On Friday, the City of Philadelphia reached a settlement with Sharonell Fulton and the other Plaintiffs. The parties agreed there would be no further litigation on the constitutional questions left unresolved by the Supreme Court:
The Parties waive a hearing and findings of fact and conclusion of law on all issues unaddressed by the United States Supreme Court’s decision.
The City also agreed to enforce its non-discrimination policy against CSS consistent with Fulton:
1. The City of Philadelphia, the Department of Human Services, the Commission on Human Relations, their agents and employees, and all those acting in concert with any of them are PROHIBTED from refusing “to contract with CSS for the provision of foster care services unless [CSS] agrees to certify same-sex [or unmarried] couples as foster parents.” See Fulton, 141 S. Ct. at 1882.
2. The City of Philadelphia, the Department of Human Services, the Commission on Human Relations, their agents and employees, and all those acting in concert with any of them are PROHIBITED from declining to refer children to CSS on the basis that CSS exercises its religious objection to certifying same-sex or unmarried couples as foster parents.
3. Pursuant to the decision of the Supreme Court in Fulton v. Philadelphia— which set forth an interpretation of the current version of Phila. Code §§9–1106-1107—the City of Philadelphia, the Department of Human Services, the Commission on Human Relations, its agents, employees, and those acting in concert with any of them are ORDERED NOT TO penalize, attempt to enforce, or otherwise take adverse action under Phila. Code §§9–1106- 1107 against CSS, its agents, employees, or those acting in concert with it for CSS’s actions related to the performance of certifications of prospective foster parents.
After three years of litigation, Fulton draws to a close. But Smith remains.
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COVID19 policy shows a (potential) path to the end of America…
The pandemic events of 2020-2021 outline a potential pathway for a future democratically elected President of the United States to systematically end democracy.
The course of events leading to this outcome need not be a repeat of the direct assault on the Capitol, but a distortion of risk of illness as a justification for military force and suspension of democratic norms.
Sometime over the next quarter century, it is inevitable that America, and all nations, will experience a cold and flu season above average. In a typical season approximately 40,000 Americans may die, but it is possible an above average season may see 80,000 or more deaths.
Inevitably some location(s) in the country will experience a surge in cases. Television news will show overworked hospital workers, and report that Intensive Care Unit beds have nearly run out– of course, ICU’s often operate near capacity, so this finding alone may not be that noteworthy, but in our attention economy, it may be sensationalized. Some afflicted individuals will be young children– typical for the flu, and these anecdotes will surely be emotionally salient. A video of a young boy or girl on life support machines may be used to show how dire things are. These events will then serve as an opportunity for a strong federal response.
A future US president may declare that the crisis in the region from influenza is unprecedented. Too many children are dying, and hospitals are near capacity. Citing the lessons of COVID19—that if anything we acted too late—the President may call upon the governor to issue a shelter in place warning. A week later, citing a continued rise in case, and “non-compliance” of the local people, the President could order the national guard or army troops in to secure the region. Notably, military force was applied in Australia during COVID19.
During the COVID19 pandemic, some of the most ardent calls for strong restrictions came from members of the political left. If a future president is on the political right; this would serve as a natural opportunity to remind the public that strong tactics were precisely what the other side demanded more of during COVID19. Life and safety, particularly that of children, is of paramount importance, and strong lockdowns must ensue. In many regions across the world, one political party preferred stronger countermeasures to COVID19, in all those nations, the opposing party that has the advantage for misusing force in the future.
Eventually, inevitably, disagreements with the policies will arise. Social media may see small explosions of dialog critical of prolonged lockdown or skeptical of hospital volumes. A future leader can seize this opportunity for a forced takeover of media or social media companies. Misinformation that compromises a national attempt at safety must be shut down. The future leader can remind the public that during COVID19 many were critical that we did not do enough to ban dangerous and misleading speech, and now we are doing just that.
As rules against movement are in place, with communication and media disrupted, a leader can state–without evidence– that cases are still climbing. Anecdotes, even true ones, can be provided to show the public that some people are not doing well. Accordingly, further tracking of movement may be justified. A leader can ask or mandate citizens to carry apps on their phone tracking their location. Random spot checks (such as those faced by parolees) may be applied. Non-compliance can be treated with ankle monitors or imprisonment. Deeper restrictions on movement and assembly may follow, preventing protests and counter-movements.
