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Larry Hogan Out, John Kasich Half-Out, Bill Weld Talking Abortion with Bill Maher

“I’m not going to be a candidate for president in 2020,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan tells The Washington Post in an interview published Saturday afternoon.

Thus ends what was for months the Great #NeverTrump Primary Hope, in the form of a medium-sized blue state’s locally popular, nationally unknown purple governor. Jeb Bush had vouched for him; Jerry Taylor, president of the ex-libertarian Niskanen Center, had dedicated “every fiber” of his “being” toward convincing Hogan to run. But in the end the math was just too cruel: The incumbent president has a 90 percent job-approval rating among Republicans, and even in Maryland polling showed Hogan trailing in a head-to-head matchup, 68 percent to 24 percent.

“There was less of a demand out there in a Republican primary for the kind of thing we’re talking about right now,” Hogan says to the Post. “The president has a pretty solid lock on Republican primary voters.”

The news came one day after the anti-Trump Republicans’ other non–Bill Weld presidential wannabe, Ohio governor turned CNN commentator John Kasich, told his employer that there’s “no path right now for me. I don’t see a way to get there. Ninety percent of the Republican Party supports him….There is not a path. There’s not the support for that. So maybe somebody wants to run and make a statement, and that’s fine. But I’ve never gotten involved in a political race where I didn’t think I could win. And right now, there’s no path.” (True to form, Kasich later tweet-clarified “all of my options are on the table,” thus maintaining at least some thin reed for John Weaver to fundraise from.)

As ever, but even more so, that leaves Bill Weld all alone in the bug-on-Trump’s-windshield field. Would-be #NeverTrump backers like Bill Kristol are running out of warm bodies.

So what’s Weld been doing to woo Republicans? Writing a USA Today column in favor of abortion rights and going on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher to talk up “gender equality” and assert that if Trump loses he probably would not leave office “voluntarily.” You can watch the latter performance, from Friday night—which includes Weld’s comments on why he isn’t running for the Libertarian nomination—below:

In nine national head-to-head polls since mid-February, Weld is trailing Trump (and consistently so) by an average of  70 percentage points. In three polls of New Hampshire, where Weld is pinning his hopes, he trails by an average of 64.

When I asked the former Massachusetts governor five weeks ago whether he’s running as “kind of an insurance policy” in case something goes wrong with the president, here is how he answered:

No. Not really. I mean, as you know, I’m spending a lot of time in New Hampshire, that’s my kind of territory. You’ve got to win the voters over in New Hampshire one at a time. They don’t really think they’ve met you, until they’ve shaken your hand three times. I don’t think that the president parachuting in that the eleventh hour to do two rallies, never meet people in their houses or on the street is going to work in that particular state. That’s an influential state….

Ten months is a long time in national politics. I’ve seen what can happen in the New Hampshire primary. Things can change very quickly at the end. I think the president ignores that, at his peril, frankly.

All has been predicted by Reason TV’s 2020 Presidential Campaign Blowout:

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2Z2cIkC
via IFTTT

In “Jaw-Dropping” Speech Malaysian PM Says “No Evidence” Russia Shot Down MH17

In unexpected statements Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has questioned the methodology behind Dutch investigators who produced what the West considers the authoritative report on the tragic shoot down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 while flying over war-torn eastern Ukraine. He criticized that the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) seems “to be concentrated on trying to pin it on the Russians”.

The Malaysian leader told reporters at the Japanese Foreign Correspondents Club (FCCJ) in Tokyo on Thursday “They are accusing Russia but where is the evidence?”  Mahathir said his country accepted that a “Russian-made missile” shot down its civilian airliner, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board, but that “You need strong evidence to show it was fired by the Russians.”

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (left) shakes hands with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Friday. Image source: AFP

He ultimately questioned the objectivity of the investigators in what major regional media described as a “jaw dropping speech”.

Australia’s prime state run news service ABC News noted the Malaysian PM’s speech has sent shock waves through the region as it questioned everything Australia’s own leaders have said. “From the very beginning we see too much politics in it,” Mahathir said in reference to the official Dutch-led investigation. 

A total of 38 Australians were killed in the Boeing-777 shoot down and crash, and the majority were Dutch nationals. The ABC report summarized of the “bombshell” charges leveled by PM Mahathir:

“Based on these findings, the only conclusion we can reasonably now draw is that Russia was directly involved in the downing of MH17,” Australia’s then-prime minister and foreign minister Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop said in a joint statement.

