Farm Crisis Spreads As US Corn Exports Plunge To 19-Month Low 

American farmers have just lost their fourth-largest customer as China pulls out of buying US agriculture products this week. It’s a devastating blow in an environment of poor weather conditions across the Central and Midwest US and collapsing commodity spot prices, could trigger farm crisis 2.0.

“Sales have already been lower this crop year because of the existing tariffs. If we went all the way to no China exports whatsoever, that would, of course, result in an even larger market and price impacts,” Pat Westhoff, director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri, told CNBC. “Cutting China completely out of the market would be a very big deal.”

Even before China officially said it would stop buying US agricultural products, the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) weekly export sales data shows US corn exports plunged to a 19-month low in June and could be depressed even further in July as elevated spot prices and increased foreign competition continued to weaken exports, reported Reuters.

Corn shipments in the first ten months of the 2018-19 year that started Sept. 1 totaled 46.6 million tons, down 5% from a year earlier, and June was the first month in the 2018-19 year corn exports fell below prior-year levels.

USDA’s weekly data showed the US had 6.7 million tons of corn to export during the last two months of the year to meet the full-year forecast of 53.3 million tons.

As of July 25, USDA’s weekly export sales data showed unshipped 2018-19 corn at 3.89 million tons, the smallest volume for the date in at least five years. Monday morning’s inspections data put US corn shipments at 631,289 tons in the week ended Aug. 1.

Total US corn commitments for 2018-19 reached 49.9 million tons as of July 25.

With US corn exports sliding lower, South American shipments have surged to meet demand. No. 2 exporter Brazil shipped 6.3 million tons in July, setting a new record for total exports of any month.

USDA estimates, Brazil, Argentina, and Ukraine, will export a combined 99.5 million tons in the 2018-19 year, a 52% increase versus the prior year.

Former Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge said the loss of a trading partner like China sets up a “dangerous situation.”

“There are going to be some serious repercussions for farmers,” Judge said.

Those repercussions have already been seen as China avoids US farmers to source agriculture products from South America.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2yNljNh Tyler Durden

Iranian Custody Decree Given Effect by a Colorado Court

From In the Interest of A.B.A., decided yesterday by the Colorado Court of Appeals, in an opinion by Judge Neeti Vasant Pawar, joined by Judges John Dailey and James Casebolt, the facts:

Mother, S.T-K., and father, M.B., appeal the juvenile court’s judgment terminating their parent-child relationships with their son, A.B-A. [But] under the Uniform Child-custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) [a Colorado statute]. the juvenile court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to terminate parental rights based on an existing child custody order in Iran….

Mother, father, and the child are citizens of Iran. The parents divorced in Iran in 2009, when the child was six years old. Custody of the child remained with mother pursuant to a court order.

Mother moved to California in 2011. The child remained in Iran, where his maternal grandmother and father cared for him at different times between 2011 and 2015. The child joined mother in California in 2015.

Mother and the child moved to Colorado in August 2016. The following month, mother suffered a mental health crisis and entered a mental health facility on an involuntary hold. Consequently, the Department took the child into protective custody. The Department filed a petition in dependency or neglect in October 2016. The juvenile court entered a deferred adjudication as to mother and later adjudicated the child dependent and neglected as to mother.

Father was in Iran at all times during the proceeding. In July 2017, the Department moved to serve him by publication because it had been unable to contact him. The juvenile court granted the motion, and the Department published a summons in an Adams County-area newspaper. Shortly thereafter, the juvenile court entered a default adjudication as to father.

The Department moved to terminate parental rights in December 2017. In April 2018, the day before the scheduled termination hearing, father contacted the family’s caseworker. He said he had just learned of the case and wanted the child returned to him. Father continued to telephone the caseworker over the next month. Even so, in May 2018, the juvenile court terminated both parents’ parental rights.

Some statutory background:

Dependency and neglect proceedings must comply with the UCCJEA. The UCCJEA establishes a comprehensive framework that a Colorado court must use to determine whether it may exercise jurisdiction in a child custody matter or whether it must defer to a court of another state [or, generally speaking, another country]….

The UCCJEA aims to avoid jurisdictional competition over child custody matters in an increasingly mobile society. To that end, the UCCJEA [generally] provides that the foreign court that issued a child custody order retains exclusive, continuing jurisdiction over the determination….

Notwithstanding a prior, enforceable foreign child custody order, however, a Colorado court may exercise temporary emergency jurisdiction to protect a child who is present in Colorado from mistreatment, abuse, or abandonment. But this temporary emergency jurisdiction under the UCCJEA is limited in scope and in time. Importantly, a Colorado court exercising temporary emergency jurisdiction may not enter a permanent custody disposition…. And the Colorado order remains in effect only until the foreign court enters an order or the period expires, whichever occurs earlier.

