One of our faithful readers pointed this out to me. The author of one of the books that is being challenged in West Bend campaigned for the three liberal board members who were elected in April.
While not denying that this author is a radical leftist who wants to indoctrinate children to her beliefs, this is also a rather smart marketing tactic. There is almost an unlimited number of books that a school district can choose to put in front of kids. By stoking controversy, this author is creating a group of passionate adults who are demanding that schools buy HER book.
The West Bend School District is in the news again for promoting adult material to minors, but that controversy, while important, ignores the elephant in the classroom. Let us first discuss books and appropriate material for minors.
[…]
In most contexts, adults allowing access to, much less showing, graphic sexual material to children would rightly be considered deviant or predatory — like a creepy guy showing porn to his 10-year-old neighbor. In West Bend, as in other communities, there is now a passionate group of adults who insist that access and advocacy of such materials for children in school is paramount and any opposition to such is akin to Goebbels burning books before the Berlin Opera House in 1933. Such bombastic parallelism is the mark of a soft mind and softer morals.
With a near infinite amount of material to make available to our children, our government schools are obligated to curate content to the values and customs of the majority of their constituents. San Francisco will have a different perspective than West Bend — or so one would think. With the availability of school choice, parents of any economic means can and should be diligent about putting their kids in environments where the other adults are teaching values contrary to their own. If the school will not support parents, then the parents are obligated to take action in the best interests of their children.
While sex and books attract the ire of the community in West Bend of late, left unremarked is how the school district continues to spend the community into oblivion with absolutely no restraint or respect for the taxpayers. Let us consider just four important numbers: 6,623. 5,972. $87.5 million. $108.7 million.
According to the West Bend School District, in 2018, the district had 6,623 students and spent a total of $87.58 million. In 2023, they had 5,972 students and budgeted spending a total of $108.7 million (final audited numbers of what they actually spent has not yet been published).
That is a 10% decrease in students; a 25% increase in total spending; and a whopping nearly 42% increase in spending per pupil in just five years. During the period of a 10% student decline, spending on staff and on facilities increased. There has been no perceptible effort to reduce spending in proportion to the reduction in the number of students they serve.
Bass said she has been told that one reason for the departures is dissatisfaction with the rules in place at the program’s hotels and motels. At the L.A. Grand Hotel, which is in downtown Los Angeles and currently being used as temporary homeless housing, residents have been prohibited from having guests in their rooms, she said.
Others have left Inside Safe because of struggles with addiction or deteriorating mental health, Bass said.
First, let’s try to figure out why a photojournalist, from New York just happened to be in little Watertown, WI to stumble upon a bunch of alleged Nazis protesting a drag show. Odd, eh? Her video shows her staying at a hotel, so it doesn’t look like she was visiting family or anything. Then she was back in New York within 24 hours. Strange, eh?
Putting that aside, the reaction has been telling. People’s reactions fell into two basic camps. Leftist activists immediately jumped on the videos decrying Nazis and painting the picture that only Nazis would oppose drag shows in front of kids. This was the intended reaction of the alleged Nazis staging the event. Almost to a person, Righties immediately identified the alleged Nazis as fake – FBI or some leftist group – pretending to be Nazis in order to give Leftists an excuse to have reaction #1 above.
What’s the truth? I think that the alleged Nazis were fake. We have seen Nazi protests for my entire lifetime and before. They tend to be pretty proud of their bigotry and don’t mind showing their faces. They also don’t usually wear slacks, but they DO usually have swastika flags that are replicas from the Third Reich – not goofy black and white versions. So yes… this seems staged and just in time for the runup to a presidential election.
Am I cynical? You bet I am. Experience will do that to you.
And, separate from the issue of the content and children, this is another case of a meeting that could have been an email.
In June, Eau Claire Area School District [ECASD] students were allegedly “required” to report to a classroom where they found their orchestra teacher Jacob Puccio, a school counselor, and the ECASD Diversity, Equity and Inclusion director Dang Yang.
Students were allegedly told that Puccio would be undergoing a gender transition from male to female from a “scripted statement” that was read to several classrooms of elementary and high school music students throughout ECASD.
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) alleges that the statement was crafted by ECASD to “ensure that students received information in a particular way.” Furthermore, WILL claims that parents are still not aware of what was read to students and want to know the details.
[…]
According to an email obtained by Fox News Digital, McCausland responded saying, “I briefly talked with and forwarded your email on to Dang Yang (the ECASD Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion); the district specified that the script I read on Monday needed to be a verbal presentation only and was not to be shared electronically. He should give you the info you need, but let me know if you need anything else. Thanks – [redacted] had a fantastic first year here in band, hope you all enjoy your summer!”