“The Russian Federation must be held to account for its conduct in the downing of MH17 over eastern Ukraine, which resulted in the tragic deaths of 298 passengers and crew, including 38 people who called Australia home.”

But in a bombshell speech to the Japanese Foreign Correspondents Club (JFCC) on Thursday, Dr Mahathir was having none of it, accusing those who blamed Russia of scapegoating the nation for “political” reasons.

The Malaysian PM further went so far as to point to Ukrainian pro-government forces as being prime suspects: “It could be by the rebels in Ukraine; it could be Ukrainian government because they too have the same missile,” he said. 

Interestingly, this has been Russia’s position all along, which has already led some international media sources to suggest of the deeply contrarian Friday speech, “Dr Mahathir is known to enjoy a good conspiracy theory.”

Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014 – amid heavy fighting in Ukraine’s civil war. 

Mahathir further slammed the decision to exclude Malaysian investigators from the black box examination: “We may not have the expertise but we can buy the expertise. For some reason, Malaysia was not allowed to check the black box to see what happened,” he said.

“We don’t know why we are excluded from the examination but from the very beginning, we see too much politics in it and the idea was to find out how this happened but seems to be concentrated on trying to pin it to the Russians.”

The Malaysian PM’s headline grabbing comments were made in English in response to a reporter’s question:

He concluded that, “This is not a neutral kind of examination” — again questioning the basis on which suspicions of pro-Kiev forces appeared to have been superficially ruled out from the start. 

“I don’t think a very highly disciplined party is responsible for launching the missile,” he added, according to Australia’s ABC. 

MH17 reconstruction, via Reuters

Russia has also rejected the conclusions of the European JIT report, saying the missile that struck the civilian airliner was manufactured in the Soviet Union in 1986, and was part of the Ukrainian army arsenal at the time of the shoot down. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2W98ohM Tyler Durden

“Extreme Vetting” Begins: U.S. Visa Applicants Must Now Turn Over Their Social Media History

The Trump administration has implemented a new policy, effective Friday, that asks most US visa applicants to provide information on their use of social media. Even temporary visitors will be required to list their social media identifiers in a drop-down menu, along with other personal information, when applying according to The Hill.  Applicants for visas will be given the option to say that they don’t use social media, but if they are found to be lying, they could face “serious immigration consequences”, according to a U.S. Department of State official.

A spokesperson for the Department of State said: “This is a critical step forward in establishing enhanced vetting of foreign nationals seeking entry into the United States. As we’ve seen around the world in recent years, social media can be a major forum for terrorist sentiment and activity. This will be a vital tool to screen out terrorists, public safety threats, and other dangerous individuals from gaining immigration benefits and setting foot on U.S. soil.” 

These identifiers will be incorporated into more traditional background checks and examined against watchlists that are generated by the US government. In the future, applicants are also going to be required to disclose more extensive information on their travel history. These two changes result from a March 2017 executive order targeting “extreme vetting”, issued by President Trump. The state department had since noted its intent to implement the policy in March 2018.

The order is partly the result of the deadly shooting of 14 people in San Bernardino, California in 2015. The Obama administration faced criticism after the shooting since the shooter’s wife, Tashfeen Malik, had declared “terrorist sympathies” on social media before she was granted a U.S. visa.

Trump’s executive order is called “Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States.” 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2W7oMzs Tyler Durden

Larry Hogan Out, John Kasich Half-Out, Bill Weld Talking Abortion with Bill Maher

“I’m not going to be a candidate for president in 2020,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan tells The Washington Post in an interview published Saturday afternoon.

Thus ends what was for months the Great #NeverTrump Primary Hope, in the form of a medium-sized blue state’s locally popular, nationally unknown purple governor. Jeb Bush had vouched for him; Jerry Taylor, president of the ex-libertarian Niskanen Center, had dedicated “every fiber” of his “being” toward convincing Hogan to run. But in the end the math was just too cruel: The incumbent president has a 90 percent job-approval rating among Republicans, and even in Maryland polling showed Hogan trailing in a head-to-head matchup, 68 percent to 24 percent.

“There was less of a demand out there in a Republican primary for the kind of thing we’re talking about right now,” Hogan says to the Post. “The president has a pretty solid lock on Republican primary voters.”