The court concluded that, under the Colorado UCCJEA, the presence of the Iranian child custody order stripped the Colorado court of jurisdiction to terminate parental rights; and the court held that the “human rights exception” to the UCCJEA doesn’t apply:

The UCCJEA does not require enforcement of a foreign child custody order if the child custody law of the foreign country violates fundamental principles of human rights.

The UCCJEA does not define the phrase “fundamental principles of human rights,” and the comment accompanying section 14-13-104 expressly “takes no position on what laws relating to child custody would violate fundamental freedoms.” “While the provision is a traditional one in international agreements, it is invoked only in the most egregious cases.” applying section 14-13-104, “the court’s scrutiny should be on the child custody law of the foreign country and not on other aspects of the other legal system.”

The comment notes that Section 20 of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction contains a similar provision. Courts interpreting the UCCJEA’s “escape clause”—as the human rights exception is commonly known—have looked to that provision for guidance. Construing Section 20, the United States Department of State has explained that a country may invoke the human rights exception “on the rare occasion that [to do otherwise] would utterly shock the conscience of the court or offend all notions of due process.” The exception “was intended to be restrictively interpreted and applied, and … not to be used, for example, as a vehicle for litigating custody on the merits or for passing judgment on the political system of [another] country.” …

The Department argues that Iran’s child custody law violates fundamental principles of human rights because it does not require an evaluation of the child’s best interests or ensure that mothers are afforded an equal opportunity to parent their children. In particular, the Department alleges in its answer brief that Iranian child custody law includes the following features:

  • Fathers are considered the head of the family and have legal custody of children even when mothers have physical custody.
  • Fathers exercise direct control over their children’s movement, including change of residence, choice of employment, travel abroad, and obtaining a driver’s license or passport.
  • Custody of a child automatically transfers to the father when the child turns seven years old unless the father is found legally unfit to care for the child.
  • A Muslim mother who converts to a different religion will lose custody of her child.

… [But] the Department does not identify any record evidence or include any legal citation to support its characterization of Iranian child custody law. We are unwilling to say that Iranian child custody law violates fundamental principles of human rights based on nothing more than the Department’s unsupported claims. Because the record does not establish that the escape clause applies, we conclude that the juvenile court was required to recognize the Iranian child custody order.

In so concluding, we also note that nothing about the Iranian child custody order in this case suggests a violation of fundamental principles of human rights. Most of the Department’s escape clause arguments center around an alleged gender preference given to fathers in Iranian child custody determinations. (Again, these are arguments made without citation to Iranian law.) But the Iranian child custody order in this case does not enforce a gender presumption. Instead, the Iranian court’s dissolution order granted full custody to mother:

“The permanent custody of the common son named [A.B-A.], 6 years old, is by [mother] and [father] waived from himself the right of custody. [Child support] of the son is 1000000 Rls. per month and should be paid by [father] to [mother].”

As to the assertion that Iranian child custody law deprives non-Muslim mothers of custody rights, the Department does not suggest that mother was in danger of losing custody based on her religious practice. And under the circumstances of this case, in which the juvenile court has already purported to terminate mother’s parental rights on different grounds, we perceive no potential prejudice to mother.

To support application of the escape clause in this case, the Department relies heavily on the decision in Amin v. Bakhaty (La. 2001), in which the Louisiana Supreme Court considered whether to cede jurisdiction to an Egyptian court under the UCCJEA’s predecessor, the UCCJA. The Department points to similarities between the child custody law of Egypt and Iran—again, without citation to legal authority. The analogy to Amin fails for three reasons.

First, the court in Amin reviewed whether a Louisiana trial court had discretion to exercise jurisdiction to enter an initial child custody order—not whether the trial court had jurisdiction to modify a prior custody order.

Second, the Amin court determined that it could exercise jurisdiction because doing so served the best interests of the subject child. But the UCCJEA no longer allows courts to exercise jurisdiction on this basis. An official comment to section 14-13-201 states that the “best interest” language of the UCCJA was eliminated because it “tended to create confusion between the jurisdictional issue and the substantive custody determination.”

Third, the Amin court did not consider, as we must, whether the foreign country’s child custody law violated fundamental principles of human rights. Amin is therefore unhelpful in determining whether the escape clause applies here.

For these reasons, we conclude that the human rights exception did not permit the juvenile court to disregard the Iranian child custody order in this case….

According to the Department, because the United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran, the juvenile court could not have conferred with an Iranian court…. [But] Section 14-13-104 expressly provides two exceptions to the rule that Colorado courts must treat a foreign country as if it were a state of the United States for purposes of determining jurisdiction under the UCCJEA. The exceptions do not include an exemption for a foreign country that has no diplomatic relations with the United States. We will not read such an exception into the statute….

