A person remarked that when 80% of your counties want to secede, it is only a question of time before they secede.
If Oregon does not address its questionable elections and give the rural voters a voice or representation in the Oregon State government, then secession will be the only route the disenfranchised rural Oregon voters will have to pursue. The Greater Idaho movement is already contacting the incoming Trump administration to discuss allowing them to split from Oregon. We may soon see Oregon split between east and west counties. This maybe the end point of a Democrat power dynasty in Oregon and a new ascendancy of conservative Idaho.” [from The American Thinker]
THIS is the way to beat the leftists. Not just in Oregon.
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All we’ve heard for years is that you’re a “threat to democracy” merely for disagreeing with the Biden regime, since the Biden regime was (supposedly) voted in by a majority. This time, Trump was voted in by a majority, and Biden does everything humanly impossible to undermine his policies even before Trump enters the White House. Does this make Biden a “threat to democracy” too?
According to a federal survey of school leaders, 40% of students in the nation’s public schools were behind grade level in one or more subjects at the beginning of the school year.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) announced its findings this week that the percentage of students school leaders estimated to be behind where they should be was down 7% from the 2022-23 school year but still 8% higher than before the pandemic.
School leaders told the federal education statistics agency in October that over a third of students were behind entering the 2024-25 school year. NCES data shows students are farther behind than before state and local governments closed schools during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Before the pandemic, school leaders estimated that 32% of students were behind grade level in at least one area. In 2021-22, it rose to 45%, and in the 2022-23 school year, it reached 47%.
The data shows school leaders were more likely to say students from low-income families and in schools where the population was 76% or more students of color were behind, with 52% of students estimated to be behind where they should be.
School leaders located in cities and at schools with fewer than 300 students reported that 48% of students were lagging academically.
The data follows with broader student academic achievement data and other metrics that show the effects of the pandemic closures were not equitable to minority students, who suffered more significant declines in academic achievement.
The survey also found that students were more likely to be estimated to be behind in specific subject areas studied.
“Ninety-eight percent of public schools reported that at least some students were behind grade level in mathematics and English or language arts,” the NCES said in its findings.
School leaders said 76% of students were behind in the sciences, and 55% were behind in social studies.
Peace is not at hand in the Middle East, and Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu remains determined to expand the war. Syria’s de facto partition into Israeli and Turkish territories is the prelude to wider war with Iran. As the Times of Israel reported last week, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has “continued to increase its readiness and preparations” for “potential strikes in Iran.”
Netanyahu’s top priority is the destruction of Iran before Russia wraps up its victory in Ukraine and Syria becomes a new battleground for Turks and Israelis. It’s not simply the end of Washington’s “rules-based international order.” It’s the onset of chaos. Israeli forces and Turkish auxiliaries (i.e. the Islamist terrorists who sacked Syria) are already staring at each other across a demarcation line that runs east–west just south of Damascus. Netanyahu harbors no illusions about the conflict between Ankara’s long-term strategic aims in the region and Jerusalem’s determination to claim the Syrian spoils of war.
In addition to serious financial trouble and societal discontent on the home front, President-elect Donald Trump now confronts the dangerous distraction of wars he did not start, wars that will bring his administration and his country no strategic benefit. America’s underwriting of Netanyahu’s expanding war in the Middle East will endanger U.S. national security and guarantee that Washington, its armed forces, and the U.S. economy will be hostage to whatever strategic direction Netanyahu decides to take.
Starting the war sooner, rather than later, is critical for Netanyahu. War with Iran presents Trump with a strategic fait accompli. In case Trump decides to distance the United States from another bloodbath in the Middle East, Israel’s ongoing conflict with Iran and Turkey’s potential confrontation with Israel will make disengagement impossible.
American policy planners need to understand the larger context in which this is all unfolding—and why a war on Iran will ultimately bring us and our alleged Israeli friends to grief. The principal aim of U.S. foreign policy planners ought to be the adaptation of the American economy and military establishment to the multipolar world and the development of new markets, not new enemies. Washington’s refusal to acknowledge the fundamental shifts in power and wealth lie at the heart of much of the Biden administration’s foreign policy failure.
A successful management of change would avoid a conflict with Iran; it would peacefully reconcile competing claims to regional hegemony, as the Chinese recently did with their brokering of the historic rapprochement between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would revitalize such multilateral organizations as the UN Security Council and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. These actions would cultivate the emergence of new constellations of power along the lines of Metternich and Castlereagh’s 1815 Concert of Europe. Just as no question of strategic security in Europe can be solved without Russian participation, Washington cannot create stability in the Middle East by unconditionally backing Israel’s territorial ambitions.