The news came one day after the anti-Trump Republicans’ other non–Bill Weld presidential wannabe, Ohio governor turned CNN commentator John Kasich, told his employer that there’s “no path right now for me. I don’t see a way to get there. Ninety percent of the Republican Party supports him….There is not a path. There’s not the support for that. So maybe somebody wants to run and make a statement, and that’s fine. But I’ve never gotten involved in a political race where I didn’t think I could win. And right now, there’s no path.” (True to form, Kasich later tweet-clarified “all of my options are on the table,” thus maintaining at least some thin reed for John Weaver to fundraise from.)

As ever, but even more so, that leaves Bill Weld all alone in the bug-on-Trump’s-windshield field. Would-be #NeverTrump backers like Bill Kristol are running out of warm bodies.

So what’s Weld been doing to woo Republicans? Writing a USA Today column in favor of abortion rights and going on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher to talk up “gender equality” and assert that if Trump loses he probably would not leave office “voluntarily.” You can watch the latter performance, from Friday night—which includes Weld’s comments on why he isn’t running for the Libertarian nomination—below:

In nine national head-to-head polls since mid-February, Weld is trailing Trump (and consistently so) by an average of  70 percentage points. In three polls of New Hampshire, where Weld is pinning his hopes, he trails by an average of 64.

When I asked the former Massachusetts governor five weeks ago whether he’s running as “kind of an insurance policy” in case something goes wrong with the president, here is how he answered:

No. Not really. I mean, as you know, I’m spending a lot of time in New Hampshire, that’s my kind of territory. You’ve got to win the voters over in New Hampshire one at a time. They don’t really think they’ve met you, until they’ve shaken your hand three times. I don’t think that the president parachuting in that the eleventh hour to do two rallies, never meet people in their houses or on the street is going to work in that particular state. That’s an influential state….

Ten months is a long time in national politics. I’ve seen what can happen in the New Hampshire primary. Things can change very quickly at the end. I think the president ignores that, at his peril, frankly.

All has been predicted by Reason TV’s 2020 Presidential Campaign Blowout:

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2Z2cIkC
via IFTTT

Police To Use TSA-Style Scanners To Spy On People In Public Places

Via MassPrivateI blog,

TSA-style body scanners are coming to public spaces, and that should scare the hell out of everyone.

If you thought the NYPD’s Z-Backscatter vans and police mini-Z’s were intrusive, you have not seen anything yet.

Soon, nowhere will be safe from Big Brother’s prying eyes, as police prepare to use HEXWAVE to spy on people in public spaces.

Last week the Salt Lake Tribune revealed that the Utah Attorney General and law enforcement are partnering with Liberty Defense, a 3D image scanning company that makes its money from scanning the public in real-time. (3D means capturing rich information (size, shape, depth) about the detection space. It can detect any material that has a physical form.)

Let’s start with their name — calling yourself Liberty Defense is an affront to liberty-minded Americans who do not want to be secretly spied on by Big Brother. Their tag line “Protecting Communities And Preserving Peace of Mind” is the exact opposite of what this device does.

Any device that is used to spy on the public is just that: a surveillance device. It is not a Defense of our Liberty.

As Fox Now 13 reported, police will use Liberty Defense’s, HEXWAVE to spy on people at mass gatherings like concerts, malls and stadiums.

“HEXWAVE could be deployed at mass gatherings like concerts, malls, stadiums, public transit stops and government buildings” Bill Riker, Liberty Defense’s CEO, said.

Over the past two years, I have warned people that TSA-style body scanners were turning public transit into mirror images of our airports by watchlisting and flagging suspicious people. But I could never have imagined that law enforcement would be putting them in malls and places of worship.

If you do not believe Fox News, then perhaps you will believe Liberty Defense, which openly admits that they want governments and businesses to put their 3D scanners in every public venue.

“Their challenge: efficiently securing high traffic areas with multiple entry points, such as hotels, schools, airports, public transit systems, entertainment venues and outdoor pedestrian locations in a secure, non-intrusive manner.”

If you are still not sure about law enforcement’s plans to scan the public, then perhaps you will take the Utah AG’s office word for it.

