REP KEITH ELLISON ON OBAMACARE-RELATED JOB LOSSES: AMERICANS WORK TOO MUCH ANYWAY

During the February 9 airing of This Week With George Stephanopoulos, Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) said the loss of work hours due to Obamacare could actually be a good thing because Americans work too much anyway, compared to people in other industrialized countries. 

The discussion began when round-table host Jonathan Karl asked Congressman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) about a CBO report showing “the equivalent of two million-plus workers coming out of the economy” due to Obamacare.

Cole said, “Obamacare has been an issue from day one that’s hurt Democrats and helped Republicans.” And he said it’s “not going to go away” as an issue “because it’s fundamentally a flawed, bad policy.”

Ellison countered that the CBO report on the reduction of hours worked means, “We are going to have parents being able to come home, working reasonable hours. People are going to be able to retire. People might actually be able to cook dinner rather than have to order out and get some takeout.”

He added: “If you look at international comparisons country by country, Americans work way more that the average of industrialized countries around the world.”

He said the report showing fewer work hours gives us the chance “to look at our work/life balance,” which he described as “a great opportunity.”

Congressman Cole responded: “Strange spin. I don’t think it’s going to work.”

EDITOR’S NOTE:  THAT’S LIKE TELLING A DOUBLE AMPUTEE HOW MUCH MONEY HE’LL SAVE ON SHOES.

Common Core MATH calls 2000 election unfair, describes Lincoln’s religion as ‘liberal’

Another week has gone by and, like clockwork, some more hilariously awful Common Core math lessons have oozed out of the woodwork.

This time, reports EAGnews.org, the culprit is Illuminations, an outfit created by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and financially supported by the Verizon Foundation.

The Common Core-aligned lessons on offer at the Illuminations website are nothing if not illuminating.

Take, for example, the lesson plan entitled “How Could That Happen?” This math lesson for middle schoolers requires a math teacher to “engage students in a class discussion about whether or not they feel the results of” the 2000 presidential election were “‘fair.’”

A related lesson called “A Swath of Red” instructs teachers: “The election of 2000 was politically charged, so you should be prepared to address the issue. The merits of the electoral college [sic] are called into question during each presidential election, and some people have strong opinions.”

A similarly related lesson called “Why Is California So Important?” links students to a “CNN Student News” fact sheet that makes the incredibly dubious claim that the Electoral College exists because “some of the Constitution’s authors did not trust the ability of the common voter to make the ‘right’ decision.”

The actual math to be imparted in these lessons includes ratios, averages and “number sense.”

Another lesson is called “There is a Difference: Histograms vs. Bar Graphs.” This perfectly innocuous-sounding lesson — deemed appropriate for students ranging from third to eighth grades — covers the summary and presentation of raw data.

Math teachers using this lesson are supposed to begin by engaging their math students “in a discussion about the Presidents of the United States” including party affiliation.

The lesson plan then offers three websites for obtaining information about American presidents. The “recommended” site is a page entitled “Presidents” at the website Infoplease.com.

 

The page links to a biography of each president and provides some key facts about each president including their home states, their ages at inauguration and their religions.

Abraham Lincoln’s religion is listed as “Liberal.”

Any math student who surfs over to the Infoplease.com biography of Ronald Reagan is in for a treat. The page duly explains that Reagan’s “‘supply side’ economic program” of “tax cuts and sharp reductions in government spending” led to “the worst recession in 40 years” and a “constantly growing budget deficit.” The roaring economy and the huge plunge in both inflation and unemployment that ensued rate nary a mention.

EAGnews also discovered that the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is heavily focused on the newly mathematical concept of social justice. A search for “social justice” on the group’s website generates 130 results.

The first link proclaims: “Educators increasingly recognize the important role that mathematics teaching plays in helping students to understand and overcome social injustice and inequality.”

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a curriculum — but don’t call it a curriculum! — currently being implemented by 45 states and the District of Columbia.

These politics-laden math lessons are a new twist in the ever-growing inventory of sad and hideous Common Core math problems.

Last week, The Daily Caller brought you a surreal, subtly cruel Common Core math worksheet. (RELATED: This Common Core math worksheet offers a glimpse into Kafkaesque third-grade hell)

Two weeks ago, there was a set of incomprehensible directions for nine-year-olds. (RELATED: Here’s another impossibly stupid Common Core math worksheet)

In December, Twitchy found the most egregiously awful math problem the Common Core had produced yet until that point. (RELATED: Is this Common Core math question the worst math question in human history?)

