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Can Your Kids Answer These Questions? If Not, Why Not?
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Can Your Kids Answer These Questions? If Not, Why Not?
Can your kids answer these questions ? If not, why not ?
If your kids don’t know the answers to these questions, it’s time you seriously considered educational alternatives for your child. And please don’t say you can’t afford it, because you can’t afford not to. If you love your children, take them out of public school, find a good private/parochial school, homeschool, or simply keep them at home. They’ll learn a lot more watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune than spending seven hours a day in a government-run holding tank for the children of dysfunctional parents.
Below are subject matters that my peers and I learned between the ages of 10-17. These issues and facts were taught during the 60s and 70s. Minorities had no problems learning these things. Why do they have problems with them now ? It’s called the “soft racism of low expectations.”
Ask your children or grandchildren these questions. If they can’t answer a good many of them, your children are the victims of child abuse.
QUESTIONS:
Who invented the cotton gin?
The steamboat ?
The electric lightbulb?
Movable press?
The reaper?
The sewing machine?
Vulcanized rubber?
Can you identify all 50 states from a map of the United States? And name their capitals?
Can you identify most of the countries on a world map ? And name their capitals?
Can you diagram a sentence?
Do you know the grammar rules governing the use of “less vs. fewer?” Punctuation ? When to use an apostrophe ? Semicolon ? Quotation marks ? Capitalization? Proper syntax?
I heard through the grapevine that there are eighth-graders who still don’t their multiplication tables. I find the appalling. Can you quickly recite the multiplication tables from 1-10? As in, right now.
Can you discuss the significance and meaning of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and U.S. Constitution?
Can you name five major figures of the Renaissance? The Enlightenment?
Can you name Christopher Columbus’ three ships?
When was Julius Caesar assassinated? Date and year.
Can you briefly discuss the early American settlements at Plymouth and Jamestown? What drew these early settlers to risk life and limb to come here? Remember–there were no food stamps, no welfare checks, and no Section 8 housing.
When did the Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock?
Can you name the major battles of the War of Independence? Which war preceded the War of Independence that, in fact, helped set the stage for the War of Independence?
Can you prove that a triangle is 180 degrees?
Can you prove that alternate exterior angles are equal?
Can you name the formula of the Pythagorean Theorem?
Can you name the formula of Einstein’s theory of relativity?
Can you cite the four rights enshrined in the First Amendment?
Can you name your Natural Rights? HINT: There are three.
Can you name the seven continents?
Can you name the two major mountain ranges in the United States?
Can you name the seven parts of speech?
Can you name the seven auxiliary verbs?
Can you name the seven figures of speech?
Do you know the “rule of three” in mathematics? Can you explain it ?
Have you read any of the following—A Tale of Two Cities, any Shakesperean plays, Oliver Twist, Wuthering Heights, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Last of the Mohicans, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Little Women, Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Democracy in America ? If not, can you at least name the authors of these classics ?
Do you know the difference between a peninsula and isthmus?
Can you briefly discuss the Protestant Reformation, Counterreformation? Can you name the major players of these historic periods?
Who is Charlemagne and why is he important? On which day was he crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor and what was the name of the crown?
Can you discuss the Age of Discovery? Columbus, Pizarro, de Leon, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Magellan, Balboa ? What can you say about these conquistadores and explorers?
Can you identify at least five major figures of the Enlightenment ? Can you identify the generally accepted years during which the Enlightenment took place? What was the significance of the period? Explain its impact on our own history?
Our country is routinely called a democracy. This is soooo incorrect. Our Founding Fathers loathed the idea of democracy, likening it to the “rule of the mob.” Which term correctly describes our form of government?
What is a synonym? An antonym ? A homonym?
Do you know when to use there, their, and they’re ? Your and you’re ?
Do you know the formulae for converting Fahrenheit to Celsius and vice versa?
Can you name the planets? In order of their distance from the sun ?
Can you name the oceans ?
What was the first battle/act of aggression in the War of Northern Aggression (i.e. Civil War) ?
Can you name the Great Lakes ? In order of size ?
Which treaty codified the nation-state system in which we still live ? Which war did the treaty end ? When?
Can you recite the Preamble to the Constitution? The Presidential Oath of Office ?
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? Whose signature appears boldly as the first signatory?
