Hump Day Hunnies

5 Things a Democrat Leader Really Believes

Gina Loudon About | Email | Archive

As Democrats reel from their devastating loss in Georgia’s special election, one has to wonder what is going on in the heads of Democratic Party leadership.

These days, it seems they do the opposite of what works. In a center-right country, they are moving further and further left. Looking at actions and motivations, we can examine what is really going on in the mind of a Democratic Party leader.

Here are five things Democratic leaders really believe:

1) Flooding new potential voters over the border is more important than the safety of Americans.

Allowing unfettered illegal immigration is dangerous for all involved, but the Democratic leadership doesn’t care. As many as 5.7 million noncitizens may have voted in the 2008 election, according to a new report from the research organization Just Facts.

As the millions of illegal immigrants have anchor babies in the U.S., Democrats have a new generation of voters ready to elect them just a few election cycles from now. They are playing the long game.

The Democrat leadership salivates at the thought of millions of anchor babies coming of voting age to sweep their party back into power. Nancy Pelosi’s age may be in the triple digits by then, but it looks like she plans to stick around to see the fruits of her labor.

Also, the Democrat leadership doesn’t care if terrorists cross our open borders. Any little people who die in a terror attack are just collateral damage. It’s for the greater good – the Democratic Party leadership’s power and wealth.

2) Democratic leaders know more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens equals less crime, but they want law abiding citizens’ gun rights suppressed anyway.

Again, the Democratic leadership is playing with the lives of Americans, but there is something much more important – their money and power.

Demonizing Second Amendment supporters is a really great way for Democrats to fundraise, especially after a shooting. Democrats can’t wait to find a TV camera after a shooting to politicize a tragedy.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe looked like a jackass as he politicized the attack on a GOP congressman by a rabid leftist Bernie supporter, but all he could see were dollar signs in his eyes when he heard news of a shooting.

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5 things a Democrat leader really believes

Can we stop treating kids like 'delicate morons'?

Kids aren't stupid, nor will they shatter, but most school playground rules treat them like they are.

Nothing gets my kids fired up like asking about playground rules. Their faces light up with indignation and their voices become shrill as they compete to share thoughts. The entire exchange inevitably ends with a loud "It's so unfair!"

Some of the more ridiculous rules I've heard about from them and their friends (not confirmed by the school) include not being allowed to make snow angels on the ground "because someone might step on them"; not being allowed on any of the climbing equipment if it's wet; not being allowed off the asphalt if the snow is icy; being banned from all ice on the playground; not being allowed to go out when it's raining; and, at their old school, not being allowed onto the field during recess if older kids are playing soccer, which meant staying confined to a section of old concrete. They are told constantly to keep out of puddles, away from trees, and not to take sand out of the sandbox.

In other words, young children are expected to play on the flattest, most boring sections of the playground, and to resist the natural lure of the more appealing parts. Sounds fun, doesn't it? If they cannot make snowballs, wield sticks, or nab a soccer ball, I don't quite know what they do. Walk around aimlessly? Wait for the time to pass? I assume they run a lot.

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Can we stop treating kids like 'delicate morons'? : TreeHugger

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Why We Are a Republic, Not a Democracy

Walter Williams | January 19, 2018

Hillary Clinton blamed the Electoral College for her stunning defeat in the 2016 presidential election in her latest memoirs, “What Happened.”

Some have claimed that the Electoral College is one of the most dangerous institutions in American politics.

Why? They say the Electoral College system, as opposed to a simple majority vote, distorts the one-person, one-vote principle of democracy because electoral votes are not distributed according to population.

To back up their claim, they point out that the Electoral College gives, for example, Wyoming citizens disproportionate weight in a presidential election.

Put another way, Wyoming, a state with a population of about 600,000, has one member in the House of Representatives and two members in the U.S. Senate, which gives the citizens of Wyoming three electoral votes, or one electoral vote per 200,000 people.

California, our most populous state, has more than 39 million people and 55 electoral votes, or approximately one vote per 715,000 people.

Comparatively, individuals in Wyoming have nearly four times the power in the Electoral College as Californians

.