As elections approach, a future leader may announce that safety is a key concern and exigent circumstances call for exigent responses. As such, elections will be suspended, pending a safer time. While the Constitution of the United States does not permit the election date to be moved, it does permit states to decide electors as they see fit. A future leader may coerce states into deferring elections, and hand pick electors instead. And with that, the end of democracy will have begun.
When democratically elected systems transform into totalitarian regimes, the transition is subtle, stepwise, and involves a combination of pre-planned as well as serendipitous events. Indeed, this was the case with Germany in the years 1929-1939, where Hitler was given a chance at governing, the president subsequently died, a key general resigned after a scandal and the pathway to the Fuhrer was inevitable.
The key factors that currently exist and may pave the way to totalitarianism are the following:
1. Strong force, including military force, has been used in other western, democratic nations to combat a respiratory virus
2. The public has accepted severe restrictions on movement and commerce in the face of respiratory pandemic, with many calls for greater restrictions to be applied
3. The media is able to present vignettes or anecdotes about overwhelmed hospitals or the untimely death of a young person, without acknowledging the denominator or comparing the risk to other risks we accept.
4. The rise of social media corporations means that public dialog increasingly occurs in spaces that can be regulated.
6. The idea of safety as a virtue above all other dominates the culture
7. The party that favored stronger application of force during the COVID19 pandemic is vulnerable to misuse of force for a respiratory virus from the counterparty in the future
These core trends provide the basis and preconditions for a potential usurping of democratic norms. Increasing political polarization and tribalism would fuel that effort, as would worsening income inequality and reductions in upward mobility, which have worsened in recent decades, but may be exacerbated by the pandemic. Ultimately however, the proximate proffered explanation would be safety.
The key lesson of the coronavirus pandemic is not that the fall of democracy is inevitable, but rather that our policy preferences, and polarization, have set the stage for a series of events where it is possible democracy falls. As Madeleine Albright. says, “While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.” We must be careful not to create a roadmap to this future with our policy choices today, perhaps we already have.
Air Force’s Secretive X-37B Spaceplane Orbits Earth For 500th Day
The U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-6), is a robotic spacecraft circling Earth for more than 500 days, according to Space.com.
X-37B’s real mission in low Earth Orbit (LEO) is classified. But a 2017 Air Force press release detailed the plane as a “host platform for experimental payloads.”
However, a few unclassified experiments have been named in the latest mission. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) examines if it can transform solar power into radiofrequency microwave energy. The experiment is called Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module (PRAM). Another experiment is being conducted by the U.S. Air Force Academy and sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory to test a FalconSat-8, a small satellite, in orbit. That’s as much as we know, and for the other experiments, well, they remain classified.
Here are the most recent space missions of the plane via Space.com:
OTV-1: launched on April 22, 2010 and landed on December 3, 2010, spending over 224 days on orbit.
OTV-2: launched on March 5, 2011 and landed on June 16, 2012, spending over 468 days on orbit.
OTV-3: launched on December 11, 2012 and landed on October 17, 2014, spending over 674 days on-orbit.
OTV-4: launched on May 20, 2015 and landed on May 7, 2015, spending nearly 718 days on-orbit.
OTV-1, OTV-2, and OTV-3 missions landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, while the OTV-4 and OTV-5 missions landed at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
The X-37B program is managed by the U.S. Space Force unit called Delta 9, established and activated July 2020. There has been no disclosure of how long the space plane will remain in orbit.
In 2019, amateur space enthusiasts captured the X-37B orbiting Earth on camera.
As for the exact mission, we’ll never know what the space plane is doing in low Earth orbit.
Two weeks after markets freaked out about Evergrande, only to completely forget that China’s property sector is about to be gripped by a major crisis, futures got dinged on Sunday night and Hong Kong stocks slumped the most in two weeks after shares in Evergrande and its property management unit were suspended from trading Monday in Hong Kong, as traders eyed a fresh debt test for the developer.
No reason was given for the halts Monday, with shares of another unit, China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle still trading in Hong Kong.