Can you recite your ABCs? Count from one to 10?
I could go on and on. But these are just the basics of grammar, mathematics, and history that all of us were required to learn while attending school in the 60s and 70s. Minorities were required to learn these things, and did. I don’t recall any minorities struggling with these things. If memory serves me correctly, I learned and retained most of these things before I had completed middle school. Modern culture and our education system consider these matters irrelevant and inconsequential. They’re all smoking pixie dust.
The Artful Dilettante
Sheriff Clarke Says the Root Cause of Police Deaths is Criminal Justice Reform
Former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke stated on Monday that the number of law enforcement officers who are being killed in ambush assaults is “staggering,” and is likely growing due to certain criminal reform measures that are enabling career criminals to stay on the streets.advertisement — content continues below
“Sixty officers killed in ambush attacks in 2021,” Clarke went on to say during an interview on Newsmax’s “National Report.” “You’re looking at a 130% increase in assault ambushes on law enforcement officers. Those are staggering figures.”
The former sheriff’s remarks come just after a shooting in Mesquite, Texas where Officer Richard Houston, who served 21-years on the force, was killed while in the line of duty just outside of a local grocery store last Friday.advertisement — content continues below
via Newsmax:take our poll – story continues below
- Who would you vote for if the elections were held today?
Clarke also commented that reform measures have weakened law enforcement because police officers are left to “second guess themselves.”
Further, over-aggressive and political prosecutions of officers for incidents in which they should not be held criminally liable is causing police to hesitate on the scene, which Clark said is “very deadly.”advertisement — content continues below
“There is a number of things that contribute to this, but the fact that this goes on tells me that the war on police is alive and well,” Clarke remarked.
The veteran lawmaker also spoke out about the smash-and-grab robberies that have been taking place across the nation and said he can’t believe police officers and business leaders aren’t forming task forces to fight back.
“What I would do is I’d get a combination of armed private security and off-duty law enforcement officers, armed in uniform,” the former sheriff stated. “You post them at the door, about a half dozen of these officers at the door. They’re armed with course, their sidearm, but they’re armed with pepper spray, they’re armed with tasers, they’re armed with collapsible batons or nightsticks. That would be a deterrent to these crews that come in. They’ll see it right at the door that this is not going to be tolerated.”
Clarke then said he doesn’t understand why there’s so much “hand-wringing” concerning this particular issue.
“There’s a lot to be done,” he commented. “It’s basic stuff. But you need a plan. And I would say you know what? Shame on the police. Leaders who haven’t gotten together with the business community, the Chambers of Commerce, and saying Hey, look, we’ve got an idea.”
Michael Cantrell
Putin to Biden: Either Finlandize Ukraine or We Will
Either the U.S. and NATO provide us with “legal guarantees” that Ukraine will never join NATO or become a base for weapons that can threaten Russia — or we will go in and guarantee it ourselves.
This is the message Russian President Vladimir Putin is sending, backed by the 100,000 troops Russia has amassed on Ukraine’s borders.
At the Kremlin last week, Putin drew his red line:
“The threat on our western borders is … rising, as we have said multiple times. … In our dialogue with the United States and its allies, we will insist on developing concrete agreements prohibiting any further eastward expansion of NATO and the placement there of weapons systems in the immediate vicinity of Russian territory.”
That comes close to an ultimatum. And NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg backhanded the President of Russia for issuing it:
“It’s only Ukraine and 30 NATO allies that decide when Ukraine is ready to join NATO. … Russia has no veto, Russia has no say, and Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence trying to control their neighbors.”
Yet, great powers have always established spheres of influence. Chinese President Xi Jinping claims virtually the entire South China Sea that is bordered by half a dozen nations. For 200 years, the United States has declared a Monroe Doctrine that puts our hemisphere off-limits to new colonizations.
Moreover, Putin wants to speak to the real decider of the question as to whether Ukraine joins NATO or receives weapons that can threaten Russia. And the decider is not Jens Stoltenberg but President Joe Biden.
In the missile crisis of 60 years ago, the U.S., with its “quarantine” of Cuba and strategic and tactical superiority in the Caribbean, forced Nikita Khrushchev to pull his intermediate-range ballistic missiles, which could reach Washington, off of Fidel Castro’s island.
