Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Yay for the weekend! Here are a few news items to talk about. Feel free to share anything that would interest readers. Please make sure to include links.
First news item
As JVW noted, Boston Public Schools be crazy. (I think the post deserves to be widely read):
There is more at the Boston Globe article about these manipulative people plying their cultish psychobabble on impressionable young minds, all on the taxpayer dime. Read it at your own peril. It’s in equal measure aggravating and depressing and it serves as a sad reminder that so much of the education of our nation’s youth — especially in large urban bureaucratic wastelands — has been given over to credentialed chuckleheads. BPS has commissioned a report of the fiasco and key administrators are busy insisting that they knew nothing about any of this, so don’t expect any real repercussions just as long as BPS keeps the teachers’ union happy. Maybe some school systems really were better off over the last year when kids were kept away from campus and generally out of the clutches of ideologically-driven lunatics.
Second news item
They took her life. They could not take her pride. #onemoreinthenameoflove https://t.co/i4u5HTNzSi
— Paul Gosar (@DrPaulGosar) May 28, 2021
Third news item
Oh, stop it. We see what you’re doing and it isn’t what you’re saying:
Customers at one Northern California cafe were taken aback Monday morning after they got a glimpse of the new store policy that greeted them at the door.
“$5 FEE ADDED TO ORDERS PLACED WHILE WEARING A FACE MASK,” read the poster on the glass window at Fiddlehead’s Cafe in Mendocino…
Just below the large print were two additional notes on the poster that warned guests if they were “caught bragging” about their vaccines “an additional $5 fee” would be added to their bill. The sign claims the fees will be donated to local charities assisting domestic abuse victims…
Owner Chris Castleman…says that some customers have paid the $5 fee, while others have been outraged. Castleman blamed this outrage not on his mask fee but on the charitable component.
“I’ve been told this whole time that wearing a mask is a small price to pay,” Castleman said. “Some people get shocked by the sign but to see them turn around and get disgusted … when they’re asked to pay $5 [for charity], it’s not in their wheelhouse. It’s not something they’re choosing to do.”
Fourth news item
Rep. Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.), said she views her re-election bid as a referendum on the future of the Republican Party, with voters potentially facing a choice between what she sees as traditional conservative values and loyalty to former President Donald Trump.
Fifth news item
City residents should demand an audit. Help the homeless, but don’t line some bureaucrat’s pockets while you’re doing it:
In Los Angeles, city officials grappling with an ongoing homelessness crisis have turned to an idea that for decades was politically unpopular and considered radical: a government-funded tent encampment.
…
But the high public cost of LA’s first sanctioned campground — more than $2,600 per tent, per month — has advocates worried it will come at the expense of more permanent housing.
The campsite opened in late April on a fenced-in parking lot beside the 101 freeway in East Hollywood. The lot-turned-campground can accommodate up to about 70 tents in 12-by-12-foot spots marked by white squares painted on the asphalt.
According to a report by the city administrative officer, the new East Hollywood campground costs approximately $2,663 per participant per month. That’s higher than what a typical one-bedroom apartment rents for in the city, according to the website RentCafe. While the per-tent cost covers services, meals, sanitation and staffing, some are concerned that the city is investing too much in short-term Band-Aids over long-term solutions.
“If you can paint lines on a sidewalk for the same cost that you can give someone the rent for an apartment,” says Shayla Myers, an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, “I’m concerned that our city is making the choice to paint the lines rather than actually get people into housing.”
Sixth news item
U.S. President Joe Biden’s proposed 2022 budget omits a ban on federal funding for most abortions that has been part of government spending bills for decades.
The budget, released Friday, makes no mention of the “Hyde Amendment,” first passed in 1976, which has been included in federal spending bills since.
The amendment, which restricts abortion coverage for recipients of Medicare, Medicaid, federal employees, servicewomen and Washington, D.C., residents, could still be added to any final 2022 spending bill as it moves through Congress.
Biden, a life-long Catholic, supported the Hyde Amendment for most of his political career, but changed his position in 2019 while campaigning for president, saying the right to abortion was under assault in many states and increasingly inaccessible to poorer women.
Seventh news item
“Not Vaccinated”. JUST STOP ALREADY:
Eighth news item
President Biden on the continuing rise of anti-Semitism:
“In the last weeks, our nation has seen a series of anti-Semitic attacks, targeting and terrorizing American Jews,” Biden said. “We have seen a brick thrown through a window of a Jewish-owned business in Manhattan, a swastika carved into the door of a synagogue in Salt Lake City, families threatened outside a restaurant in Los Angeles, and museums in Florida and Alaska, dedicated to celebrating Jewish life and culture and remembering the Holocaust, vandalized with anti-Jewish messages.”
Biden signed into law earlier this month legislation addressing anti-Asian hate crimes, which have increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, but legislation on antisemitic crimes has yet to pass. Several bills have been introduced by lawmakers on the issue.
…an analysis of Twitter posts between May 7 and 14 found more than 17,000 tweets that used variations of the phrase “Hitler was right,” the group said earlier this month. In addition, the ADL said, it received more than 190 reports of possible antisemitic incidents in the week after the fighting began, up from 131 incidents in the previous week. Last year, there were 327 reported incidents at Jewish institutions, including synagogues, schools and community centers, up 40 percent from 234 in 2019, according to the group.
…
“I will not allow our fellow Americans to be intimidated or attacked because of who they are or the faith they practice,” Biden said, noting that May is Jewish-American Heritage Month. “We cannot allow the toxic combination of hatred, dangerous lies, and conspiracy theories to put our fellow Americans at risk.”
MISCELLANEOUS
Do not miss Patterico’s stellar work at the Constitutional Vanguard: Police Shootings Are Said to Be “Disproportionate” for Certain Groups . . . But Disproportionate to What? The series is well worth your time.
Have a great weekend.
–Dana