[…]
The complaint filed by WILL states that a Wisconsin statute requires that public entities comply with their duties “as soon as practicable and without delay” and that “no justification exists” for withholding the statement that was read to students.
“The District withheld the requested record despite it’s not being subject to any statutory or common-law exemption to the public records law. The District is therefore required by law to produce the record,” the complaint states.
I saw Oppenheimer today and thought it was a truly excellent movie. As is always the case when trying to cover so much in the confines of a movie, it left out some things and consolidated others, but it was very well done.
The treatment of the nuanced and weighty issues of pacifism, communism, MCCarthyism (go Wisconsin!), and the horrors of war was superb. Interlaced with those issues were the story lines of love, infidelity, bureaucracy, egotism, interpersonal conflicts, political swampiness, revenge, aging, bigotry, and massive accomplishment. It dealt thoughtfully with some of the controversial issues like whether or not we should have dropped the bomb, the Red Scare, and the nuclear arms race.
No. It strikes me that people would be far better off working through their grief than pretending that their loved one is alive through a bot. Death is the natural end of us all and it is unhealthy to pretend that it doesn’t exist.
What does the future of grief and loss look like? An AI company called You, Only Virtual is creating chatbots modeled after deceased loved ones, with its founder, Justin Harrison, telling “Good Morning America” that he hopes people won’t have to feel grief at all.
You, Only Virtual scans text messages, emails and phone calls shared between an individual and the deceased person to create a chatbot that composes original written or audio responses mimicking the deceased person’s voice and modeling the relationship and rapport that the two shared in life.
The company, founded in 2020, hopes to offer a video-chat option later this year, “and ultimately provide augmented-reality that allows for interaction with a three-dimensional projection,” GMA reported.
The head of Texas A&M University has suddenly left her role amid “negative press” surrounding the hiring of a journalism professor.
President Katherine Banks said she took responsibility for the “flawed hiring process” involving former New York Times editor Kathleen McElroy.
[…]
Dr McElroy, a 20-year veteran of The New York Times, has previously conducted research on the role race plays in the media.
Texas A&M had originally hired her on a tenured track to revive the school’s journalism programme, which was later changed to a five-year and ultimately a one-year offer. She declined the offer.
The initial move to hire her was reportedly met with criticism from some staff members and members of the school’s alumni network.
In a resignation letter, Dr Banks said that “negative press” over Dr McElroy’s job had “become a distraction” at Texas A&M, which has a student body of about 70,000.
“The recent challenges regarding Dr McElroy have made it clear to me that I must retire immediately,” she wrote.
A university statement added that Dr Banks suggested to colleagues Dr McElroy had fallen victim to “anti-woke hysteria” and “outside interference” in the hiring process.
[…]
In the case of Dr McElroy, the Rudder Association – a collection of current and former Texas A&M students and staff – said it had concerns that, in hiring Dr McElroy, the university was not embracing “egalitarian and merit-based traditions” and was instead turning towards the “divisive ideology of identity politics”. It objected to claims that alumni, donors and taxpayers constitute “outside influence”.
I will say that I liked a lot of the work that Dr. Banks had done for the engineering college and some other things in her short tenure. But I understand that she was not well liked by the students, the former students, or much of the staff.
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.
In the United States Supreme Court’s landmark ruling Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College, the court prohibited universities from discriminating against prospective students because of their race. While the ruling is specific to racial discrimination by universities, it has much broader implications.
The brilliant Justice Clarence Thomas revealed the broad consequences of the ruling in his concurring opinion when he definitively wrote, “the Fourteenth Amendment outlaws government-sanctioned racial discrimination of all types.” In the majority opinion of the court, Chief Justice John Roberts definitively stated that, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”
It does not get any clearer than that. Discrimination in favor of one race consequently discriminates to the detriment of another race. Equality can only exist when we actually treat people equally.
For this reason, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, Wisconsin’s most important private organization in defense of the Constitution, launched the “Equality for All Agenda,” in which they are calling for the repeal of all race-based laws and programs. WILL’s accompanying report highlights several examples of how various Wisconsin governments discriminate on the basis of race.
For example, the state of Wisconsin’s Ben R. Lawton Minority Undergraduate Grant Program gives grants to anyone who is a black American, American Indian, Hispanic, or people who hail from Laos, Vietnam, or Cambodia. This grant program specifically excludes white Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, Persian Americans, Indian Americans, non-Hispanic South American Americans, and all of the other races that make up the kaleidoscope of the American experience. The grant program is inherently racist.