An American failure to manage its own transition to multipolarity will create more chaos and ignite a major war in the Middle East, not to mention a full blown war with Russia, and, eventually, China. An outlook that prioritizes avoiding conflict, not starting new conflicts, must replace nearly three decades of feckless leadership in foreign affairs. New thinking in defense and foreign policy should rank diplomacy and peaceful cooperation first over the use of military power.
Bonaparte quipped that in war, truth is the first casualty. Nothing has changed since then. Washington is a veritable fountainhead of lies feeding an unending stream of false narratives regarding the true character of the jihadist hordes raging across Syria. For our purposes, however, it is important to note the alignment of powers behind the Islamist factions now pillaging and terrorizing Syria.
Washington seems blithely oblivious to Syria’s destruction and the emergence of joint Israeli-Turkish hegemony across the Near East. The disintegration of Syria does, however, open up a short window of opportunity for Tel Aviv to attack Iran. As the Times of Israel report noted, while previously the “IAF would not fly directly over Damascus when carrying out strikes on Iran-linked targets in the capital, it now can.”
Netanyahu believes he has the wind at his back: Emboldened by the collapse of the Assad regime, he will turn his attention to Lebanon, southern Syria, and the West Bank. One predictable consequence of an attack on Iran will be a solidifying of the Chinese-brokered Iran-Saudi rapprochement—and a hardening of the blocs in the Greater Middle East, which will see Iran, backed by Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, set against a temporary Israel-Turkish bloc backed by Washington and its European vassals.
Iran is not Iraq: At 90 million people, it is double Iraq’s population, has a more developed economy, and has more powerful allies than Saddam Hussein ever did. Contrary to neoconservative expectations, there are no cake-walks in the greater Middle East.
The only certainty amid the chaos is that, thanks to the connivance of Biden, Netanyahu, and Erdogan, a wider war in the greater Middle East is only just beginning. It is one we will come to regret.
Obama’s behind-the-scenes political maneuvering culminated in a failed Biden presidency that ultimately led to a significant Democratic electoral defeat and rejection of his political legacy.
Barack Obama had long been rumored as the catalyst for the 2020 Biden nomination—and thereafter played the whispering puppeteer behind the subsequent lost Biden administration years.
As such he and his coterie proved the virtual architects of the Biden administration, one of the most unpopular and failed presidencies in American history.
Recall earlier that after a flailing candidate Joe Biden lost the first three 2020 primaries and caucuses, his inert campaign was headed nowhere.
Barack Obama and fellow Democratic insiders abruptly engineered the withdrawal of his rival 2020 presidential candidates: hard left but likely sure-loser candidates, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg.
The Obamas ignored or withheld from the public their own firsthand knowledge that Biden was suffering from signs of dement
Instead, they found Biden’s cognitive decline and his former concocted reputation as workingman’s Joe useful as a veneer for a veritable Obama third-term, “phone it in” administration. Or as wistful Obama once conditioned his dream of a third term—”If I could make an arrangement where I had a stand-in, a front man or front woman, and they had an earpiece in.”
The Obamaites then got their wish for four years of enacted hard-left directives that they could only have dreamed of while in actual power.
But their radical menu since 2021 had divided and nearly wrecked the nation—hyperinflation, 12 million illegal aliens, a ruined border, spiraling crime, a shattered foreign policy of appeasement, the popular backlash against DEI/Woke/trans chauvinism, partisan lawfare, and weaponization of the government.
And the ruling radicalism beneath the Biden facade eventually cost the Democrats nearly everything—the presidency, the House, and the Senate.
An inert Biden is departing office with a 36 percent favorability rating in a recent Emerson poll. His Democratic nominee replacement, losing presidential candidate Vice President Harris, also has virtually vacated her office with 40 days left of her tenure.
Failed candidate Harris has been roundly faulted by staffers and donors for blowing through some $2 billion in assorted 2024 campaign money.
She ended up doing worse against Trump than Biden himself had in 2020.
Many Democrats believe that they might have done just as well had Biden stayed on the ticket even in his vastly diminished state.
The Obamas were further blasted for nullifying the wishes of 14 million primary voters by forcing Biden off the ticket—ironically in the same backroom, anti-democratic manner they had cleared the way for him in 2020.
Obama emerged from his comfortable retirement to hit the 2024 campaign trail, schooling the country that President-emeritus Donald Trump was a dictator, a fascist, a tyrant, and, of course, a “racist.”
The more Trump polled even with, or ahead of, Kamala Harris, the more an exasperated and ignored Obama talked down to supposedly low-information voters.
But by the time Harris lost the election, voters had tuned out a nagging and patronizing Obama—and his stale, now-dated hope-and-changey boilerplate speeches.