Nor does the lack of diplomatic relations make it impossible for the juvenile court to attempt to fulfill this duty in this case. The record does not support the Department’s assertion that the juvenile court had no means of contacting the Iranian court. Instead, the record shows only that the juvenile court did not recognize its duty to confer and, as a result, made no effort to do so. The Department’s speculation that such efforts would have failed is just that: speculation. Such speculation provides no basis to conclude that the court’s error was harmless.

In the end, because the juvenile court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to terminate either parent’s parental rights, we vacate the judgment of termination.

The court also concluded that “the juvenile court erred when it granted the Department’s motion to serve him by publication in Adams County knowing that he was in Iran”:

The Department submitted an affidavit in support of the motion for publication. The affidavit averred that it “state[d] in detail all of the efforts made by [the Department] to procure personal service” on father. But it did not describe any efforts to locate father or make contact with him. Instead, the affidavit stated that father was in Iran, the caseworker was unable to contact him or his family, and the caseworker knew of no source of information to assist the Department in providing personal service. The affidavit also stated, in conclusory fashion, that the Department had exercised due diligence in attempting to locate father.

Further, while mother could presumably have provided the address at which she and father had previously resided together, the affidavit stated that father’s last known address was unknown. And, although plainly incorrect, the affidavit stated that the actual identity of the child’s biological father was unknown….

[T]he evidence [thus] indicated that father was in Iran, but it did not establish whether the Department had attempted to provide personal service by any means that would likely result in father receiving actual notice. [Further details omitted.-EV]

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Iranian Custody Decree Given Effect by a Colorado Court

From In the Interest of A.B.A., decided yesterday by the Colorado Court of Appeals, in an opinion by Judge Neeti Vasant Pawar, joined by Judges John Dailey and James Casebolt, the facts:

Mother, S.T-K., and father, M.B., appeal the juvenile court’s judgment terminating their parent-child relationships with their son, A.B-A. [But] under the Uniform Child-custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) [a Colorado statute]. the juvenile court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to terminate parental rights based on an existing child custody order in Iran….

Mother, father, and the child are citizens of Iran. The parents divorced in Iran in 2009, when the child was six years old. Custody of the child remained with mother pursuant to a court order.

Mother moved to California in 2011. The child remained in Iran, where his maternal grandmother and father cared for him at different times between 2011 and 2015. The child joined mother in California in 2015.

Mother and the child moved to Colorado in August 2016. The following month, mother suffered a mental health crisis and entered a mental health facility on an involuntary hold. Consequently, the Department took the child into protective custody. The Department filed a petition in dependency or neglect in October 2016. The juvenile court entered a deferred adjudication as to mother and later adjudicated the child dependent and neglected as to mother.

Father was in Iran at all times during the proceeding. In July 2017, the Department moved to serve him by publication because it had been unable to contact him. The juvenile court granted the motion, and the Department published a summons in an Adams County-area newspaper. Shortly thereafter, the juvenile court entered a default adjudication as to father.

The Department moved to terminate parental rights in December 2017. In April 2018, the day before the scheduled termination hearing, father contacted the family’s caseworker. He said he had just learned of the case and wanted the child returned to him. Father continued to telephone the caseworker over the next month. Even so, in May 2018, the juvenile court terminated both parents’ parental rights.

Some statutory background:

Dependency and neglect proceedings must comply with the UCCJEA. The UCCJEA establishes a comprehensive framework that a Colorado court must use to determine whether it may exercise jurisdiction in a child custody matter or whether it must defer to a court of another state [or, generally speaking, another country]….

The UCCJEA aims to avoid jurisdictional competition over child custody matters in an increasingly mobile society. To that end, the UCCJEA [generally] provides that the foreign court that issued a child custody order retains exclusive, continuing jurisdiction over the determination….

Notwithstanding a prior, enforceable foreign child custody order, however, a Colorado court may exercise temporary emergency jurisdiction to protect a child who is present in Colorado from mistreatment, abuse, or abandonment. But this temporary emergency jurisdiction under the UCCJEA is limited in scope and in time. Importantly, a Colorado court exercising temporary emergency jurisdiction may not enter a permanent custody disposition…. And the Colorado order remains in effect only until the foreign court enters an order or the period expires, whichever occurs earlier.

The court concluded that, under the Colorado UCCJEA, the presence of the Iranian child custody order stripped the Colorado court of jurisdiction to terminate parental rights; and the court held that the “human rights exception” to the UCCJEA doesn’t apply:

The UCCJEA does not require enforcement of a foreign child custody order if the child custody law of the foreign country violates fundamental principles of human rights.