In a throwback to the era of “separate but equal,” the University of Wisconsin-Madison offers racially segregated student housing, “to provide a living experience focused on supporting students and allies who self-identify within the Black diaspora.”
The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development launched the New Workforce Equity Grant program after the pandemic. These grants are awarded companies in southeastern Wisconsin that create training programs for underserved communities, which are defined as, “Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women.”
The University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine gives grants to programs that, “focus on underserved and marginalized communities, including but not limited to, Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native American, rural, and low-income communities.” One can focus on underserved communities without segregating them into racial categories. Poverty, for example, affects all races.
The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation runs a Diverse Business Development Program that only provides support to, “minority-, woman-, LGBT and veteran-owned businesses.” Once again, the program specifically discriminates on the basis of race and other factors that have nothing to do with the worthiness of the business.
The list goes on. The fact is that racial discrimination permeates our governments at every level. From the state of Wisconsin to our local government school districts, people of favored races are granted preferential treatment, opportunities, and money while people of disfavored races are excluded from these opportunities. This kind of racial discrimination was intolerable in 1860. It was intolerable in 1960. It is intolerable in 2023.
As Justice Thomas so eloquently put it in his concurring opinion, “the solution announced in the second founding (his reference is to the transformative 14th Amendment written after the Civil War) is incorporated in our Constitution: that we are all equal, and should be treated equally before the law without regard to our race. Only that promise can allow us to look past our differing skin colors and identities and see each other for what we truly are: individuals with unique thoughts, perspectives, and goals, but with equal dignity and equal rights under the law.”
Our nation has had a long road to racial equality. We have a long way yet to go. The Supreme Court’s ruling is a long stride in the right direction. Now it is up to all of us to see that the principles announced in our Declaration of Independence, written into the Constitution in the 14th Amendment, and affirmed in Students v. Harvard, are upheld by our government, our businesses, and ourselves.
In the majority opinion of the court, Chief Justice John Roberts definitively stated that, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”
It does not get any clearer than that. Discrimination in favor of one race consequently discriminates to the detriment of another race. Equality can only exist when we actually treat people equally.
For this reason, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, Wisconsin’s most important private organization in defense of the Constitution, launched the “Equality for All Agenda,” in which they are calling for the repeal of all race-based laws and programs. WILL’s accompanying report highlights several examples of how various Wisconsin governments discriminate on the basis of race.
[…]
The list goes on. The fact is that racial discrimination permeates our governments at every level. From the state of Wisconsin to our local government school districts, people of favored races are granted preferential treatment, opportunities, and money while people of disfavored races are excluded from these opportunities. This kind of racial discrimination was intolerable in 1860. It was intolerable in 1960. It is intolerable in 2023.
As Justice Thomas so eloquently put it in his concurring opinion, “the solution announced in the second founding (his reference is to the transformative 14th Amendment written after the Civil War) is incorporated in our Constitution: that we are all equal, and should be treated equally before the law without regard to our race. Only that promise can allow us to look past our differing skin colors and identities and see each other for what we truly are: individuals with unique thoughts, perspectives, and goals, but with equal dignity and equal rights under the law.”
Our nation has had a long road to racial equality. We have a long way yet to go. The Supreme Court’s ruling is a long stride in the right direction. Now it is up to all of us to see that the principles announced in our Declaration of Independence, written into the Constitution in the 14th Amendment, and affirmed in Students v. Harvard, are upheld by our government, our businesses, and ourselves.
An expansion of the criteria for medically assisted death that comes into force in March 2024 will allow Canadians like Pauli, whose sole underlying condition is mental illness, to choose medically assisted death.
Canada legalized assisted death in 2016 for people with terminal illness and expanded it in 2021 to people with incurable, but not terminal, conditions. The legal changes were precipitated by court rulings that struck down prohibitions on helping people to die.
The new mental health provision will make Canada one of the most expansive countries in the world when it comes to medical assistance in dying (MAID), according to an expert panel report to Canada’s parliament.
While the story blames the pandemic, we know it is much more than that when it comes to cities like San Francisco. Permissive vagrant and drug policies, lack of police enforcement, prioritizing the homeless over the people who pay taxes, the list goes on.
Data bears out that San Francisco’s downtown is having a harder time than most. A study of 63 North American downtowns by the University of Toronto ranked the city dead last in a return to pre-pandemic activity, garnering only 32% of its 2019 traffic.