What Obama did not mention, but what the voters knew, was that the border was more secure under Trump than during either the Obama or Biden tenure.
Vladimir Putin invaded countries during the Obama and Biden administrations but stayed put on Trump’s watch.
Barack Obama’s bizarre vision of a new Middle East had sought to empower Iran as a supposed counterweight against moderate Arab nations and our ally Israel.
Years ago, Obama invited the Russians into Syria, empowered dictatorial Syria, berated Israel nonstop, and all but ignored the terrorist violence of Iran’s surrogate terrorists.
But after October 7, Israel retaliated to the mass slaughter of Jewish civilians with all-out war against Hamas and Hezbollah—rendering these once feared terrorists nearly impotent.
In an exchange of air attacks with Iran, Israel showed the world that Iran was as militarily weak as its chanting and threats were tiresome and shrill.
Iran is now tottering on the brink, as its terrorist appendages—including most recently the Assad dynasty—are melting away.
Israel and the moderate Arab regimes are in ascendance, as the entire crazy Obama-envisioned Middle East agenda melts away.
The 2024 anemic Democratic campaign and the Trump electoral college and popular vote victories—combined with record defections of Hispanic and African-American voters from the Democratic Party to Trump—proved a resounding rejection of the Obama legacy and his surrogates’ left-wing visions.
Yet after the people spoke in the election, the more Obama whined that democracy itself had failed him. Voters, he remonstrated, who disagreed with him were written off as racist and sexist.
Obama again harped that constituents did not know what was good for them.
And then, the disappointed former community organizer suddenly disappeared—pondering to which of his own four mansions his private jet would fly him home to commiserate.
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Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004, and is the 2023 Giles O’Malley Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the Bradley Prize in 2008. Hanson is also a farmer (growing almonds on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author of the just released New York Times best seller, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, published by Basic Books on May 7, 2024, as well as the recent The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump, and The Dying Citizen.
SamsaraGuruDecember 12, 2024Narcissistic Personality Disorder is characterized by the following traits: Has excessive feelings of self-importance. Reacts to criticism with rage. Takes advantage of other people. Disregards the feelings of others. Preoccupied with fantasies of success power, beauty and intelligence.about:blankSEE also, Obamaand just for the fun of it, for old times sake – some of my pre-election and the defeat of the scumbag brigade memes!about:blank
Everett_BrunsonDecember 12, 2024Perhaps we will never know who is behind the curtain pulling Obama’s strings. We do know his rise to power was completely engineered. Everything about him is completely fake, from his marriage, to his alleged acumen on foreign policy. Everything he did as president hurt America, economically. politically, and morally. Without the ACA, would there ever have been a Luigi?When I look at the continued turmoil in the Middle East, I see his grubby fingerprints on every disastrous outcome. One need only pick a random country to catalogue the disaster. From Egypt, to Libya, to Iran, to Syria—-all turmoil can be traced back to his failed policies.So it should come as little surprise to all when seeing the fast eclipse of his star post the 2024 election. As we enter Trump’s second act, my prayer is that most of the pressing issues—-domestic and foreign, be addressed and corrected.
SamsaraGuruDecember 12, 2024And hopefully, Everett, already we have a team planning out the strategy for 2028. We need 12 years of sane leadership – actually I would prefer about 30!If J. D. Vance gets his own terms, I will feel much more secure.The rot in Washington is so deep four years won’t be enough.
Christopher_ChantrilDecember 12, 2024I read somewhere that the reason for the Obama Iran deal was that he was afraid of getting into a repeat of the Iraq war.
Thanksgiving is a holiday where we celebrate prosperity and achievement. Those things only happen under political and economic freedom. America was, and still is, a unique country for its always rising prosperity and freedom — with each generation better off than the last. That’s why Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. The more we renew our commitment to those magnificent ideals, the more joyful all our future Thanksgiving celebrations will be.
As Ayn Rand put it, “Thanksgiving is a producers’ holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production.”
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Donald Trump has named oil and gas industry executive Chris Wright as his pick to lead the US Energy Department.
He is expected to fulfil the president-elect’s promise to increase fossil fuel production – an aim summed by the campaign slogan “drill, baby, drill”.
Wright is the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, which serves companies extracting oil and gas from shale fields in a process known as “fracking”.
Trump wrote in a statement: “Chris was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution that fuelled American Energy Independence, and transformed the Global Energy Markets and Geopolitics.
“As Secretary of Energy, Chris will be a key leader, driving innovation, cutting red tape, and ushering in a new Golden Age of American Prosperity and Global Peace.”
Wright is a climate change sceptic who previously said he does not care where energy comes from, “as long as it is secure, reliable, affordable and betters human lives”.