The UCCJEA does not define the phrase “fundamental principles of human rights,” and the comment accompanying section 14-13-104 expressly “takes no position on what laws relating to child custody would violate fundamental freedoms.” “While the provision is a traditional one in international agreements, it is invoked only in the most egregious cases.” applying section 14-13-104, “the court’s scrutiny should be on the child custody law of the foreign country and not on other aspects of the other legal system.”

The comment notes that Section 20 of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction contains a similar provision. Courts interpreting the UCCJEA’s “escape clause”—as the human rights exception is commonly known—have looked to that provision for guidance. Construing Section 20, the United States Department of State has explained that a country may invoke the human rights exception “on the rare occasion that [to do otherwise] would utterly shock the conscience of the court or offend all notions of due process.” The exception “was intended to be restrictively interpreted and applied, and … not to be used, for example, as a vehicle for litigating custody on the merits or for passing judgment on the political system of [another] country.” …

The Department argues that Iran’s child custody law violates fundamental principles of human rights because it does not require an evaluation of the child’s best interests or ensure that mothers are afforded an equal opportunity to parent their children. In particular, the Department alleges in its answer brief that Iranian child custody law includes the following features:

  • Fathers are considered the head of the family and have legal custody of children even when mothers have physical custody.
  • Fathers exercise direct control over their children’s movement, including change of residence, choice of employment, travel abroad, and obtaining a driver’s license or passport.
  • Custody of a child automatically transfers to the father when the child turns seven years old unless the father is found legally unfit to care for the child.
  • A Muslim mother who converts to a different religion will lose custody of her child.

… [But] the Department does not identify any record evidence or include any legal citation to support its characterization of Iranian child custody law. We are unwilling to say that Iranian child custody law violates fundamental principles of human rights based on nothing more than the Department’s unsupported claims. Because the record does not establish that the escape clause applies, we conclude that the juvenile court was required to recognize the Iranian child custody order.

In so concluding, we also note that nothing about the Iranian child custody order in this case suggests a violation of fundamental principles of human rights. Most of the Department’s escape clause arguments center around an alleged gender preference given to fathers in Iranian child custody determinations. (Again, these are arguments made without citation to Iranian law.) But the Iranian child custody order in this case does not enforce a gender presumption. Instead, the Iranian court’s dissolution order granted full custody to mother:

“The permanent custody of the common son named [A.B-A.], 6 years old, is by [mother] and [father] waived from himself the right of custody. [Child support] of the son is 1000000 Rls. per month and should be paid by [father] to [mother].”

As to the assertion that Iranian child custody law deprives non-Muslim mothers of custody rights, the Department does not suggest that mother was in danger of losing custody based on her religious practice. And under the circumstances of this case, in which the juvenile court has already purported to terminate mother’s parental rights on different grounds, we perceive no potential prejudice to mother.

To support application of the escape clause in this case, the Department relies heavily on the decision in Amin v. Bakhaty (La. 2001), in which the Louisiana Supreme Court considered whether to cede jurisdiction to an Egyptian court under the UCCJEA’s predecessor, the UCCJA. The Department points to similarities between the child custody law of Egypt and Iran—again, without citation to legal authority. The analogy to Amin fails for three reasons.

First, the court in Amin reviewed whether a Louisiana trial court had discretion to exercise jurisdiction to enter an initial child custody order—not whether the trial court had jurisdiction to modify a prior custody order.

Second, the Amin court determined that it could exercise jurisdiction because doing so served the best interests of the subject child. But the UCCJEA no longer allows courts to exercise jurisdiction on this basis. An official comment to section 14-13-201 states that the “best interest” language of the UCCJA was eliminated because it “tended to create confusion between the jurisdictional issue and the substantive custody determination.”

Third, the Amin court did not consider, as we must, whether the foreign country’s child custody law violated fundamental principles of human rights. Amin is therefore unhelpful in determining whether the escape clause applies here.

For these reasons, we conclude that the human rights exception did not permit the juvenile court to disregard the Iranian child custody order in this case….

According to the Department, because the United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran, the juvenile court could not have conferred with an Iranian court…. [But] Section 14-13-104 expressly provides two exceptions to the rule that Colorado courts must treat a foreign country as if it were a state of the United States for purposes of determining jurisdiction under the UCCJEA. The exceptions do not include an exemption for a foreign country that has no diplomatic relations with the United States. We will not read such an exception into the statute….

Nor does the lack of diplomatic relations make it impossible for the juvenile court to attempt to fulfill this duty in this case. The record does not support the Department’s assertion that the juvenile court had no means of contacting the Iranian court. Instead, the record shows only that the juvenile court did not recognize its duty to confer and, as a result, made no effort to do so. The Department’s speculation that such efforts would have failed is just that: speculation. Such speculation provides no basis to conclude that the court’s error was harmless.