Hotel revenues are stuck at 73% of pre-pandemic levels, weekly office attendance remains below 50% and commuter rail travel to downtown is at 33%, according to a recent economic report by the city.
Office vacancy rates in San Francisco were 24.8% in the first quarter, more than five times higher than pre-pandemic levels and well above the average rate of 18.5% for the nation’s top 10 cities, according to CBRE, a commercial real estate services company.
Why? San Francisco relied heavily on international tourism and its tech workforce, both of which disappeared during the pandemic.
But other major cities including Portland and Seattle, which also rely on tech workers, are struggling with similar declines, according to the downtown recovery study, which used anonymized mobile phone data to analyze downtown activity patterns from before the pandemic and between March and May of this year.
I’ve gone to San Francisco two to six times a year for the past decade or so. In fact, I was in San Francisco and went to a basketball game right as the pandemic began. It was my last business trip for a while. While the city had its bums and nasty areas, it was a vibrant, fun city. It was also relatively safe – as far as cities go. I once took a run from Fisherman’s Wharf, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and back through the city. I never felt any less safe than any other large city. I usually stayed in the financial district or by the wharf because I liked the restaurants.
I was in San Fran again a few weeks ago. I stayed two nights in Fisherman’s Wharf. The place was a ghost town and one of my colleagues had his luggage stolen from his rental car in a smash-and-grab. When he returned the car, they said that they have difficulty maintaining inventory because the cars come back with smashed windows so often. I went for a short walk and had to avoid bums and feces. It was gross and while I wasn’t threatened, the glares made me lament that I wasn’t carrying a weapon. I cut my walk short.
It’s a shame, but the city isn’t dying. It’s being killed.
The suspect in the 1982 Tylenol poisonings that killed seven people in the Chicago area, triggered a nationwide panic, and led to an overhaul in the safety of over-the-counter medication packaging, has died, police said on Monday.
Officers, firefighters and EMTs responding to a report of an unresponsive person at about 4 p.m. Sunday found James W. Lewis dead in his Cambridge, Massachusetts, home, Cambridge Police Superintendent Frederick Cabral said in a statement. He was 76, police said.
“Following an investigation, Lewis’ death was determined to be not suspicious,” the statement says.
No one was ever charged in the deaths of seven people who took the over-the-counter painkillers laced with cyanide. Lewis served more than 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, demanding $1 million to “stop the killing.” He and his wife moved to Massachusetts in 1995 following his release. Listed numbers for his wife were not in service.
When Lewis was arrested in New York City in 1982 after a nationwide manhunt, he gave investigators a detailed account of how the killer might have operated. Lewis later admitted sending the letter and demanding the money, but he said he never intended to collect it. He said he wanted to embarrass his wife’s former employer by having the money sent to the employer’s bank account.
Lewis, who had a history of trouble with the law, always denied any role in the Tylenol deaths, but remained a suspect and in 2010 gave DNA samples to the FBI. He even created a website in which he said he was framed. Although the couple lived briefly in Chicago in the early 1980s, Lewis said they were in New York City at the time of the poisonings.
However experts are warning that it takes an average of six years to break even on a purchase – and it can take up to a decade for the premium to pay off.
Customers are also taking to social media to express their regret at their EV purchase, with difficulties tracking down charging spots and unexpected costs. So how long does it really take to save money on an electric car – and is it worth the price?
[…]
When it comes to fuel, electricity is generally cheaper than gas. On July 7, the average cost of gas in the US was $3.53 a gallon.
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the cost of charging an EV is equivalent to filling up a gas tank at roughly $1 per gallon.
Gas prices also tend to be more volatile than electricity prices, which have historically been more stable.
[…]
The calculator estimates that the electric car owner will save $1,404 a year charging their vehicle rather than filling up on gas.
By dividing the price premium on the EV by the estimated annual savings on fuel, it would take over eight years to break even on the purchase.
The article shares stories from EV buyers who have buyer’s remorse. I say shame on them for not doing more homework before buying their cars. I’ll say the same thing I’ve said for years… EVs can be an excellent option for some people and a terrible option for others.
EV discussions have become common with people I know. I’ll give two examples of people who have Teslas and love them. Both are high-income people where the purchase price was not much of a factor. It’s more about the experience.
The first person lives in the Bay Area. He rarely drives for more than a couple of hours a day and has a charger in his garage. He commented that he can’t remember the last time that he charged in public. When he travels, he will generally fly if it is more than a 3 or 4 hour drive. He loves his Tesla and raves about the lack of maintenance required (oil changes, etc.) The Tesla simply has fewer moving parts to maintain. He did comment that it burns through tires rather quickly, but that’s a minor inconvenience.