If it did not do so, Moscow was led to understand, we would use our air and naval supremacy to destroy his missiles and send in the Marines to finish the job.
Accepting a counteroffer for the U.S. withdrawal of Jupiter missiles from Turkey, Khrushchev complied with President John F. Kennedy’s demand. Russia’s missiles came out. And Kennedy was seen as having won a Cold War victory.
Now it is we who are being told to comply with Russia’s demands in Ukraine, or Russia will go in to Ukraine and neutralize the threat itself.
The history?
When the Warsaw Pact collapsed and the USSR came apart three decades ago, Russia withdrew all of its military forces from Central and Eastern Europe. Moscow believed it had an agreed-upon understanding with the Americans.
Under the deal, the two Germanys would be reunited. Russian troops would be removed from East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. And there would be no NATO expansion into Eastern Europe.
If America made that commitment, it was a promise broken. For, within 20 years, NATO had brought every Warsaw Pact nation into the alliance along with the former Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Neocons and Republican hawks such as the late John McCain sought to bring Ukraine and two other ex-Soviet republics, Georgia and Moldova, into NATO.
Putin, who served in the KGB in the late Soviet era and calls the breakup of the USSR the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century, is now saying: Enough is enough.
Translation: “Thus far and no further! Ukraine is not going to be a member of NATO or a military ally and partner of the United States, nor a base for weapons that can strike Russia in minutes. For us, that crosses a red line. And if NATO proceeds with arming Ukraine for conflict with Russia, we reserve the right to act first. Finlandize Ukraine, or we will!”
The problem for Biden?
In Ukraine and in Georgia, as we saw in the 2008 war, Russia has the tactical and strategic superiority we had in 1962 in Cuba. Moreover, while Ukraine is vital to Russia, it has never been vital to us.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized Joseph Stalin’s USSR in 1933, Moscow was engaged in the forced collectivization of the farms of Ukraine, which had caused a famine and the deaths of millions. We Americans did nothing to stop it.
During the Cold War, America never insisted on the independence of Ukraine. Though we celebrated when the Baltic states and Ukraine broke free of Moscow, we never regarded their independence as vital interests for which America should be willing to go to war.
A U.S. war with Russia over Ukraine would be a disaster for all three nations. Nor could the U.S. indefinitely guarantee the independence of a country 5,000 miles away that shares not only a lengthy border with Mother Russia but also a history, language, religion, ethnicity and culture.
Forced to choose between accepting Russia’s demand that NATO stay out of Ukraine and Russia going in, the U.S. is not going to war.
Biden should tell Putin: The U.S. will not be issuing any NATO war guarantees to fight for Ukraine.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.”
Watch “Jordan Peterson: The collapse of our values is a greater threat than climate change | Off Script” on YouTube
December 7, 1941
Back then, the enemy was external. Two totalitarian regimes threatened the rights of man. Today, the enemy is our own government, a regime just as dedicated to the eradication of individual rights as any we fought before. Evidence of this assertion piles up daily. Somehow, the rights of man will have to find a way to prevail, as happened in the 1940s.
Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason
Biden’s Democracy Summit is a Joke
On December 9-10 President Biden will preside over an online “Summit for Democracy,” which claims it will “bring together leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector to set forth an affirmative agenda for democratic renewal and to tackle the greatest threats faced by democracies today through collective action.”
What a joke. This is not about promoting democracy. It’s really about undermining democracy worldwide with US interventionist foreign policy.
Yes, the conference is anti-democracy, not pro-democracy.
The countries whose elected leaders do the bidding of the United States – disregarding the wishes of those who elected them – are to be favored with an invitation to this “virtual” event. The countries that pursue domestic and foreign policy that is independent from the demands of the US State Department and CIA are not allowed into Washington’s sandbox to play.
Much of the world has seen through the pettiness of such an infantile approach. It is like the fairy tale of the emperor with no clothes. None of the sycophantic foreign leaders graced with an invitation to the banquet dare point out that the US is in the business of undermining democracy overseas, not promoting it.
Color revolutions, where elected governments are overthrown with US backing, is about the only thing the US exports these days. Ask the Ukrainians how their US-backed overthrow in 2014 has worked out for them. Ask any victim of US anti-democratic “color revolutions” about the US commitment to democracy.