After Evergrande failed to make interest payments on two offshore bonds, uncertainty over Evergrande’s debt returned amid concerns if the company would also default on a dollar note maturing Oct. 3 issued at an initial amount of $260 million by an entity called Jumbo Fortune Enterprises and which is guaranteed by Evergrande. As the maturity is a Sunday, the effective due date is Monday. The issuer is a joint venture whose owners include Hengda Real Estate, Evergrande’s main onshore unit.
What is notable about the Jumbo Fortune note is that unlike the previous two non-payments which have a 30 day “cure” period, the Sunday maturity has no grace period and non-payment of bond principal would constitute a default, although as Bloomberg notes five business days would be allowed if failure to pay is down to administrative and technical error. Details of the guarantees weren’t broadly known as the note prospectus isn’t publicly available and the deal wasn’t listed on exchanges. Adding to the potential leeway is that Monday is a holiday in China.
The news of the suspension sent S&P futures in the red after earlier gains, with Japan’s Topix also reversing an early gain…
… and sent Hong Kong’s Hang Seng falling as much as 2.7%, the most in two weeks, as shares of pharmaceutical and tech companies slide. Following the Merck news, Wuxi Biologics slumped as much as 8.1%, the most since Aug. 20, while CSPC Pharmaceutical tumbles as much as 7.1% In tech land, the Hang Seng Tech Index extended its fall to 2.6%; Ping An Healthcare and Alibaba Health drag it lower, declining at least 6% each
The Evergrande suspension also hammered cryptos although why anyone, beyond a handful of confused algos, would sell here when China can no longer ban bitcoin and its peers having already banned it about 17 times.
Yet as nervous algos were once again googling Evergrande, it appears that China was already taking active steps at ringfencing the coming default, with Caillan reporting that Hopson Development – which is also halted in HK this morning – was set to acquire a 51% stake in Evergrande Property Services for more than HK$40b, a template for what future piecemeal (forced) bailouts of the insolvent property developer will look like.
In a new book two professors of psychology, Gale Sinatra and Barbara Hofer, seek to explain why what they call “science denial” is rampant today and how dangerous it is. They also give their account in a strange conversation with Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine, from whom we might have expected a tad more “skepticism” or at least some devil’s advocacy.
The views of all three are in some ways vague and even confused, but the condescension toward the unenlightened rubes who disagree with them on certain scientific controversies–primarily climate- and COVID-19-related–couldn’t have been more clear.
While Sinatra and Hofer smear a large and diverse group of people as “science deniers,” they undercut their own claim when they admit that no one actually rejects science per se. So their sensational but misleading title and broad statements are designed not to inform but rather to sell books to their progressive-minded audience. The rubes they are talking about, the authors admit, go to doctors, take prescribed medicines, fly on airplanes, etc. That hardly sounds like general science denial.
So what’s the problem? What the authors have in mind is doubt about or rejection of particular scientific claims. They are willing to apply the label “cafeteria deniers.” But why not call them “cafeteria skeptics”? Or would that hit Shermer too close to home?
My purpose is not to defend or criticize any particular scientific claim in dispute. Some are backed by strong evidence, while others have little or no evidence behind them. Laymen ought to exercise care in (tentatively) deciding who among the contending scientists are likely to be right. Here I only want to raise a big reason for doubt that the authors and Shermer ignore.
But first, to demonstrate authors’ and Shermer’s sloppiness (which may be too charitable an interpretation of what they’re doing), please note that early on they embrace the allegedly near-unanimous (97 percent) consensus among climate scientists on ominous manmade global warming. Their point is that anyone who would take a position contrary to such an overwhelming consensus would have to be a jerk.
In fact, that so-called consensus was cobbled together by examining just the abstracts of a selection of climate scientists’ journal articles over a certain period. Only a third of those papers expressed an explicit or implicit view on whether manmade global warming was happening. Of those, 97 percent agreed on–well, something. But what? What they all apparently agreed on was that an unspecified amount of warming has occurred and that human activity has had an unspecified degree of responsibility.