In a video posted to his LinkedIn profile last year, he said: “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”
Wright will also be appointed to a new Council of National Energy, the Trump campaign said.
The council will oversee “the path to US energy dominance by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy,” Trump said.
The Trump campaign cited Wright’s work with Pinnacle Technologies, a company he founded before Liberty Energy, as being critical to the US’s fracking boom, which has made the country the largest oil producer in the world.
Wright’s appointment is a win for the fossil fuel industry, which expects a boom under the next administration. Trump has pledged to increase production of US fossil fuels rather than investing in renewable energy sources such as wind power – a goal Wright will be instrumental in driving.
The president-elect has pledged to open areas such as the Arctic wilderness to oil drilling, which he argues would lower energy costs.
During his first presidency, Trump rolled back hundreds of environmental protections and made America the first nation to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
The workings of my mind continue to surprise me, even at age 67. On the evening of Nov. 5, as I watched Pennsylvania flip from blue to red on my TV screen in Toronto, I waited for the expected pang of alarm to tighten my chest.
But it wasn’t alarm I was feeling — it was excitement.
What the hell was going on here? I thoroughly dislike Trump. He wears his ego like a neon placard, the words spilling out of his mouth an endless riff on “look at me.” He has no oratorial game, no gravitas, no class. And I won’t even get into the weeds of his moral character.
Point is, I’m no fan of the guy. And yet I couldn’t mistake the poke from my subconscious: it was rooting for him. I was rooting for him. It made no sense. Was I a sociopath, or what?
“This is not about Trump,” my son suggested the following day. “It’s about your anger at the left.”
Indeed. My irritation with the progressive left, initially a soft hum, had swelled to a trumpet blast over the past few years. It started in spring 2020, when the online scolds began hurling epithets at anyone who suggested, ever so timidly, that locking down an entire population might do greater societal damage than accepting that a few grandmas might get COVID.
Then “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” exploded — on college campuses, in corporate boardrooms, online. Every subculture, no matter how esoteric, began braying for recognition (or “centering,” in DEI language). Two-spirit indigenous people? Incarcerated women with HIV? Nonbinary semi-professional athletes? They all had a laundry list of grievances, and demanded that governments provide the salve.
This new movement rests on two absurd ideas: that certain groups require extra help in perpetuity because of harms they incurred in the past — what dissenters have aptly termed “the soft bigotry of low expectations” — and that inequality of intergroup outcomes can only arise from systemic discrimination. Cancel culture, the DEI movement’s enforcement arm, locks in these ideas by grabbing the mic from anyone who dares to contest them. It betrays the movement’s subliminal impulse: to squash free speech like a bug.
Oppressor and oppressed. Perpetrator and victim. And above all, Black and white. It’s all so tiresome. Coleman Hughes, author of the book “The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America,” regards his blackness as one of the least notable things about him. Likewise, I have no interest in looking at people through tinted glasses.
In a poignant article for the Free Press, Paul Kix describes how progressives have turned their backs on interracial marriages like his. Friends who just 10 years earlier would have celebrated his union are now telling him that, as a white man, he cannot possibly understand his mixed-race children. How sad is that?
I have no interest in denigrating men, either — a pet project of the new left. Toxic this, toxic that. Never mind that we owe much of civilization — from iron mines and the printing press to the jet planes that bring the world to us — to the ingenuity of men who came before us. That nobody gives them credit for it speaks to the level of misandry in our midst.
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Apparently all this bothered my subconscious mind enough to nudge it toward Orange Satan on that fateful November evening.
Jonathan Haidt, author of the book “The Righteous Mind,” writes that our responses to social and political events flow not from a rational thought process, but from deep-rooted intuitions — what Haidt calls our “moral tastebuds.” Then rational arguments about morality come later to justify these preferences.
Well, my moral tastebuds — triggered for years by an increasingly priggish, intolerant and, yes, racist left — wanted to see Team Blue cut down to size, even if it took a Trump to make it happen.
In the disgorgement of social media confessions that followed the election, I learned that I’m not alone. Millions of other people are just as fed up with the new left as I am. They felt the same guilty relief at the election results as I did, for the same reasons. Political commentator Wesley Yang said it best: “I still feel foreboding about Trump … But my schadenfreude toward the Democrats is totally untrammeled. I wanted to see them pay a price for their derangements.”
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 
Has excessive feelings of self-importance.
Reacts to criticism with rage.
Takes advantage of other people.
Disregards the feelings of others.
Preoccupied with fantasies of success power, beauty and intelligence.about:blankSEE also, Obamaand just for the fun of it, for old times sake – some of my pre-election and the defeat of the scumbag brigade memes!about:blank