In the end, because the juvenile court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to terminate either parent’s parental rights, we vacate the judgment of termination.

The court also concluded that “the juvenile court erred when it granted the Department’s motion to serve him by publication in Adams County knowing that he was in Iran”:

The Department submitted an affidavit in support of the motion for publication. The affidavit averred that it “state[d] in detail all of the efforts made by [the Department] to procure personal service” on father. But it did not describe any efforts to locate father or make contact with him. Instead, the affidavit stated that father was in Iran, the caseworker was unable to contact him or his family, and the caseworker knew of no source of information to assist the Department in providing personal service. The affidavit also stated, in conclusory fashion, that the Department had exercised due diligence in attempting to locate father.

Further, while mother could presumably have provided the address at which she and father had previously resided together, the affidavit stated that father’s last known address was unknown. And, although plainly incorrect, the affidavit stated that the actual identity of the child’s biological father was unknown….

[T]he evidence [thus] indicated that father was in Iran, but it did not establish whether the Department had attempted to provide personal service by any means that would likely result in father receiving actual notice. [Further details omitted.-EV]

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Is It Time For A National Knife Ban?

Authored (satirically) by Leesa Donner via LibertyNation.com,

It’s time for some “common sense” knife-reform…

In downtown Pittsburgh two women were stabbed. One died and the other is in stable condition at last report. Over on the other side of the country, a 33-year-old Hispanic man in Santa Ana, CA, went on a two-hour stabbing spree. Four people are dead and two wounded. Back on the East Coast, with horrified patrons as a backdrop, a man walked into a nail salon in Queens, NY and plunged a knife into his wife’s back over and over until she lay dead on the floor. All this in just a couple of days in America.

Time For Knife-Control

It’s obvious the time has come for a national knife control bill. Since we must legislate all weapons based on their usage, it is vital that at the very least we begin background checks on those who want to purchase knives. The suspect in California, after all, had a criminal record.

Progressive retailers across America sprang into action. Within hours of the nationwide epidemic of stabbings, Williams-Sonoma, Sur La Table, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and the kitchen departments in Macy’s, Kohl’s, and Target began removing kitchen knives from the shelves.

Executives from Walmart HQ said they are seriously considering taking similar action.

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill – and flanked by fellow members of the Democratic Party – Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) held a press conference calling for a national ban on knives. “If it means eating our watermelon whole and cutting our meat with plastic, then Democrats plan to lead the way to a more safe and secure America.” After Pelosi spoke, she graciously yielded the microphone to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). “I am proud to be the one who stopped J.A. Henckels from relocating to New York City. No amount of jobs is worth trading for American lives,” she said.

On the campaign trail, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) said he plans to publish the names of every national knife manufacturer CEO who does not take immediate action to restrict knife sales. Castro then took to Twitter, saying, “People need to know who is willing to sell knives and who is not. It’s a matter of national safety. Anyone selling knives without thorough background checks should be shamed for putting profits above lives. As such, I am calling for people all over this great nation of ours to rise, boycott and protest #walmart, @dickssportinggoods and #acehardware.”

Not to be outdone, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) pointed out that the Cherokee Nation stopped using knives generations ago and that she plans to donate to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center to honor the fallen. Then, while at a campaign stop at Chipotle in Iowa, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said, “Under my watch, New Jersey was the first state in the union to call for rigorous blade background checks.”

On the South Lawn of the White House, the press corps gathered to get a reaction regarding the stabbing frenzy from the president. CNN’s Jim Acosta could be heard shouting over the whirring blades of Marine One, “Mr. President, in light of the recent spate of stabbings, do you support a national knife ban?” President Trump responded, “Knives? I have always liked knives, especially when I’m eating steak.”

This comment set off a firestorm from the Fourth Estate, with The New York Times out in front of the pack. Just before deadline for their failing print edition, editors put up a front-page article entitled “Trump Says Steak Comes First – American Lives Second.”

This caused the Portland, OR, ANTIFA Chapter to don their masks and take to the streets, where police stood by as concrete milkshakes were thrown at the CEO of Cuisinart, owner of the Knife Center based in Oregon. A shaken Steel M. Blade was taken to the hospital following the melee. He is reported in stable condition.

Meanwhile, in Fairfax, VA, at the headquarters of the National Knife Association, angry protesters swarmed the building. Fairfax County police were called to the scene to put those inside the NKA on lock-down until they could clear the area.

Do Americans have a right to own knives? Should extensive background checks regarding the criminal records and mental health of potential knife buyers become law? These are the crucial questions flooding the airwaves of the nation. Ultimately, it comes down to whether Americans are willing to rip meat from the bone with their bare hands or be permitted to cut it in with a knife in a civil way.