Notice that no magnitudes and no net assessment of harms and benefits are implied in that sentence whatsoever. By that low bar, most if not all climate scientists and laymen in the realist-optimist camp are part of the consensus! That a good deal of the force out of the consensus proclamation, wouldn’t you say?
Yet this “consensus” is decisive for climate alarmists Sinatra, Hofer, and Shermer. (If you think humility is a virtue in scientists, don’t look for it in these writers.) Shermer says what impressed him is that all those in the 97 percent “converged” on that view (again, what view?) “independently,” while the others, he says, converged on no particular theory about the climate. Has he looked into the facts? Or does he go along with whatever is called a consensus by the news media? Is this is how he decides on matters outside his specialty? They’re growing a strange crop of skeptics these days.
Here is the problem: when the authors and Shermer call someone a “climate change (or just a climate) denier,” they are making a slickly illegitimate move; for what’s being denied is not climate change or warming between 1850 and 1998, but a looming climate catastrophe, natural or manmade. Catastrophe denialdoesnot equal climate-change denial. No one–no one!–thinks that climate does not change. Well, actually one group does seem to think this: the alarmists who imply or say outright that except for human activity, climate would not change (or not change very much). But that of course is absurd. The concept change is baked into the concept climate. The only sense in which the climate is not changing today is that it never stops changing.
Sinatra, Hofer, and Shermer spent an hour and a half talking about “science denial,” with no disagreement among them. In all the time none of them mentioned the word politicization, that is, the perverse incentives from government meddling in scientific research. They discussed lots of possible reasons for “denial”–like confirmation bias and other well-known cognitive biases–but it seems never to have occurred to any of them that some people are more inclined to distrust particular scientific claims these days than previously because they have observed that purportedly objective claims (and not just about scientific matters) are used to advance political causes. Sinatra, Hofer, and Shermer have no trouble believing that so-called deniers have hidden political and cultural agendas, but they show no sign of suspecting that those who make the claims, along with the politicians who translate them into coercive government policy, may also have political and cultural agendas–and often not so hidden.
This seems like a serious shortcoming. While Sinatra and Hofer acknowledge that scientists are human beings and subject to the same imperfections as everyone else–envy, greed, ambition, a desire for peer approval, etc.–they assure us that these faults are rooted out by an internal checks-and-balance system. Because of these, no threat to science can arise from within, but only from outside, that is, from “deniers.”
That, however, isn’t how it works out. Checks and balances on paper often bear little relationship to checks and balances in practice. (This is true of constitutions too.) For example, the peer-review process for academic publication and promotion has become incestuous “pal review.” Paradigms are protected against challenges and patched up through ad hoc salvage operations when a paradigm’s shortcomings are exposed.
Moreover, politicians are naturally inclined toward research that identifies “crises” that allegedly only government can address. As H. L. Mencken pointed out, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
In need of government grants to secure promotion and tenure at their universities, many scientists are inclined to give the politicians what they want. Those are the ones who will get the money, at any rate. An orthodoxy arises, and independent thinkers, no matter how qualified, are marginalized and smeared as, say, “science deniers.” (The obvious association with the properly stigmatized term Holocaust deniers is no coincidence.) It’s happened repeatedly before. It’s happening now. (Again, I don’t mean that every scientific claim that is criticized is necessarily wrong.)
Politicians demand research that goes in one direction, and some scientists are happy to supply it. The politicians then use the research to justify expanded power (the Green New Deal and economic shutdown in a pandemic), which stimulates further research in that direction. I’m not saying that every participant is a cynic, but it is fun to be near the action. To borrow a trope from the analysis of the military-industrial complex, it’s a self-licking ice-cream cone. And all of this is further amplified by the 24/7 news media, which will always prefer reports of looming disasters to good news, and of course the social networks, which are the lookout for “misinformation.”
If you want to see how politicization can create doubters, here’s one case apart from scientific controversies: Russiagate. For years the American people were assured by most of the “objective” mainstream media, fed by “public-spirited” leaks and retired government spies working as dispassionate commentators, that the allegedly nonpolitical intelligence apparatus had solid evidence that Vladimir Putin had rigged the 2016 election to put his puppet Donald Trump in the White House. None of that was true, as shown by the massive FBI investigation led by a sainted special counsel. Don’t you think that a good portion of the American people realize that this establishment campaign was intended to drive Trump from office or at least cripple his presidency, effectively reversing the election? (One need not be a Trump fan–I’m certainly not–to see this.) Germane to my point, if that kind of gross abuse can occur in one matter, why can’t it be occurring in other matters?