Many people whine that using the Electoral College instead of the popular vote and majority rule is undemocratic. I’d say that they are absolutely right. Not deciding who will be the president by majority rule is not democracy.

But the Founding Fathers went to great lengths to ensure that we were a republic and not a democracy. In fact, the word democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or any other of our founding documents.

How about a few quotations expressed by the Founders about democracy?

In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison wanted to prevent rule by majority faction, saying, “Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”

John Adams warned in a letter, “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide.”

Edmund Randolph said, “That in tracing these evils to their origin, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.”

Then-Chief Justice John Marshall observed, “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”

The Founders expressed contempt for the tyranny of majority rule, and throughout our Constitution, they placed impediments to that tyranny. Two houses of Congress pose one obstacle to majority rule. That is, 51 senators can block the wishes of 435 representatives and 49 senators.

The president can veto the wishes of 535 members of Congress. It takes two-thirds of both houses of Congress to override a presidential veto.

To change the Constitution requires not a majority but a two-thirds vote of both houses, and if an amendment is approved, it requires ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.

Finally, the Electoral College is yet another measure that thwarts majority rule. It makes sure that the highly populated states—today, mainly 12 on the east and west coasts, cannot run roughshod over the rest of the nation. That forces a presidential candidate to take into consideration the wishes of the other 38 states.

Those Americans obsessed with rule by popular majorities might want to get rid of the Senate, where states, regardless of population, have two senators.

Should we change representation in the House of Representatives to a system of proportional representation and eliminate the guarantee that each state gets at least one representative?

Currently, seven states with populations of 1 million or fewer have one representative, thus giving them disproportionate influence in Congress.

While we’re at it, should we make all congressional acts by majority rule? When we’re finished with establishing majority rule in Congress, should we then move to change our court system, which requires unanimity in jury decisions, to a simple majority rule?

My question is: Is it ignorance of or contempt for our Constitution that fuels the movement to abolish the Electoral College?

This article has been republished from The Daily Signal.

 
Source:
Why We Are a Republic, Not a Democracy | Intellectual Takeout

Schumer vs Schumer, Hillary Clinton and Obama on DACA

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Mathematics Is Not 'White'

By Rick Swenson

 

This is getting ridiculous.

The other day, I read how a math education professor claims that the traditional math curriculum is "white."  I visited her university page to examine her C.V., along with the titles of papers she has published in obscure academic journals no serious person would bother to disassemble.  I discovered that her blossoming career seems hell-bent on challenging classic mathematics as bigoted because – gasp – it heralds such marvelous discoveries of the past two millennia such as the Pythagorean Theorem and the irrational (sic) π, codified by Greeks.  I know that Chinese discoveries of these same truths predate the Greeks, but most Westerners have shallow knowledge of that history.  No matter: Teaching these wonderful human discoveries, according to our lady professor, is "white."  I never knew math cared about your skin pigmentation.  

I'm not shocked by this woman's irritating polemic.  I saw this coming.  I have been in secondary education for over thirty years, and when I started my journey, I was required as part of my master's degree from City College of N.Y. to endure a basket of "education" classes.  A few were dedicated to math instruction in the hardened high schools, and these happily addressed real problems I routinely encountered in my Morris H.S. (near Yankee Stadium) in a devastated quarter of the South Bronx.

But most of the other required education classes I took were silly.  My colleagues in the program agreed.  It was difficult accepting grandiose theories promoted by tenured and crusty professors who themselves had spent marginal time in classrooms with real kids before they escaped to a university education department post to evade the unruly mess.  For two years, every Tuesday and Thursday evening, for two hours, these professors feigned to instruct those of us who daily were front-line in this mangled field.

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Mathematics Is Not 'White'

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Feminist Researcher: STEM Classes Should Be Made 'Less Competitive' to Attract Women

Sometimes the paradoxes of PC are richly entertaining.

One of my favorite journalists, Katherine Timpf, has called my attention to a peer-reviewed paper recently published by Laura Parson “suggesting that we should make Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses more ‘inclusive’ of women by making the[m] ‘less competitive.’”