According to the AG’s “Memorandum of Understanding” police plan to use HEXWAVE to scan the public for two years, in but not limited to:

1.  Sporting & Concert Arenas, Stadiums and Olympic Venues;

2.  Primary, Secondary and Higher Education Facilities;

3.  Places of Worship, Facilities and Property Owned by or Affiliated with Faith Entities;

4.  Government Offices, Buildings and Facilities;

5.  Amusement Parks; and

6.  Entertainment Events, Conventions, Shows & Festivals

Police will also use HEXWAVE to spy on the public during “non-business hours to get system exposure to the full range of potential operating conditions to include environmental, frequency/volume of use or other operating conditions to which HEXWAVE would be subjected.”

What does that mean? It means that law enforcement will be measuring public resistance to being scanned 24/7.

Liberty Defense CEO Bill Riker, worked for the Department of Defense and General Dynamics which speaks volumes about their desire to put 3D scanners everywhere.

It is unclear if Liberty Defense is a Homeland Security/DoD front, but one thing is certain: their desire to turn public venues into extensions of the police state could not be any clearer.

The spread of surveillance devices helps private corporations and law enforcement track and identify everyone; it does absolutely nothing to stop terrorism.

We must stop the spread of TSA-style body scanners before they are put in public transportation, convenient stores, public parks, etc.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WxZFKk Tyler Durden

Mansion Bust: Hamptons Estate Sells For 46% Discount

Arbor Realty Trust CEO and president Ivan Kaufman just bought a 58-acre estate in the Hamptons for $35 million — about half of its $75 million asking price from 2003 (and about $14 million less than its most recent asking price), reported the New York Post.

The estate in Bridgehampton, called Three Ponds Farm, features an 18-hole golf course, a large pool, several gardens, a tennis court, and ponds.

The estate was first listed in 2003 with an asking price of $75 million. Then in 2007, listed again for $68 million. It was relisted back in December 2018 for $49 million.

Down the street, the 42-acre Jule Pond estate in Southampton was slashed by $30 million for an asking price around $145 million instead of $175 million.

The developments of the deteriorating Hamptons mansion market comes at a time when luxury real estate across the North East is under structural stress.

Several months ago, we reported about the housing crisis developing between Manhattan, Greenwich, and the Hamptons.

The median sale price of a Hamptons home has fallen to a seven-year low of $860,000, according to our report.

Some of the real estate slowdowns can be connected to President Trump’s federal tax reform, which makes it more expensive to own estates.

Across all price levels, sales in the Hamptons have declined five straight quarters. This has led to an overall decline in the median sale price of homes, down 5.5% in 1Q19 versus the same period a year ago. About 300 homes changed hands in last quarter, was the lowest sales transactions in many years.

The wealth of the Hamptons real-estate market is closely correlated with those of nearby Manhattan, another real estate market that is quickly cooling.

 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/30WU0wN Tyler Durden

When Did Play Become Occupational Therapy?

The “Walking Wings Learning to Walk Assistant” is a vest that goes around your baby with long straps on the top that you can yank to pull him or her upright, like a marionette. According to the product website: “When the child is strapped into the safety harness, they can be held up by an adult walking behind them. This encourages the child’s natural instinct to use their legs and develop muscle strength.”

A set of emotion flash cards boasts: “Teach your student emotional intelligence (EQ). IQ gets you through school but EQ gets you through life!” According to the product description, “a high quality photograph on the front of each card teaches a child to label emotions” while “the back of each card teaches a child how these emotions feel and when they could occur.” You’ll be delighted (lips curving up, not down!) to learn the emotions pictured include “happy, sad, angry, frustrated, excited and many more.”

The Gymboree website promises climbing equipment where children can develop “strength, balance, coordination and self-confidence.”

A bumpy ball isn’t just fun, its packaging explains—it aids in “sensory play.”

If these products and services were only for children with developmental obstacles, such as cerebral palsy or autism, of course they’d make sense. Some kids do need help walking or reading faces. But “many of these items that came originally from the field of special needs moved into the mainstream,” says Tovah Klein, author of How Toddlers Thrive (Touchstone) and director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development. More and more they’re being marketed to parents of neurotypical children, as if trusting some basic skills to kick in on their own is an iffy—or at least time-wasting—proposition.

When Raymond Raad and his husband take their 2-year-old to the kiddie gym, the boy does not get to just run around. “I tried to sign up for free play time,” says Raad, a New Jersey psychiatrist, “but you cannot.”

First the children must be formally instructed in the fine art of tumbling. “There’s a lot of just telling them, ‘We’re going to do this now. Now we’re going to do that,'” says Raad.