A key part of the politicization of science is government finance of research, which Sinatra and Hofer predictably want more of. As I noted recently, in his 1961 farewell speech President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the emerging government-science complex, which he said was just as dangerous as the military-industrial complex.
If climate alarmists regard private support for research as tainted by self-interest, the rest of us are entitled to regard government support as similarly tainted. Sinatra, Hofer, and Shermer really should grow up and embrace what Public Choice political economist James Buchanan called “politics without romance.”
Maybe if politics had not tainted institutional science, fewer people would distrust so many of its claims. Politics is the craft of winning and maintaining power by assembling self-serving coalitions in order to impose costs on everyone else. Some people have justifiably come to assume that many government-financed scientific claims are formulated for that purpose.
If I’m right, then the use of science to advance an interventionist political agenda has sown very distrust the authors and Shermer abhor. Laymen should certainly be discriminating when they judge scientific claims, and real consensuses should be taken into account. But that does not exonerate the scientists who have actively fed policymakers’ efforts to control our lives.
Watch: First-Ever Drone Boat Sails Into Eye Of Cat 4 Hurricane
Saildrone Inc. and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) deployed a sailing drone boat into the heart of a Category 4 hurricane last week. The 23-foot-long uncrewed vessel captured stunning video of “where no research vessel has ever ventured” before, the eye of a major storm.
The video of the un-crewed surface vehicle called the Saildrone Explorer SD 1045 battled Hurricane Sam’s 50-foot waves and winds of over 120 mph to collect scientific data about the storm and gave researchers a new view of one of earth’s most destructive forces.
“Saildrone is going where no research vessel has ever ventured, sailing right into the eye of the hurricane, gathering data that will transform our understanding of these powerful storms,” said Richard Jenkins, Saildrone founder and CEO. “After conquering the Arctic and the Southern Ocean, hurricanes were the last frontier for Saildrone survivability. We are proud to have engineered a vehicle capable of operating in the most extreme weather conditions on earth.”
SD 1045 is one of five drone ships collecting information on tropical cyclones throughout the Atlantic during the busy 2021 hurricane season. Saildrone has allowed NOAA researchers to “improve forecast models and predict rapid intensification of hurricanes,” said Greg Foltz, an NOAA scientist.
Foltz said, “new data from saildrones and other uncrewed systems that NOAA is using will help us better predict the forces that drive hurricanes and be able to warn communities earlier.”
“This is an amazing victory for meteorology and will increase our knowledge of hurricanes,” said AccuWeather Director of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin, who wasn’t involved with the operation.
Watch SD 1045’s onboard camera from inside Hurricane Sam.
Not too long ago, we wrote a response to something that prominent gun activist David Hogg said on Twitter. He believes that all gun owners are old fogey dinosaurs and will somehow “die out one day.” When they do, all the young people will usher in the utopia where nothing bad happens, and there will be no more evil guns.
Well, according to an article recently published by The Daily Gamecock, an editorially independent student news organization of the University of South Carolina, involves college students complaining about the ammo shortage. It seems like just another piece of evidence that Hogg’s idea, and honestly, the left’s idea in general that young Americans are increasingly against guns, is flat out wrong.
As the article mentions, not much attention is paid to college students regarding anything firearms-related, even though they’re increasingly becoming a large demographic of gun-buying Americans.
In fact, the idea that younger Americans are against guns is a silly one; younger Americans were raised on the “scary” violent video games, tv, and movies from the 2000s that politicians and corporate media outlets were hysterical about back then. Those same entertainment properties are pop-culture staples today.
Maybe even more importantly, young people have access to the internet. They have access to the opinions of independent commentators and can get both sides of the story being told to them. They don’t just get the news on current events from the corporate media and accept it as being the truth. Ironically though, some of the biggest gun control supporters are baby boomers, who largely still do get their news and information from corporate media outlets.