Only time will tell.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2MRxRLO Tyler Durden

Joe Biden’s Latest Gaffe: “Poor Kids Are Just As Bright & Talented As White Kids”

Since announcing his campaign earlier this year, Joe Biden has been plagued by a seemingly unceasing parade of gaffes, from his embarrassing debate sign-off, to his praise of segregationist senators to his unwillingness to change his ‘tactile’ behavior despite all of the backlash he has acrued in the #MeToo era.

To that list, we can add Biden’s latest masterpiece: During a speech to minority voters in Iowa, the former vice president said that in Iowa “poor kids” are just as bright as “white kids”.

Here’s the money quote:

“We should challenge students in these schools that have advanced placement programs in these schools,” Biden said. “We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor, you cannot do it. Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.”

After a brief pause, he added: “Wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids, no I really mean it, but think how we think about it.”

Trump quickly posted a clip of the incident on his ‘Trump War Room Twitter Account”

Meanwhile other remark from his past are coming to light, including when Biden said in 2008 that Obama was “the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and nice-looking guy.”

This isn’t the only embarrassing Biden gaffe this week. He once again referred to former Prime Minister Theresa May as Margarete Thatcher.

We’re sure there will be plenty more where that came from…

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YCORwg Tyler Durden

6th-Grader Dragged Out Of Class For Saying Gender-Confused Boy “Is A Boy”

Authored Greg Piper via The College Fix,

“Temporary removal” is not discipline?

The school district claims he wasn’t punished. But it dragged him out of class for the day and warned him not to correctly identify the biological sex of a classmate again.

Liberty Counsel said an Ohio school district backed down after the religious liberty law firm warned that it could not punish a sixth grader for disagreeing with classmates who said a boy with gender dysphoria was actually a girl.

According to the narrative by Liberty Counsel in a press release and subsequent fundraising pitch, the school uniformly referred to the gender-confused male (“Boy A”) as a girl and used female pronouns for him.

In a redacted letter to the school district, Liberty Counsel said Boy A had started publicly identifying as a female this spring. It became “heavily discussed at the school, particularly by a group of girls” in John’s classes who quickly started treating Boy A as a girl and frequently discussing his “transition” with him in art class.

John is also in that class, and considers Boy A a friend. He was “subjected to conversations about these issues constantly, on at least a weekly or semi-weekly basis,” because the girls and Boy A sat directly behind him.

On May 13 the girls claimed that “taking girl hormones” and eventually getting his “male private parts removed” would turn Boy A into a girl. John “disagreed as a factual matter” and said he was “not a girl.” Another boy agreed that sex is “what you’re born with,” and cannot be changed by hormones and surgery, and a third boy “may have said something to a similar effect,” according to Liberty Counsel.

Their art teacher overheard the conversation and reported John and the boys to the assistant principal, falsely claiming they were “bullying” Boy A and that the third boy called him a “homosexual.”

‘There might be consequences’ for correctly identifying sex

The assistant principal, who is not named, called John into her office the next day and warned him “there might be consequences” because he called Boy A a boy and used male pronouns. She pulled him out of his physical education class that afternoon “in front of his friends” and apparently warned him again that he’ll be punished if he refuses to refer to Boy A as a girl.

According to Liberty Counsel, John learned “the other boys received in-school suspension” that day for their participation in the conversation, and out-of-school suspension the following day.

The assistant principal called John’s mother that day and said he was “only” suspended from gym class because though he misgendered Boy A, she didn’t believe that John was participating in the “bullying.”

Liberty Counsel told the school district it was not legally allowed to “silence students who respectfully disagree” with their classmates that “castration is a good thing” for Boy A. It can’t force John to “encourage” Boy A in his gender identity, because that could play a role in the gender-confused student taking “harmful cross-sex hormones” and seeking “non-medically necessary” surgery.

Citing the Supreme Court’s Tinker ruling, which bans schools from suppressing the peacefully expressed beliefs of students, Liberty Counsel told the school district it was singling out John for participating “in conversation during school time where students may talk” about “otherwise permissible subjects of discussion.”

It emphasized that John was “repeatedly subjected” to these conversations in art class, with the teacher apparently allowing students to affirm Boy A’s gender identity but not disagree with it.

‘Enclaves of totalitarianism’ that ignore science

To punish John is to “turn classrooms into enclaves of totalitarianism” that censor the “commonly-held, mainstream, factual view” that sex is biologically determined. Liberty Counsel cited “more than 6,500 unique differences at the DNA level” between the sexes that do not change based on hormones or surgery.