Savor that thought for a moment. The way to get more women into difficult fields where they are under-represented is to make studying such fields easier for everybody. Just like the way to get more women into the combat roles some of them crave is to lower the physical standards for the infantry. Because—well, fairness.

One actual line from Parson’s paper reads:

“There is an opportunity for STEM courses to reduce the perception of courses as difficult and unfriendly through language use in the syllabi, and also as a guide for how to use less competitive teaching methods and grading profiles that could improve the experience of female students.”

About that, Timpf is right to observe:

“In other words, women are so fragile that a syllabus with ‘unfriendly’ language would be enough to scare them out of pursuing the careers they would otherwise want to pursue. Men can handle taking a course even if a syllabus makes it sound ‘difficult,’ but women cannot because they are weaker and less confident.”

The paper contains other howlers, which Timpf sums up by saying that the paper “is about the most sexist thing I’ve ever heard.” It is sexist indeed. Hence the paradox.

Of course there’s nothing new or risible about the sort of feminism that calls for women to have the same opportunities as men. Most Americans would agree that they should. But there is something new and deeply ironic about the sort of feminism that strives to secure such opportunities by easing prevailing standards of performance.

And it’s not just STEM courses or women in combat. The codes of speech and behavior at many colleges and universities have reached the point where any expression or behavior at odds with PC orthodoxy is now considered “threatening” enough to call for “safe spaces” where students can be shielded from such “microagressions.” College used to be places where we were challenged to grow by exposure to ideas different from our own. Apparently that’s now politically incorrect.

If we have any interest in curtailing such jokes as sexist “feminism” and homogeneous “diversity,” we need to cultivate a more ironic sense of humor.

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Michael Liccione earned his PhD in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and his BA in philosophy and religion from Columbia University. He has taught in a number of institutions, mostly Catholic, including the Catholic University of America, the University of St. Thomas (Houston), and Guilford Technical Community College.

His conventional publications have appeared in The Thomist, First Things, National Review, and Christifideles; his personal blog is Sacramentum Vitae.

Feminist Researcher: STEM Classes Should Be Made 'Less Competitive' to Attract Women | Intellectual Takeout

The Unbearable Smugness Of Being…A Democrat - Derek Hunter

Derek Hunter

|

Posted: Jun 25, 2017 12:01 AM

 

It was a different time, a crazy time, all those…days ago…way back at the end of last week. I remember it like it was, well, just last week, when Democrats suggested that maybe, just maybe, the political rhetoric in the country was a little too heated after one of their own tried to murder as many Republican Congressmen as possible. Like I said, it was a different time.

After less than two weeks, that time is done and the political left is back at their lying, hateful rhetoric about how Republicans are hoping to kill as many Americans as possible. It actually took a little longer than I thought it would.

Putting aside the hypocrisy for a second, how dumb must Democrats think their base is to believe the other political party’s election strategy is to hasten the deaths of millions of people? How idiotic is the idea that one party’s plan to continue to win elections across the country is the screw as many people as possible out of something?

Moreover, Democrats are telling their zombie army that the GOP’s “secret plan” is to take from the poor and give to the rich. Aside from the abject stupidity of it, what exactly would the rich take from the poor? How, exactly, does one get rich by taking things from the poor? Do they have secret stashes of money they’re unaware of and rich people are sneaking into subsidized housing at night to empty the area under their couch cushions?

Actually, there is a way to get incredibly rich off the poor – it’s by claiming to be their champion. How many liberals have become fabulously wealthy by claiming to be “working for the poor”? They haven’t made a dent in the number of poor people -quite the contrary - but Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and countless other leftists have ensured their families won’t miss a meal for generations thanks, in large part, to their “championing of the poor.”

Quite a racket, when you think about it. And much more effective than robbing houses with no money.

Now back to the hypocrisy.

Before the blood on the baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, has even had a change to evaporate, Democrats were back to using rhetoric that could have come directly from James Hodgkinson’s Facebook page. Actually, most of what Hodgkinson posted could have easily come from a Democrat Member of Congress’s press conference or any show on MSNBC, so it’s kind of a chicken and egg situation.