In November, Twitchy collected several more incomprehensible, unintentionally hilarious Core-aligned worksheets and tests. (RELATED: EPIC FAIL: Parents reveal insane Common Core worksheets)

Also, over the summer, The Daily Caller exposed a video in which a curriculum coordinator in suburban Chicago perkily explained that students can be totally right if they say 3 x 4 = 11 as long as they spout something about the necessarily faulty reasoning they used to get to that wrong answer. (RELATED: Obama math: under new Common Core, 3 x 4 = 11 [VIDEO])

 

EDITOR’S NOTE:  THESE ARE YOUR TAX DOLLARS BEING SPENT ON THIS PROPAGANDA, WAKE UP!

Gawker tries to inspire 2 minutes of Jerry Seinfeld politically correct hate

Shouldn’t we should judge comedians by the quality of their comedy, not the color of their skin?

Jerry Seinfeld was interviewed for Buzzfeed Brew, and gave a perfectly sensible answer about “diversity” in comedy, namely that if you’re funny, you’re funny, and comedy is not a census designed to look like the pie chart of America.

It’s perfectly sensible, except to Gawker, which is trying to inspire 2-minutes of Seinfeld hate:

Jerry Seinfeld, the most successful comedian in the world and maker of comedy for and about white people, isn’t interested in trying to include non-white anything in his work.

When asked why he featured so many white men in his web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee during a Buzzfeed interview on CBS This Morning, Seinfeld seemed offended by the very question. “It really pisses me off,” he said. “People think [comedy] is the census or something, it’s gotta represent the actual pie chart of America. Who cares?”

BuzzFeed Business Editor Peter Lauria seemed hesitant to pursue the frank answer, but the comedian continued on anyway. “Funny is the world that I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested,” he said. “I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that.” He seems to suggest that any comedian who is not a white male is also not funny, though he’s also likely fed up with the amount of bad comedy he’s been forced to sit through in his (waning) career.

Which is too bad, because Seinfeld is downplaying the work of everyone from Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby to Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, and Eddie Huang, who are all in various stages of their own sitcoms that just might turn out to be the nextSeinfeld….

In conclusion: Yes, comedy should represent the entire pie chart of America, and the glorious, multicolored diversity pie should be thrown directly at Jerry Seinfeld’s face.

No, you fool, Seinfeld isn’t denigrating anyone.  He’s saying that we should judge comedians by the quality of their comedy, not the color of their skin.

Where did I hear something similar to that before?  Definitely not at Gawker.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  ACCORDING TO THE LATEST CENSUS 72% OF ALL NBA PLAYERS SHOULD BE WHITE.  TALENT IS TALENT, NOT SOMETHING SUBJECT TO A QUOTA SYSTEM.

TODD STARNES: You can’t celebrate America, school says

Students and parents at a Colorado high school are outraged after administrators turned down their request for a spirit week day honoring America because it might offend non-Americans.

“They said they didn’t want to offend anyone from other countries or immigrants,” a 16-year-old member of the student council told me. “They just really did not want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.”

The student council at Fort Collins High School had proposed having a day to celebrate the United States during next week’s Winter Spirit Week. The young people pitched “’Merica Monday” – and invited their classmates to dress in patriotic colors. Their proposal was promptly shot down by administrators.

“They said they didn’t want to be exclusive to any other country,” a 17-year-old member of the student council told me.

The students and parents who talked to me about this incident have asked to remain anonymous. The parents feared their children might face reprisals from liberal educators.

“It’s bizarre and idiotic that we’ve come to this crossroads in our society that we are having to sacrifice our own culture and belief system,” one of the parents told me. “I can’t even tell you how it got our blood boiling.”

After the administrators rejected the day to celebrate America, the teenagers offered a compromise – “My Country Monday.”

“We opened it up to everyone – no matter what country you are from,” the 17-year-old student told me. “That got declined, too.”

The school’s decision left students frustrated, confused and angry.

“It’s shocking,” the 16-year-old said. “There are men and women fighting for our country and we should be able to celebrate that and be proud that we live in a country where we are allowed to vote – the right to free speech. They won’t even let us celebrate it.”

The irony, said the students, is that they are required to participate in Cinco de Mayo celebrations. One member of the student council pointed out the hypocrisy – and noted that students were not being forced to dress in red, white and blue for “’Merica Day.”

“We were confused why we couldn’t do one day that was for America,” the student told me.

The parents said they are “so tired” of political correctness.

The principal at Fort Collins High School did not return my phone calls and neither did the assistant principal. A spokesperson for the Poudre School District sent me a statement acknowledging they rejected the “’Merica Day” celebration.

“Building administration met with the students to discuss the inconsistency of this day versus the other planned theme days including PJ day and Twin day,” the statement read. “The students then suggested changing the first day to My Country Monday and administration agreed. This theme day allows students to showcase their pride in America and for international students, their country of origin.”

However, parents and students said that’s not accurate. They said My Country Monday was originally rejected last week and was only reinstated midday Monday – shortly after I called the school district and began making inquiries (a coincidence, I’m sure.)

I asked the district spokesperson to clarify their statement. The spokesperson did not return my message.