Ah, but at the end of the session, parents can be sure this time has not been wasted. “They present you with all the things the kids have learned: ‘They developed their cognitive abilities, their social abilities, their physical abilities,'” says Raad. “It is quantified.”

That, in a nutshell, is childhood today. Kids may come into the world burning to play, do, learn, tumble, but adults have decided this cannot happen without a lot of intervention, supervision, and assistance. Increasingly, in fact, all children are treated as if they have special needs. They are assumed to require help with even basic functions.

“The message is that if you don’t teach your child this, they may not be good at it,” says Barnard’s Klein—this being anything from hand-eye coordination to enjoying music. “And if they’re not good at it, they may miss out.”

The problem, as she sees it, is that marketers are speaking to a generation of parents already primed to worry that their infant children could fall behind from day one and, as a result, miss that slot at Harvard.

But the gadgets and programs pushed by the child assistance complex represent “a disrespect for children or a misunderstanding of what early development is,” Klein says. “The reason children play is because they are driven to the core to explore their world.” They don’t need special toys to kickstart empathy. They don’t need special ramps to learn coordination. They just need a little space and time. “The child who can’t climb up the steps of the ladder keeps trying it until one day they miraculously can. They don’t have to be taught to do that.”

Jessica Smock, a writer, former teacher, and mom of two, has watched this devaluing of kids’ natural abilities go mainstream. “Your average kid doesn’t need sensory bins,” she says, referring to containers filled with different-textured materials. These were originally an intervention to help children with sensory issues acclimate to touching things that might disturb them. “Now,” says Smock, they’re “part of the regular preschool curriculum.”

Obviously, it’s not terrible that kids are touching different textures. What’s terrible is treating all kids as if touching different textures would automatically be a challenge for them. Equally appalling is the idea that only a specially designated sensory bin offers enough textural experience to jumpstart their development. As Smock points out, “everything is sensory.” A piece of bread. A rug. A tree.

“This is a view of life that seems to emanate from the laboratory rather than family life,” says Jan Macvarish, author of Neuroparenting: The Expert Invasion of Family Life (Palgrave MacMillan) and a sociologist at Britain’s University of Kent. Rather than trusting a competence or curiosity to develop organically, parents are being told that knitting their child’s synapses depends entirely on the stuff they do or buy. “You’re supposed to do tummy time, followed by singing time,” says Macvarish, outlining the kind of schedule parents heed. “It’s this incredible task-based, goal-based way of being with a child. It robs the pleasure [out of parenting] and fills it with anxiety and worry.”

What the adults in our culture are forgetting (thanks to all the warnings, milestones, and marketing that bombard them) is that childhood is not therapy. Or at least it shouldn’t all be therapy, whether your child has special needs or not.

Kids are hardwired to learn some things—maybe most things—without the latest gadget or class. Not every moment needs be “teachable.” Not every toy needs to be educational. Once parents realize this, they can stop being so worried and sad (lips pointing down!).

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2wxNO0c
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Russiagate Is The #1 Threat To US National Security, Cohen

The systemwide US Russophobia that reached its nadir with Russiagate has created a “catastrophe” for both domestic politics and foreign relations that threatens the future of the American system, professor Stephen Cohen tells RT.

War with Russia could easily break out if the US insists on pursuing the policy of “demonization” that birthed Russiagate instead of returning to detente and cooperation, New York University professor emeritus of Russian history Stephen Cohen argues on Chris Hedges’ On Contact. While NATO deliberately antagonized post-Soviet Russia by expanding up to its borders, the US deployed missile defense systems along those borders after scrapping an arms treaty, leaving President Vladimir Putin devoid of “illusions” about the goodwill of the West – but armed with “nuclear missiles that can evade and elude any missile defense system.”

“Now is the time for a serious, new arms control agreement. What do we get? Russiagate instead.”

Cohen believes the conspiracy theory – which remains front-page news in US media despite being thoroughly discredited, both by independent investigators and last month by special counsel Robert Mueller’s report – is the work of the CIA and its former director, John Brennan, who are dead set against any kind of cooperation with Russia. Attorney General William Barr, who is investigating the FBI over how the 2016 counterintelligence probe began, should take a look at Brennan and his agency, Cohen says.

“If our intelligence services are off the reservation to the point that they can first try to destroy a presidential candidate and then a president…we need to know it,” Cohen says.

“This is the worst scandal in American history. It’s the worst, at least, since the Civil War.”