Not only did the school district botch its own anti-harassment policy, but it’s violating a “student rights” policy that protects the constitutional rights of students to express themselves “as appropriate for the school environment.” Since informal transgender discussion has already been approved in the classroom, the school district can’t censor one view, the letter said.

Liberty Counsel threatened to sue if the school district did not expunge John’s record for the incident. It also must promise not to punish or coerce students for “respectful disagreement” with transgender ideology and using sex pronouns correctly, the letter said.

In a response letter, the school district’s law firm denied that John had been formally disciplined, saying his “temporary removal” from class was not recorded. It said the Board of Education does not punish students for “respectful disagreement on any topic.”

It’s a little more complicated on the pronoun issue:

The Board of Education does not discipline students for using certain pronouns in referring to students or coerce any student to use a particular pronoun. Staff may inform students that a particular student prefers to be referred to as a particular pronoun. However, that would only occur with consent of the student and his or her parents, but no student would be required to use the preferred pronoun.

According to Liberty Counsel’s release, John’s parents were satisfied with the assurances from the school district.

The unnamed school district is apparently Cincinnati Public Schools, based on the dateline in Liberty Counsel’s original press release. The College Fix has contacted media relations for the school district to verify.

Read the release, fundraising pitch, warning letter and response letter.

h/t Christian Broadcasting Network

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Dad sued for slander because he criticized the education system

Welcome to our Friday roll up, where we highlight the most absurd and concerning stories we are following this week.

Dad sued for slander because he criticized the education system

Careful what you say about your kid’s public school curriculum.

The company behind a controversial common core math program in North Carolina is suing a dad for libel and slander.

The parent of a high school student has been on a “crusade,” the lawsuit claims, against the math program. Instead of teacher led instruction, students are taught through self-discovery.

He and many others see strong evidence that the old methods are better. That’s why he created a Facebook group and website where he lays out his criticism of the program.

We checked out the guy’s website, and it is full of well thought out rational criticism. Whether he is correct or not is irrelevant. He is just expressing an opinion on the type of education his child will receive in public school.

We’ve moved beyond gender neutral pronouns and triggering micro-aggressions. Now just expressing any old opinion offends people.

Apparently you can’t do that in the USA, anymore. If you offend someone with constructive criticism, they turn around and sue you.

Click here for the full story.

The government has a new way to spy on you

The Pentagon is currently testing high altitude surveillance balloons in several midwestern states.

Flying at about 65,000 feet, the balloons are able to track multiple vehicles at once, in any type of weather, using radar.

The Pentagon says the purpose of the solar powered unmanned balloons is to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats.”

The data gathered over broad swaths of the country will be saved so it can be rewound and reviewed after the fact.

Big Brother is really watching.

Click here for the full story.

City evicts entire family after houseguest commits crime

In this week’s edition of no good deed goes unpunished…

An Illinois family let a 19 year old friend of their son stay with them when he became homeless. They kicked him out after he stole from them, and burglarized a nearby restaurant.

And then the family got an eviction notice.

But it didn’t come from the landlord, it came from the local cops. They were enforcing an ordinance which requires private landlords to evict all the occupants of a home when any inhabitant commits a crime.

Even though this young man was a house guest who victimized them as well, the family will be punished for his crimes.

The family’s landlord says they are model tenants, and he does not want to evict them. So he joined their lawsuit against the city.

With the help of the Institute for Justice, the family is suing to protect their due process rights, so that they won’t be punished for someone else’s crime.

Click here for the full story.

Bernie’s ingenious solution for student debt

Total outstanding student debt now stands at $1.65 trillion dollars.

But the solution is all too simple for Bernie Sanders. He tweeted in response, “We should cancel it.”

That’s the solution, just cancel $1.65 trillion dollars of debt. What could go wrong?

The idea that you can just solve this problem by canceling the debt shows how clueless these people really are.

Student debt is the number one financial asset of the federal government. There is no bigger money maker in the asset column or the government’s balance sheet.

And in case you missed it, the government isn’t in great financial shape. At $22 trillion dollars, the national debt is larger than the entire US economy.

Cancel the student debt, and you’re wiping away a trillion dollars that the taxpayers will have to pay for.

That’s bigger than the direct costs of the Iraq war. It’s bigger than the 2008 TARP bailout.

The whole thing is really a sad state of affairs. But countless people will buy into Bernie’s two-word solution… cancel it.

Click here for his cringy twitter feed.

City shuts down 11 year old girl’s lemonade stand

If she was just selling lemonade, city officials said, they probably would have let the lemonade stand slide.

But this young girl made the mistake of offering her customers fruit smoothies as well.

The city said the girl needs a permit for that, so the city can reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses.

That risk seems pretty small. How is it any different than going to a friend’s house for dinner?