“They said they didn’t feel comfortable having a day celebrated where students might feel uncomfortable with the patriotism that students are showing,” one of the students told me.

Unbelievable. This is the United States of America. We welcome the huddled masses yearning to be free with arms wide open. But if you come to our land and take offense at our values and traditions, then don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

And shame on the administrators at Fort Collins High School for treating American school children like second-class citizens.

To the young patriots at Fort Collins High School, I offer these words: America, America, God shed His grace on Thee. Don’t let your teachers tell you otherwise.

 

EDITOR’S NOTE:  IF THIS WHAT WE’RE “TEACHING” OUR CHILDREN, WE’RE IN BIG TROUBLE.

Progressivism Kills: Detroit is not healthy for children and other living things

There are many horrific stories to be told about the implosion of Detroit, once the nation’s most prosperous city, today its poorest. There is the story of its corrupt public institutions, its feckless leaders, its poisonous racial politics, its practically nonexistent economy, the riots that have led to its thrice being occupied by federal troops. The most horrific story may be that of the death of its children.

Detroit has the highest child-mortality rate of any American city, exceeding that of many parts of what we used to call the Third World. The rate of death before the age of 18 in Detroit is nearly three times New York City’s, and its infant-mortality rate exceeds that of Botswana. The main cause of premature death among the children of Detroit is premature birth — the second is murder. While the city’s murder rate among adults is nothing to be proud of, more horrifying is the fact that between 30 and 40 children are murdered in Detroit in a typical year. Some of those children are nine-month-olds killed by rifle fire in their beds; some are budding criminals in their late teens — and each of those situations offers its own unique horrors. So dangerous is the city that children are being armed by their parents, which has predictable consequences. “I work in the Wayne County Juvenile Court, and these children are obtaining guns from adults,” children’s-law attorney Lynda White told the Detroit News, which has been conducting an in-depth investigation of how Detroit’s children are dying. “They’re obtaining guns illegally from people who are supposed to be responsible and people who are supposed to protect them. And if that person who has a huge influence in your life is giving you a gun, some of them tend to think it’s okay to carry it. And they’re being told, ‘You need this for your protection, you live in Detroit.’”

Detroit represents nothing less than progressivism in its final stage of decadence: Worried that unionized public-sector workers are looting your city? Detroit is already bankrupt, unable to provide basic services expected of it — half the streetlights don’t work, transit has been reduced, neighborhoods go unpatrolled. Worried that public-sector unions are ruining your schools? Detroit’s were ruined a generation or more ago, the results of which are everywhere to be seen in the city. Worried that Obamacare is going to ruin our health-care markets? General-practice physicians are hard to find in Detroit, and those willing to accept Medicaid — which covers a great swath of Detroit’s population — are rarer still. Worried about the permissive culture? Four out of five of Detroit’s children are born out of wedlock. Worried that government is making it difficult for businesses to thrive? Many people in Detroit have to travel miles to find a grocery store. This is the endgame of welfare economics: What good is Medicaid if there are no doctors? What good are food stamps where there is no food? What good are “free” schools if you’re so afraid to send your children there that you feel it prudent to arm them first?

Detroit is what Democrats do. The last Republican elected mayor of Detroit took office during the Eisenhower administration. The decay of Detroit is not the inevitable outcome of the decline of the automotive industry: The automotive industry is thriving in the United States — but not in Detroit. It isn’t white flight: The black middle class has left Detroit as fast as it can. The model of Detroit politics is startlingly familiar in its fundamentals, distinguished only by its degree of advancement: Advance the interests of public-sector unions and politically connected business cronies, expand the relative size of the public sector remorselessly — and when opposed, cry “Racism!” When people vote with their feet, cry “Racism!” When the budget just won’t balance, cry “Racism!” Never mind that the current mayor of Detroit is the first non–African American to hold that job since the 1970s, or that, as one Detroit News columnist put it, “black nationalism . . . is now the dominant ideology of the [city] council” — somewhere, there must be a somebody else to blame, preferably: aged, portly, white, male, and Republican. No less a fool than Ed Schultz blamed the straits of this exemplar of Democratic single-party rule on “a lot of Republican policies.” Melissa Harris-Perry, “America’s leading public intellectual,” blames Detroit’s problems on its conservatism and small government, oblivious to the fact that Detroit maintains twice as many city employees per resident as do larger cities such as Fort Worth and Indianapolis, and three times as many as liberal San Jose.

The result of all that municipal “investment”? For children newborn through age 18, Detroit sees 120 deaths per 100,000 each year — a rate 26 percent higher than second-place child-killer Philadelphia. That’s nearly two and a half times the rate in Los Angeles, which isn’t exactly a leafy suburban paradise. Every time our progressive friends come to us with another idea for transferring wealth from the productive economy to them and their friends, they scold us: “Think of the children!” But those who resist their efforts to do to the country at large what they have done to Detroit are thinking of the children.

