forced prostitution, and labor exploitation of both adults and children, as well as contamination and other serious environmental crimes,” the report asserted.

The United Nations (UN), through its Independent Fact-Finding Mission, released a detailed report in 2020 confirming the control of the mining arc, where the criminal groups — notwithstanding the “considerable” presence of Venezuela’s military — participated in serious crimes like extortion, amputation, child labor, and the burying of living miners.

Maduro praised the recent U.S. moves and even urged for a total cessation of all sanctions. “The licenses granted by the U.S. government, some of them known and some other unknown, they’re going on the right track, although they are not enough,” he said.

The Biden administration posited that future loosening of sanctions will hinge on further political deals, such as the release of political prisoners and free and fair Venezuelan elections in 2024.

Last year, Venezuela ranked as the most corrupt country in the Americas, with Haiti and other authoritarian regimes in the region like Cuba and Nicaragua trailing behind, based on Transparency International’s 28th Annual Corruption Perceptions Index.

The report listed Venezuela as the fourth most corrupt out of 180 countries, behind only Somalia, Syria, and South Sudan.

What is more, the report said, the top three most corrupt countries in the Americas, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela, are those whose public institutions have been corrupted by criminal networks, and hence “it is difficult to draw a line between public institutions and criminal activities” in those countries.

“Pervasive corruption across the Americas fuels the many other crises facing the region,” said Delia Ferreira Rubio, chair of Transparency International. “Weak governments fail to stop criminal networks, social conflict, and violence, and some exacerbate threats to human rights by concentrating power in the name of tackling insecurity.”

“The only way forward is for leaders to prioritize decisive action against corruption to uproot its hold and enable governments to fulfill their first mandate: protecting the people,” Ferreira said, a suggestion likely to remain unheeded by Maduro, who has a $15 million U.S. bounty on his head for drug trafficking.

DHS Secretary Mayorkas Slapped with New Impeachment Articles

DHS Secretary Mayorkas Slapped With New Impeachment Articles

BY LUIS MIGUEL

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/dhs-secretary-mayorkas-slapped-with-new-impeachment-articles/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

As the border crisis spirals into total free fall and American citizens are more impacted by it than ever before, some voices in Congress are at long last demanding accountability of those responsible.

With Republicans now in control of the House of Representatives, articles of impeachment have once more been introduced against Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, on the grounds of having violated his very oath of office and for failure to uphold federal immigration laws.

As Fox News reported, the articles were introduced Wednesday by Representative Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who likewise introduced articles to impeach Mayorkas in 2021 when the House was still dominated by Democrats.

The new impeachment effort comes as immigration authorities have had a record 2.3 million encounters with illegal aliens in the fiscal year 2022. Over 251,000 of those were in December alone.

The impeachment articles accuse Mayorkas of having “engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties as an Officer of the United States,” contending,

Secretary Mayorkas has failed to faithfully uphold his oath and has instead presided over a reckless abandonment of border security and immigration enforcement, at the expense of the Constitution and the security of the United States. Secretary Mayorkas has violated, and continues to violate, this oath by failing to maintain operational control of the border and releasing hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens into the interior of the United States.

The impeachment articles also maintain that the Homeland Security secretary did not implement the 2006 Secure Fence Act, which stipulates that DHS must “achieve and maintain operational control” over the border.

Yet another charge is that Mayorkas, in allowing illegal aliens to be released into the country, has violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and its provision that illegal aliens must be detained.

Furthermore, the articles point to Mayorkas’ decision to end the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which required that illegal migrants be kept in Mexico until the completion of their hearings. “The Secretary of Homeland Security does not have the option of simply releasing those aliens into the interior of the United States,” the articles argue.

They go on to add, “The actions of Secretary Mayorkas have made the border less secure and encouraged aliens to enter the United States illegally, instead of taking actions to maintain operational control of the border. His actions have subverted the will of Congress and the core tenants of the Constitution.”

Representative Pat Fallon (R-Texas) introduced his own articles last month, which alleged that Mayorkas “publicly and falsely slandered” Border Patrol agents over the 2021 accusations of whipping Haitian migrants, which were proven to be false.

Of course, the real question is not whether stray Republican representatives will introduce impeachment articles, but whether those articles can be made viable with support from House leadership.

In this case, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has previously signaled that he would be willing to get behind an impeachment effort aimed at Mayorkas.