We also have the pandemic and social unrest of 2020 to thank for a major awakening in many American citizens on gun ownership. Nine million people became gun owners between 2020 & that number continues to rise through 2021. A considerable percentage of that 9 million people are women, minorities, and younger people.
Women, for example, make up almost half of new gun owners. In our own experience here at Maryland-based The Machine Gun Nest, it has become very common to see women come in by themselves to get range time in and practice with their handguns. A lot of these women are younger, college-aged people as well!
It’s unlikely that gun ownership will simply “die out.” But it seems that people are starting to wake up to the idea that the anti-gun lobby is controlled by a few extremely wealthy individuals who spend big money on people like David Hogg to become mouthpieces for their ideology.
As the trend flips and younger Americans embrace the Second Amendment, Hogg’s campaign against guns could be fading into darkness.
DHL Joins Rivals FedEx And UPS In Raising Shipping Rates Amid Inflationary Woes
DHL Express joins rivals FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. in raising freight rates for customers, which begs the question: Is inflation structural in nature rather than “transitory”?
Effective Jan. 1, DHL will increase freight rates by 5.9%, or about the exact rate FedEx announced last week.
“You have general inflation; We’ve got to cover for that,” Mike Parra, CEO of DHL Express Americas, told WSJ. He said other costs for increasing capacity, such as planes, trucks, and facilities, are becoming more expensive.
DHL Express announced the increase on Friday and said it would apply to U.S. account holders shipping to or from the 220 countries and territories. It was only last week when FedEx and UPS stated they would increase freight rates. Both companies called today’s environment “challenging” as costs rose.
This ultimately means that retailers will have to increase prices as the cost of shipping is only going higher. The cost pressures will force retailers to absorb added costs or pass them along to consumers.
Cathy Roberson, head of research and consulting firm Logistics Trends & Insights LLC, said rising shipping costs could be a nightmare for companies that may have to rethink their logistical fees for customers:
“Retailers may need to rethink the whole ‘free shipping’ offering that they provide to their customers,” Roberson said. “It’s going to end up having to be trickled down to the customer, because the shippers—such as retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers and so on—they can’t keep absorbing higher costs. They’ve got to pass them on in some form or another.”
Meanwhile, at the annual Morgan Stanley Laguna conference, some of the largest U.S. corporations warned last week that inflation is “unprecedented” and becoming “structural.”
There’s even talk from BofA’s Michael Hartnett that this winter could be filled with higher inflation, hawkish central banks, weaker growth, i.e., stagflation.
One would suspect that it’s only a matter of time before Amazon raises its monthly Prime membership as soaring logistical costs show no signs of abating anytime soon.
California’s Reparations Task Force recently heard ideas ranging from “40 acres and a Tesla” to cash settlements to compensate the descendants of chattel slavery in America.
The Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans listened to hours of professional and personal testimony from witnesses and public comments at a two-day hearing Sept. 23 and 24.
The meeting focused on the evils of chattel slavery during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and its effect on the descendants of black Americans who were enslaved. Although the tone of the meeting was mostly somber and emotional, the “40 acres and a Tesla” comment drew smirks from a few individuals on the nine-member task force, including Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) who broke into laughter.
A man who said his name was Kash Gaines made the remark on Sept. 23 during public comments.
Aside from direct cash payments to descendants of slavery, Gaines suggested “40 acres and a Tesla” would be more in step with modern times than the “40 acres and a mule,” as the phrase is popularly known.
Since the task force often mentioned that California is “one of the richest states in America and comparable economically to some countries,” Gaines said, “it’s a shining beacon for setting a high ceiling for what reparations could look like.”
“So just keeping that in mind—I hope that that’s well understood—what are y’all’s thoughts on trying to connect our reparative justice to so-called influencers of our time and specifically Silicon Valley … and in a way, even the black church, and that’s by having a 40 acres and a Tesla claim, essentially an update to the mule, where Elon Musk would have to argue why he wouldn’t fulfill a claim for 38 million cars for black Americans?” he asked the task force.
Gaines, also poked fun at California Gov Newsom’s executive order to phase out gasoline-powered cars by 2035.
“It is my understanding Gavin Newsom is trying to move California off of being on gasoline cars anyway,” he quipped.