For Washington, democracy means “you elect who we tell you to elect.”
European Union member country Hungary is the only EU country not invited to participate in the “Summit for Democracy” even though it has undeniably held fully democratic elections since the end of communism 30 years ago. There is no question that Hungary is a democratic country, but it is not invited to Biden’s “Summit for Democracy.”
Why? Because the Biden Administration does not like Hungary’s democracy. It does not like the fact that the Hungarian people have voted for a conservative government that occasionally pursues foreign and domestic policies at odds with the dictates of Foggy Bottom and Langley.
The Biden Administration does not like that Hungary resisted the mass invasion of refugees from countries and cultures absolutely alien to Hungary’s history. Biden does not like the fact that Hungarians have voted time and time again for a conservative government that openly professes Christian values. But what they hate most is that when Washington says “jump,” Budapest doesn’t always ask “how high?”.
It’s a petty game that has already backfired like all of Washington’s idiotic interventionist initiatives. For example, in the Hungarian situation, Washington’s childish snub of Hungary has meant that the rest of the European Union cannot participate in the summit as the EU.
Washington’s intervention overseas is always an own-goal. Sanctioning Russia over phony Russiagate has resulted in more Russia-China cooperation. The US tells Iran it must not sell oil anywhere, and similarly-demonized China cuts a good deal for Iranian oil.
It won’t shock anyone that Russia and Iran – which both hold elections no less democratic than those in Ukraine, where opposition parties are outlawed and their leaders jailed – are not invited to Biden’s little party. But no doubt their absence will be more than made up by North Macedonia, Suriname, and Micronesia. Democracy summit? More like propaganda summit! What a joke!
Paul Craig Roberts
The Insanity of Today is Beyond Madness
Let me get this straight. Jobs numbers are dismal. Unemployment is rising–says the government. Yet NOBODY ANYWHERE can get staff for their business. The supply chain is cracking due to lack of help. Conservative news outlets, who still think it’s 1995 or 2010, spin the jobs numbers as proof that a red wave is coming. Biden laughs at the rising unemployment numbers touted by his own regime–claiming they’re a sign of economic HEALTH. Like inflation is a good thing, Biden and his media claim.
What’s going on? It’s worse than madness. I have worked with psychopaths in mental hospitals. I have never seen anything like this. I have read volumes of world history. Nothing fits our times. Nothing is as it seems.
Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason
Why George Soros Is Responsible For The Nationwide Death Toll Will Make Your Blood Boil
If you haven’t noticed there is a crime wave that is sweeping the nation we have not seen in decades. From the west coast smash and grabs gripping California to New York’s violent crimes people are wondering how this could be happening.
If you ask the White House Press secretary Jes Psaki, she will tell you that this is all stemming from the pandemic, but we all know that could not be further from the truth. In fact, the crime wave that we are witnessing in our nation has been carefully orchestrated over several years by the one and only, George Soros.
Soros is the man behind the green curtain pulling the strings of the political elites, bankrolling campaigns to install far-left district attorneys committed to undermining law and order.
In the last six years, Soros has funneled tens of millions of dollars into campaigns of DA candidates that have achieved tremendous success overwhelming all the other candidates.
Most of the other candidates that run for office typically have a budget of five figures. Whereas a Soros-backed candidate has a seven-figure war chest to dig into in order to destroy the other guy.
The candidates that Soros is backing make Bernie Sanders look like a conservative and he is not stopping anytime soon. For instance, Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner received $1,700,000 from Soros. Chicago DA Kim Foxx, who treated Jussie Smollett with kid gloves after he concocted a wild story about a late-night assault, got a cool $2 million. Kim Gardner, the St. Louis circuit attorney who prosecuted the McCloskeys for defending their property, also received backing from Soros.
Now, thanks to Soros the San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin, the son of Weather Underground terrorists (and convicted murderers), who once served as a translator for Venezuela’s communist dictator Hugo Chavez.
Anyone else sensing a pattern?
The New York Post reports, “once in office, these prosecutors implement policies that are tailor-made to increase crime and reduce public safety. They eliminate or significantly lower bail requirements, making it easier for criminals to get back out on the streets after being arrested. They refuse to prosecute certain crimes, such as vagrancy, prostitution and public urination. In recent years, they’ve even used the COVID pandemic as an excuse to release convicted criminals from prison, many of whom have gone on to re-offend.”