And the damage wrought by this “catastrophe” hasn’t stopped at the US border.

The idea that Trump is a Russian agent has been devastating to “our own institutions, to the presidency, to our electoral system, to Congress, to the American mainstream media, not to mention the damage it’s done to American-Russian relations, the damage it has done to the way Russians, both elite Russians and young Russians, look at America today,” Cohen declares.

“Russiagate is one of the greatest new threats to national security. I have five listed in the book. Russia and China aren’t on there. Russiagate is number one.”

And the potential damage it could still cause is enormous.

Source:RT

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Xle9tY Tyler Durden

When Did Play Become Occupational Therapy?

The “Walking Wings Learning to Walk Assistant” is a vest that goes around your baby with long straps on the top that you can yank to pull him or her upright, like a marionette. According to the product website: “When the child is strapped into the safety harness, they can be held up by an adult walking behind them. This encourages the child’s natural instinct to use their legs and develop muscle strength.”

A set of emotion flash cards boasts: “Teach your student emotional intelligence (EQ). IQ gets you through school but EQ gets you through life!” According to the product description, “a high quality photograph on the front of each card teaches a child to label emotions” while “the back of each card teaches a child how these emotions feel and when they could occur.” You’ll be delighted (lips curving up, not down!) to learn the emotions pictured include “happy, sad, angry, frustrated, excited and many more.”

The Gymboree website promises climbing equipment where children can develop “strength, balance, coordination and self-confidence.”

A bumpy ball isn’t just fun, its packaging explains—it aids in “sensory play.”

If these products and services were only for children with developmental obstacles, such as cerebral palsy or autism, of course they’d make sense. Some kids do need help walking or reading faces. But “many of these items that came originally from the field of special needs moved into the mainstream,” says Tovah Klein, author of How Toddlers Thrive (Touchstone) and director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development. More and more they’re being marketed to parents of neurotypical children, as if trusting some basic skills to kick in on their own is an iffy—or at least time-wasting—proposition.

When Raymond Raad and his husband take their 2-year-old to the kiddie gym, the boy does not get to just run around. “I tried to sign up for free play time,” says Raad, a New Jersey psychiatrist, “but you cannot.”

First the children must be formally instructed in the fine art of tumbling. “There’s a lot of just telling them, ‘We’re going to do this now. Now we’re going to do that,'” says Raad.

Ah, but at the end of the session, parents can be sure this time has not been wasted. “They present you with all the things the kids have learned: ‘They developed their cognitive abilities, their social abilities, their physical abilities,'” says Raad. “It is quantified.”

That, in a nutshell, is childhood today. Kids may come into the world burning to play, do, learn, tumble, but adults have decided this cannot happen without a lot of intervention, supervision, and assistance. Increasingly, in fact, all children are treated as if they have special needs. They are assumed to require help with even basic functions.

“The message is that if you don’t teach your child this, they may not be good at it,” says Barnard’s Klein—this being anything from hand-eye coordination to enjoying music. “And if they’re not good at it, they may miss out.”

The problem, as she sees it, is that marketers are speaking to a generation of parents already primed to worry that their infant children could fall behind from day one and, as a result, miss that slot at Harvard.

But the gadgets and programs pushed by the child assistance complex represent “a disrespect for children or a misunderstanding of what early development is,” Klein says. “The reason children play is because they are driven to the core to explore their world.” They don’t need special toys to kickstart empathy. They don’t need special ramps to learn coordination. They just need a little space and time. “The child who can’t climb up the steps of the ladder keeps trying it until one day they miraculously can. They don’t have to be taught to do that.”

Jessica Smock, a writer, former teacher, and mom of two, has watched this devaluing of kids’ natural abilities go mainstream. “Your average kid doesn’t need sensory bins,” she says, referring to containers filled with different-textured materials. These were originally an intervention to help children with sensory issues acclimate to touching things that might disturb them. “Now,” says Smock, they’re “part of the regular preschool curriculum.”

Obviously, it’s not terrible that kids are touching different textures. What’s terrible is treating all kids as if touching different textures would automatically be a challenge for them. Equally appalling is the idea that only a specially designated sensory bin offers enough textural experience to jumpstart their development. As Smock points out, “everything is sensory.” A piece of bread. A rug. A tree.