The other person lives in Colorado. The person is single and travels a lot. The person likes his Tesla, but is annoyed by a few of the aesthetic features like the gull wing doors and the long windshield. This person works from home and doesn’t drive much, but occasionally goes on a long trip. In a recent example, the person drove from Colorado to Tulsa to Austin and back home. The travel time took twice as long as it would have in a gasoline car because of the time needed to charge. And in one example riding through the panhandle of Texas, the car almost ran out of charge before sliding into a station. To compensate, the person slowed way down. Overall, the person was annoyed with the travel time, but as a single person without a pressing reason to get back home, the extra time of travel was just that – an annoyance.
In both circumstances, the people like their EVs and are willing to put up with the inconveniences, and, more importantly, can afford to put up with the inconveniences.
In my own case, we do not own a garage or driveway in which to charge an EV. We would have to rely on public chargers. Also, we regularly take cross-country road trips (4 to 6 times a year) where we need to make the transit in a day or two to work around my work schedule. Owning an EV would be incompatible with our lifestyle.
This is where I would like the national conversation to progress. EVs are not morally or economically superior to gasoline vehicles (GVs). They are simply a different technology designed to complete the same task of personal transportation. The choice should center around lifestyle and preference instead of being some political or ethical talisman.
About 300 Californians moved to Texas each day in 2021 – a staggering 111,000 people, newly released data shows.
That is double the 63,000 that made the same move in 2012, according to a new report from Storage Café, which examined California-Texas migrations patterns over nearly a decade.
Of those that moved in 2021, nearly half were millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, and headed to counties around major cities such as Austin, Houston and Dallas.
The study found Californians were lured from their state by a number of factors, including cheaper housing, lower taxes and booming work opportunities thanks to Texas’ tech and energy industries.
Fueling that shift was the COVID pandemic which increased the number of people that could work from home, releasing them from traditional commitments that would tie them down.
Note that Wisconsin looks more and more like California every day – especially after this last state budget.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
MADISON – A girl believed to be about 10 years old participated in Madison’s Naked Bike Ride in June, but police and prosecutors have concluded state laws aimed at protecting children from exploitation or abuse do not apply to the incident.
The Madison Police Department received multiple complaints alleging the girl participated in the bike ride, but the Dane County District Attorney determined her participation did not violate any state laws.
According to a MPD case report obtained through an open records request, a photo posted to Facebook showed the girl and four adults on Johnson Street, west of the Bassett Street intersection, facing away from the camera. The girl appeared to be nude, except for shoes and a helmet, and her buttocks were visible.
One of the complaints came from a member of a nudist community who was concerned after seeing the photo online, which was posted by Milwaukee’s Naked Bike Ride organizer. Another came from a couple who saw the girl walking around naked during the ride. Another complaint was made online.
“You can’t tell any aged person if they can protest or they cannot protest,” said John Jankowski, the organizer of the Milwaukee Naked Bike ride. “Everybody is welcome.”
Given the media coverage, one might be led to believe that only a sliver of Americans agree with the recent Supreme Court rulings. Yet even the slanted polls show broad support for them. The reason is simple… for most Americans, we still believe that discrimination is wrong and that people should pay their debts – even if the most recent Leftist orthodoxy teaches otherwise.
Majorities of White and Asian American respondents approved of the decision overturning affirmative action, while Latino and Hispanic Americans were evenly split and 52% of Black Americans disapproved in the ABC News/Ipsos poll. Overall, 52% approved and 32% didn’t.
[…]
The court’s rejection of Biden’s student-loan forgiveness plan met with 45% approval in the ABC News poll, while 40% disapproved.
Just Stop Oil have stormed London’s historic Pride parade, after issuing threats to the LGBTQ+ event earlier this week.
Seven eco-zealots have been arrested after nine blocked the capital’s Pride March today amidst calls for the event to condemn new oil, gas and coal.
At around 1:25pm, the group sat down in front of the festival’s Coca-Cola float, branding it ‘the world’s worst plastic polluter, accused of numerous human rights abuses’.
The US Supreme Court struck down decades of legal precedent that allowed colleges and universities to consider race as a factor in admissions.
The court on Thursday specifically ruled against race-conscious student admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.
In concurring with the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that under the 14th Amendment, “the color of a person’s skin is irrelevant to that individual’s equal status as a citizen of this nation.”