The real tragedy is that this trend is robbing kids of entrepreneurial experience at a young age. She bought the supplies, made a sign, created a menu, set the prices, attracted the customers…

And instead of learning a lesson about business, she learned a lesson about how the government treats business owners.

Click here for the full story.

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Epstein Documents Hit; Accuser Says Trump ‘Didn’t Partake In Any Sex With Any Of Us’

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ordered the partial release of what is expected to be approximately 2,000 pages of documents related to convicted pedophile sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

The document release stems from a 2015 defamation lawsuit in New York brought by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre against Epstein’s ‘Madam’ – Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre says Maxwell helped Epstein traffic herself and other underage girls to sex parties at the billionaire pedophile’s many residences. 

The case was settled in 2017 and the records were sealed – leading to an appeal by filmmaker and author Mike Cernovich, who was later joined by the Miami Herald and several other parties including lawyer Alan Dershowitz – who has sought to clear his name in connection with Epstein’s activities. 

Trump and Epstein

While Epstein’s ties to former President Bill Clinton and other famous figures are well known, much has been made about the relationship between President Trump and the pedophile financier. 

Upon being questioned over the accuracy of a 2011 article by journalist Sharon Churcher claiming that Donald Trump was a “good friend of Jeffrey’s,” Guiffre was asked to clarify Churcher’s possible misquoting that “Donald Trump was also a good friend of Jeffrey’s,” and that Trump “Didn’t partake in any” of — “any sex with any of us but he flirted with me.” 

“It’s true that he didn’t partake in any sex with us, and but it’s not true that he flirted with me. Donald Trump never flirted with me.” 

Other notable snippets: 

Developing… 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2MKHvzI Tyler Durden

Next Round of Tariffs Will Be $1 Billion Tax Increase on Smartphones, TVs, Tablets, and More

From headphones to smartphones, from printers to speakers, the next round of tariffs on Chinese-made products is likely to be a $1 billion tax increase on consumer electronics.

President Donald Trump’s earlier rounds of tariffs mostly avoided hitting consumer products and electronics—though the focus on manufacturing inputs meant some American tech firms got hit anyway if they import component parts from China, as many do. The next round of 10 percent tariffs, which Trump says will take effect on September 1, will hit almost all remaining un-tariffed imports from China.

That means personal and home electronics won’t be spared much longer.

“Tariffs are taxes—and increasing costs on companies puts consumers in the middle of President Trump’s trade war,” says Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).

According to an analysis from the CTA and the Trade Partnership, a pro-trade policy organization, the next round of tariffs will hike the taxes Americans pay on consumer electronics by about $1 billion per month.

That’s on top of the costs American tech companies are already facing. According to CTA, the industry paid $1.7 billion in tariffs in June of this year. That’s eight times more than was paid in June 2018, despite the fact that consumer electronic imports from China had declined by 39 percent year over year. Trump imposed then first round of tariffs on Chinese imports in July of last year.

In short, Americans are importing fewer laptops, speakers, and other electronic items from China, and they’re paying a higher price for the items they do buy. That’s a good illustration of a few of the problems with Trump’s tariff strategy. He has imposed a regressive tax that makes it more difficult for Americans to afford modern tech, while simultaneously whacking the blue-collar jobs that are supported by supply chains bringing televisions and other goods from American ports to local stores.

In June, Americans paid $6 billion in tariffs—one of the highest single-month totals, in nominal terms, in American history. Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration accounted for more than $3.4 billion of that overall total, according to a new analysis from Tarrifs Hurt The Heartland, an anti-tariff coalition of business groups.

“Americans are already paying record-high tariffs, and the biggest hit to consumers is still to come,” said Johnathan Gold, a spokesman for the group.

In June, when the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative held a series of hearings on the proposed new tariffs on Chinese imports, representatives from the consumer electronics industry delivered a consistent warning about the consequences of imposing those trade barriers.

Jesse Spector—director of technology policy at the Software and Information Industry Association, which represents more than 800 companies—told the office’s tariff committee that new tariffs on cell phones, laptops, and tablets will “have a direct, significant, and negative impact on the businesses of our members.”

He predicted that firms will “reduce product lines, raise prices, and cut American jobs.”

The tariffs could also jeopardize the Trump-backed effort to see America “win the race” to 5G—that is, to be the first country with an operational fifth-generation mobile internet network.

In June, according to the CTA, American tech companies paid $131 million in tariffs on 5G-related products, including new smartphones, mobile routers, and other hardware.

In a statement, Shapiro urged Congress to revoke Trump’s unilateral trade powers.

“While we support the president’s effort to stop China’s forced technology transfers and [intellectual property] theft,” he said, “this unpredictable trade policy forces companies to raise the costs of their products, leaving American businesses, workers, and families—not China—to pay for these tariffs.”

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