“So just something to keep in mind that we are very, very interested in not just the direct cash payments as reparations, but in our land, and trying to connect it to something sexy for the next generation. And again, this connects to the black church, as was mentioned earlier, because it was the black church who gave that solution to General Sherman of 40 acres. It’s just I’m not with a mule no more, I’m with Tesla or something that’s an update.”
The phrase “40 acres and a mule” is commonly used to exemplify broken promises made to the descendants of slaves, and it has surfaced often during task force hearings.
The saying stems from the words of Union Army Gen. William T. Sherman, who—with the support of President Abraham Lincoln—promised 400,000 acres of confiscated Confederate land in the Carolinas to freed slaves near the end of the American Civil War.
Sherman and Union leaders met with black church ministers in Savannah, Ga., where the former slaves were asked what they wanted. The slaves told the famous general they wanted their own land. Sherman, in his Special Field Order 15, stated that land along the Southeast coast was to be set aside for 4,000 black families that had been enslaved so that “each family shall have a plot of not more than forty acres of tillable ground.”
He then assigned Brig. Gen. Rufus Saxton to the job of dividing up the land into 40-acre plots.
Though the words “and a mule” were never mentioned in Sherman’s order, it is said some of the freed slave families were given Army mules, and by Jan. 16, 1865, the promise of 40 acres became popularly known as “40 acres and a mule.”
As it turned out, Sherman’s order was short-lived. Not long after Lincoln, a Republican, was assassinated on April 15, 1865, his successor, President Andrew Johnson, reversed the order and returned the 400,000 acres to its previous Confederate owners. Johnson was a southern Democrat who ran as Lincoln’s running mate on the National Union ticket in 1864.
The Reparations Task Force has two years to draft an apology to the descendants of slaves and recommend ways the state might compensate them. It was established on Sept. 30 last year when Newsom signed Assembly Bill 3121, authored by then-Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, into law. She now serves as Secretary of State in Newsom’s administration.
90,000 Educators Beg Biden: We Need FBI Protection From “Mobs” Of Parents Irate Over Mask Mandates
How bad has the “it’s for your health” vaccine and mask mandates debate gotten?
The National School Boards Association, which represents more than 90,000 school officials, “begged” President Biden on Wednesday for FBI and Secret Service agents to help protect against “mobs” of angry parents protesting the mandates, according to the Daily Mail.
The NSBA wrote a letter asking the government to stand up against “mobs of angry parents”, labeling them “domestic terrorism” and “extremist hate organizations”.
NSBA President Viola Garcia and Interim Executive Director and CEO Chip Slaven signed the letter, which specifically asked President Biden to use his executive power to help guard school officials by mobilizing the FBI.
The letter reads: “The National School Boards Association (NSBA) respectfully asks for federal law enforcement and other assistance to deal with the growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation occurring across the nation”.
The letter says there have been “threats or actual acts of violence” by “angry mobs”.
“As these threats and acts of violence have become more prevalent, NSBA respectfully asks that a joint collaboration among federal law enforcement agencies, state and local law enforcement, and with public school officials be undertaken to focus on these threats,” it reads.
It continues: “With such acute threats and actions that are disruptive to our students’ well-being, we urge the federal government’s intervention against individuals or hate groups who are targeting our schools and educators.”
“As the threats grow and news of is being reported, this is a critical time for a proactive approach to deal with this difficult issue.”
“There also must be safeguards in place to protect public schools and dedicated education leaders as they do their jobs,” the letter says, before calling outraged parents showing up at school board meetings across the county “right-winged radicals.”
The outrage has been carrying over to school board meetings, like one that recently took place in Nevada’s Clark County. The board was forced to leave the room three times within the first two hours of the meeting.
‘We will not have comments from the audience,’ Board President Linda Cavazos said after one attendee had to be removed by police.
The letter concludes: “As the threats grow and news of extremist hate organizations showing up at school board meetings is being reported, this is a critical time for a proactive approach to deal with this difficult issue.”
We have to ask: instead of mobilizing the FBI and the Secret Service to try and protect 90,000 teachers using taxpayer dollars, has the idea of just ending the mask mandates and vaccine mandates ever crossed their mind?