“He cannot and must not remain in that position,” McCarthy said back in November. “If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate every order, every action, and every failure to determine whether we can begin an impeachment inquiry.”

Representative Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.), who was present during a Sunday meeting with the DHS chief in Miami, addressed a letter to Mayorkas on Tuesday in which he pressed the Biden official for answers on a number of major immigration questions — questions that Mayorkas reportedly was unable to answer at the meeting.

As Fox News notes,

In his letter, Giménez asks Mayorkas how many of the 4.5 million migrant encounters at the Southwest border since Biden took office, are currently residing in the U.S. He also seeks answers on the DHS’ process for choosing a location to release these individuals and the information that’s given to those localities.

Giménez questions how many of these migrants have work permits and, among those that do, how many are receiving federal government assistance. Additionally, he asks, how many of those that do not have authorized work permits have received federal government assistance. 

He cites U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) 1.2 million figure for “gotaways” who have evaded border authorities. Of these, Giménez wants to know how many have been located by CBP. He also asks Mayorkas how many migrants who were unknown to DHS have been detained and deported over the past two years.

Homeland Security, meanwhile, has pushed back at Republicans’ targeting of Mayorkas, placing the blame on Congress for allegedly failing to pass legislation that would solve the migrant crisis. The department articulated this view in a Wednesday statement from a DHS spokesperson:

Secretary Mayorkas is proud to advance the noble mission of this Department, support its extraordinary workforce, and serve the American people. The Department will continue our work to enforce our laws and secure our border, while building a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system. Instead of trying to point fingers and score political points, the Members of Congress recklessly and baselessly pursuing impeachment should work on legislative solutions for our broken system, which has not been updated in over 40 years.

But Republicans have balked at the idea of passing a Democrat-approved immigration bill when Biden’s party won’t come to the table unless any such legislation includes a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens — something the Republican base won’t accept.

Fire at Connecticut Egg Farm Latest in Series of Mysterious Food Processor Fires

Fire at Connecticut Egg Farm Latest in Series of Mysterious Food Processor Fires

BY BEN BARTEE

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/02/02/fire-at-connecticut-egg-farm-latest-in-series-of-mysterious-food-processor-fires-n1667290;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

A commercial chicken coop recently went up in flames for unknown reasons. If this were a one-off event, it would probably be unremarkable. But, as Jeff Reynolds has previously documented, there appears to be a pattern of infernos engulfing food production and processing sites.

Via NBC Connecticut:

More than 100 firefighters worked to put out a large fire at an egg farm in Bozrah on Saturday.

Firefighters said the fire was in a 50 foot by 600 foot operating chicken coop at Hillandale Farms on Schwartz Road.

Crews from 16 surrounding departments including Colchester, East Haddam, Salem, Gardner Lake, Lebanon, Franklin, Yantic and Sterling, Taftville, Montville, Oakdale and Lisbon and more than 100 firefighters total responded to the scene.

It’s unclear what may have started the fire. [emphasis added]

If you pay close attention to these stories, a recurring theme is either real or feigned uncertainty of the cause by the authorities.

Tucker Carlson, virtually alone in the legacy media, did an excellent segment recently chronicling the bizarre food processor fire phenomenon and the wider egg shortage issue.

Is this all just a massive coincidence? It’s certainly possible. Stranger things have occurred. But, again, there appears to be a clear pattern. Beyond speculation, here’s what we know:

  • The peasants are not to consume meat in the new techno-utopia per directives from the WEF and filtered down to the national and local levels of occupied territories.
  • Starvation is an excellent social control tool that has been used strategically throughout history by authoritarian regimes — Stalin, Mao, etc.
  • We know next to nothing about what the Deep State, particularly the intelligence agencies, do in the dark. Congressional oversight is a sick joke. What we do know is that they are extremely well-funded, and they have no issue violating the limits of their intended scope. If the CIA is capable of orchestrating an assassination of a sitting U.S. president, which increasingly moves out of the conspiracy theory realm into conspiracy fact, then blowing up rural egg farms is comparatively a logistical cakewalk.
  • The corporate media is largely silent on the agricultural fire phenomenon, which usually indicates they would rather keep it out of the public discourse, possibly to avert a serious investigation into the cause.

You put the rest of the puzzle pieces together however you please. We’re left to figure serious issues like this out on our own because our government if it can be called “ours,” has no interest in tackling actual fundamental Public Health™ issues like whether the techno-slaves have food to eat.