Whatever came first, Democrats made clear this week their appeals to their fringe were not going to end simply because one of their own took what they were saying literally and attempted mass murder. After all, they must think, what are the odds of lightning striking twice?

Or maybe they’re hoping it will…

Elizabeth Warren said the Republican health care plan introduced in the Senate this week was paid for with “blood money” and “people will die” because of it. If someone truly believes a political party is going to cause the deaths of countless innocent people it’d almost be irresponsible not to do whatever possible to stop them, including violence. Warren knows this, and the frequency with which she says similar things makes me think she’s counting on it.
 

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The Unbearable Smugness Of Being…A Democrat - Derek Hunter

What It’s Going to Take to End Racial Preferences

By WARD CONNERLY - August 13, 2017

Over 20 years ago, California voters did something no other state had done—they abolished racial preferences in public university admissions and other public venues. The language was simple and direct: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.” It passed by a 10-point margin.

But the critics, including most of the University of California system leadership, were loud. They had predicted Prop. 209 would obliterate racial diversity throughout the university system, especially at the nine undergraduate UC campuses. Critics contended that 209 would “resegregate” UC, result in an “all Asian” university, and “drive blacks and browns from California and higher education,” I was personally accused of being a race traitor, a KKK sympathizer and an “Uncle Tom.”

My response was to virtually ignore, as best I could, the personal insults and to emphasize that in a system based on individual merit and fairness, it is morally wrong to design a system of competition based on presumed outcomes of winners and losers. I also argued that it is racist to believe that “blacks and browns” can’t compete with Asians and whites.

As it turns out, my prediction was correct. Although the University of California and certain members of the California Legislative Latino Caucus, which basically controls the Legislature, continued their attempts to undermine the law, the numbers prove that the critics were wrong. Beginning in 2010, minority admissions to UC — without the benefit of preferences — exceeded that of 1996, in absolute numbers and, more important, as a percentage of all "admits.”

California, the most ethnically and racially diverse state in the nation, proved that fairness was not fatal to diversity. But as groundbreaking as Prop 209 was, it didn’t create the national wave that I had hoped it would. In the immediate aftermath of its passage, there was a flurry of activity and interest from a few states that wanted to get out from under the yoke of affirmative action. I was involved in ballot drives in Florida and Washington, for example. But a generation after that first promising moment, our efforts have resulted in only five other states (Arizona, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington), which have passed initiatives patterned after 209. In addition, Florida and New Hampshire have acted in other significant ways to emulate 209 without the use of ballot initiatives.
But too often over the years politics has hampered the push for equality. Although America is essentially governed by Republicans—the GOP dominates the majority of state legislatures and governors’ mansions—and the GOP professes to believe in individual rights and equal treatment for every individual, my party seems unwilling to defend its principles when it comes to race. In a conversation with a prominent member of the House about two years ago, when I suggested that legislation be introduced to reaffirm the 1964 Civil Rights Act and to include language patterned after Proposition 209, the member expressed fear of opposition from the Congressional Black Caucus and Rep. Maxine Waters. He cautioned me that “Republicans don’t need that going into a national election.”

All this left me resigned to the prospect our core principles favoring merit and equal treatment will not overcome the quest for diversity. That is, until last week.

Recently, we discovered that we may finally have a federal administration that is willing to do what should have been done years ago: conduct ourselves in accordance with the American creed of equality. I applaud the effort by the Justice Department to investigate the issue of affirmative action and to follow the people who voted to end race preferences.

But I’m under no illusions that this investigation, even one run by a Department of Justice overseen by a conservative of Jeff Sessions’ pedigree, will solve this problem masquerading as a cure. It has simply become orthodoxy that it is permissible to discriminate against one group as long as you say you’re trying to help another more politically favored group.

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What It’s Going to Take to End Racial Preferences - POLITICO Magazine

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JASON CHAFFETZ DoD SPENDS $20,000,000 on FIREWOOD?

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