There used to be a popular bumper sticker reading, “War Is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.” War is hell, Detroit merely hellish. The difference is, we don’t send children off to war.

EDITORS NOTE:  THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY?  DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND EXPECTING A DIFFERENT RESULT.

Bill Maher Taunts Conservatives With ‘Mass Shooting At Country Music Awards’ Joke

Bill Maher doesn’t hide his feelings about gun control, and what he sees as the culpability of Democrats and Republicans in not passing meaningful legislation in the wake of mass shootings. Back in September on “Real Time” he excoriated both sides of the aisle, “We’re never gonna do anything about this… because both parties love guns.”

But on this Friday’s episode he took a pointed swipe at conservatives, particularly those who lamented the “liberal agenda” being pushed by the mass wedding at the Grammys.

During the New Rules segment of the show Maher quipped, “Now that liberals have forwarded their agenda by inserting a mass gay wedding into the Grammys, conservatives must match them tit-for-tat by having a mass shooting at the Country Music Awards.”

EDITOR’S NOTE:   ACCORDING TO MR. MAHER, IT’S OK TO BELITTLE BLACK CONSERVATIVES, FEMALE CONSERVATIVES, GAY CONSERVATIVES, HILLBILLIES, REDNECKS, CRACKERS, EVERYONE IN FLY-OVER COUNTRY AND ANYONE ELSE THAT DOESN’T AGREE WITH HIM.  SORRY, BILL, YOUR TINY PROGRESSIVE BRAIN DOSEN’T SEE THAT THEY ARE ALL YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS.

IS SCARLETT JOHANSSON WRONG TO DUMP OXFAM? ASK SODASTREAM’S PALESTINIAN WORKERS

While the likes of MSNBC’s Chris Hayes are criticising actressScarlett Johansson‘s decision to stand by SodaStream and Israel and ditch the politicking Oxfam, there is another group of people whose opinions on this issue should be heard: the Palestinians employed by SodaStream in the West Bank.

Earlier this month, Johansson and Oxfam came to blows over the actress’s appearance for and endorsement of SodaStream, a company which has factories in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

And while there are of course many Palestinians not employed by the company who oppose the West Bank factories, the resounding consensus from employees and their dependents seems to be one of excitement and gratitude towards the Israeli-owned firm. Over 500 Palestinians are able to earn three times as much as the average Palestinian worker—and even more than Israel’s own minimum wage.

One worker told NPR: “It’s an excellent place to work. It provides a good salary and they treat us very well. At SodaStream, they do not discriminate between Arabs, Jews, or any ethnic group.”

But there are those for whom the status quo and the “pro-Palestinian” lobbying that goes along with it is more important than Palestinian jobs and economic liberties.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, while not the worst of all culprits, illustrates how ignorant yet politically exigent statements contribute very little to a solution in the region. Earlier Thursday he stated, “Well I’m sure the Hollywood actress getting paid $ for sponsorship and not the NGO that feeds people is right about this particular policy.”

One wonders if the liberal media darling getting paid $ for pushing a particular narrative and not the Palestinian worker is right.

Another Palestinian told CSMonitor what he thought of Oxfam and many other organisations’ boycotts of Israel and Israeli companies operating in the West Bank: “Before boycotting, they should think of the workers who are going to suffer.” The man previously is said to have earned 20 shekels ($6) a day plucking and cleaning chickens but now he makes nearly 10 times that at SodaStream, which also provides transportation, breakfast, and lunch.

One of his fellow Palestinians remarked: “I would love to work for SodaStream. They’re quite privileged. People look up to them. It’s not the people who want to boycott, it’s the officials.”

So why does the so-called “pro-Palestinian” (read: anti-Israel) lobby fail to concern themselves with the welfare and rights of ordinary Palestinians?

One Palestinian man claims it is because “When they [Israelis] provide work for the Palestinians, it’s a way of beautifying the image of the occupation,” whereas the SodaStream CEO says that while he isn’t in favour of the settlements in the West Bank, he doesn’t “want to send 5,000 people into hunger because some activist group thinks that’s going to promote peace.”

If we’re talking about human rights in its truest form, surely the right to economic liberty trumps an unprovable notion of what you perceive your neighbours’ government to be doing in order to “beautify” their policies. If it doesn’t, then you have to question many NGOs’ use of the phrase “human rights” at all.

EDITOR’S NOTE:   IT SEEMS ONE OF THEIR PRECIOUS HOLLYWOOD CELEBS HAS STRAYED OFF THE RESERVATION BY HAVING A DIFFERING OPINION.  IN THIS CASE DIVERSITY WILL NOT BE CELEBRATED.  IT WILL BE PUNISHED.