“This is a view of life that seems to emanate from the laboratory rather than family life,” says Jan Macvarish, author of Neuroparenting: The Expert Invasion of Family Life (Palgrave MacMillan) and a sociologist at Britain’s University of Kent. Rather than trusting a competence or curiosity to develop organically, parents are being told that knitting their child’s synapses depends entirely on the stuff they do or buy. “You’re supposed to do tummy time, followed by singing time,” says Macvarish, outlining the kind of schedule parents heed. “It’s this incredible task-based, goal-based way of being with a child. It robs the pleasure [out of parenting] and fills it with anxiety and worry.”

What the adults in our culture are forgetting (thanks to all the warnings, milestones, and marketing that bombard them) is that childhood is not therapy. Or at least it shouldn’t all be therapy, whether your child has special needs or not.

Kids are hardwired to learn some things—maybe most things—without the latest gadget or class. Not every moment needs be “teachable.” Not every toy needs to be educational. Once parents realize this, they can stop being so worried and sad (lips pointing down!).

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2wxNO0c
via IFTTT

Chicago’s Pension Nightmare Is Wreaking Havoc On The City’s Housing Market

As a result of high taxes and government debt, combined with a nightmarish looming pension liability, Chicago’s housing market continues to collapse, according to a new write-up in the City Journal.

Average home prices in Chicago have still not recovered from the downturn that started in 2009, despite the fact that property taxes continue to climb. This is part of the reason Illinois ranks highest among states losing people to other areas of the country. Chicago homeowners are also taking big losses when they sell their homes. 

Ball State economist Michael Hicks said last month: 

“Taxes are high, the services [that taxes] pay for are terrible, and the debt load is so high, so palpably unsustainable that people have no belief that the resources can be found to turn it all around.”

“You won’t recruit a business, you won’t recruit a family to live here,” Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel said in 2012, warning about the city’s pension problems. And that looks to be the case: Realtor.com predicted that Chicago would have the weakest housing activity this year among the nation’s top 100 markets.

But unions in Chicago continue to push for higher pension contributions, even while efforts to curb the problem have failed. This has resulted on the money having to come from somewhere – and that somewhere is taxes. According to the report, Chicago’s annual pension payments have doubled over the last few years, to nearly $1.2 billion, and are set to rise to $2 billion in 3 years.

In 2015, the city approved $543 million in property tax increases as a result. Chicago schools also raised local homeowner taxes by $224 million in 2017. “Every penny” of these taxes goes into the pension system and Chicago now bears the title of “highest residential property-tax rates of any American city.”

And not surprisingly, residents are leaving Illinois and Chicago as a result. From 2011 to 2017, the state ranked second among states in outmigration, losing 640,000 more residents than it gained:

A recent Bloomberg study of metropolitan-area migration data found that the city had a net migration loss of 105,000 in 2014; it got worse in 2017, with the net loss totaling 155,000.

And while some governors, like New York’s Andrew Cuomo, acknowledge that taxes are driving people out, Illinois’ new governor Jay Pritzker has instead introduced legislation for more taxes on the wealthy, offering them a great excuse to leave Chicago, and the state. The city is losing its luster with millennials, too. Chicago now ranks as third-least attractive among the 53 largest metro areas in the U.S., losing an average of 19,000 young adults per year. Illinois ranks behind all but two states in trying to attract young adults. 

The city’s economy is also sputtering, averaging less than 1% growth in private sector jobs in each of the last 2 years. 

And when residents flee the city, they put a home up for sale in the market without buying one in the same market. This has caused the price of housing to plunge – according to the report, the “average price of a single-family home in Chicago is lower than it was before prices began plunging back in 2009.”

The national average is a rise of 30% in home prices since the crash. Housing speculators in the city have been decimated:

Crain’s Chicago Business told the story of a Chicago-area executive who lost more than half a million on the sale of his home when he retired to move elsewhere. If he had invested the money in the stock market instead, he said, “I’d probably have $6 million now.”

This has led to a slew of underwater mortgages – the most in any major US market. It’s estimated that 135,000 mortgages may risk default during the next economic downturn. 

In early April, we noted  that Chicago pension funds looked like a “collapsing ponzi scheme”. Back in December 2018, we noted that each Chicagoan owed $140,000 to bail out the city’s pensions. 

And we’d love to say, “Let this be a lesson to the rest of the nation” who believes that government financial problems and pension liabilities are simply “no big deal”, but we’re certain they’re not listening anyway.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2wyBLj6 Tyler Durden