Soros pursues the same goals through other means, too. The Bail Project, which describes its purpose as “disrupting the money bail system” while it pursues its “mission to end cash bail,” counts alumni of Soros-backed organizations among its leadership.
The results are as tragic as they are predictable: a surge in violent crime as criminals take advantage of indulgent prosecutors more interested in enforcing their particular conceptions of “fairness” than enforcing the law or punishing those who victimize their fellow citizens.
The Soros approach shocked the entire country recently when the soft-on-crime policies of one of his prosecutors led directly to the massacre of innocent parade-goers — including children and elderly grandmothers — in Waukesha, Wis.
How do we as conservatives stop these massive pay-offs?
We need to start backing prosecutors that can take these Soros-backed henchmen down.
The crime wave will only continue to get worse if we do not step in and do something to stop these prosecutors with far-left ideology get into office.
Bob Dole Has Died
Former Kansas Senator Robert J. “Bob” Dole passed away on Sunday at the age of 98, according to a statement by the Elizabeth Dole Foundation.
“Senator Robert J. Dole died early this morning in his sleep,” the statement said. “At his death, at age 98, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years. A statement from the Dole family will be released soon.”
Dole was best known as the Republican nominee for president in 1996, running against incumbent Democratic President Bill Clinton, who was at the peak of his popularity after moving to the political center. Though Dole lost in a landslide, his warnings that Clinton could not be trusted were later vindicated by the sexual scandal that led to Clinton’s impeachment.
Born in 1923 in the small town of Russell, Kansas, Dole was a student and athlete at the University of Kansas when World War II broke out. He enlisted a year later in the U.S. Army Reserve Corps and was assigned to active duty in June 1943.
As the Topeka Capital-Journal recalled earlier this year:
Rotating around several U.S. camps and attending the Officers Candidate School at Fort Benning in Georgia, Dole deployed to Italy as a second lieutenant in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division in late 1944.
But just a few months into that deployment, Dole on April 14, 1945, led an assault on Hill 913 north of Castel D’Aiano, with the soldiers taking heavy artillery and aerial fire. When he saw a fellow soldier go down, Dole went to help pull him into a manhole, and as he scrambled out, he felt a sharp sting in his shoulder.
Dole collapsed onto the battlefield, and it was nine hours before medics could evacuate him to a field hospital. He would spend the next two and a half years at the Percy Jones Army Medical Center in Battle Creek, Mich., in a head-to-hip plaster cast, having lost a kidney and full use of his right arm.
He was awarded two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster. He would hold a pen in his right hand so that people would not be alarmed by his disability when they met him.
Dole later attended the University of Arizona, and transferred back to Kansas, where he graduated with undergraduate and law degrees from Washburn University in Topeka in 1952. By then, he had already been elected to the Kansas State House of Representatives and launched his political career. He served as county attorney for Russell County, and won election to the U.S. House for four successive terms in the 1960s before running for Senator in 1968. He was reelected four times.
In 1976, Dole entered presidential politics as the running mate of then-incumbent President Gerald Ford, who lost to Jimmy Carter. He would go on to lead Republicans in the Senate, as both majority and minority leader, before resigning in 1996 to focus on his ill-fated presidential campaign. He remained involved in politics, partly through his second wife, Elizabeth Dole, who represented North Carolina in the U.S. Senate from 2003 through 2009, and partly through his own commentary.
Though seen as an establishment figure, Dole supported President Donald Trump — not uncritically, but with admiration for Trump’s policies and his achievements in office. In 2017, Dole openly praised Trump’s first trip to Europe, including his speech in Warsaw on the need to defend western civilization. During the 2020 presidential election, Dole spoke out in Trump’s defense against the Commission on Presidential Debates, saying that it appeared to be biased against the president.
Curiously, and somewhat controversially, following his political retirement, Dole also became an early pitchman for Viagra, the revolutionary medication for erectile dysfunction in men. In doing so, he removed the stigma from both the condition and the drug, opening a new world of sexual freedom for middle-aged and older couples.
Robert Dole will remain widely admired, both for his military heroism and for his public service, one of the greatest Americans never to win the presidency.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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