Wanna bet they have their pronouns memorized?

Not a single student can do math at grade level in 53 Illinois schools. For reading, it’s 30 schools

Spry Community Links High School, in the Heart of Little Village in Chicago, says its vision is to “provide a challenging and supportive environment…to enable our students to succeed in the 21st century.” Number one on the school’s focus list? “Increasing reading and math scores to or above grade level.”

But a look at state data that tracks reading and math scores for each Illinois school reveals two frightening facts about Spry. Not a single one of its 88 kids at the school can read at grade level. It’s the same for math. Zero kids are proficient.

Spry is one of 30 schools in Illinois where not a single student can read at grade level. Twenty-two of those schools are part of the Chicago Public Schools and the other eight are outside Chicago.

The failure list in math is even longer. There are 53 schools statewide where not one kid is proficient in math.

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February 15

1113 – Pope Paschal II issues Pie Postulatio Voluntatis, recognizing Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani –The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem-the Knights Hospitaller

1493 – While aboard the Niña on his return voyage to Portugal, Christopher Columbus writes an open letter, distributed in Portugal describing his discoveries and the unexpected items he came across in the New World

1764 – The city of St. Louis is established in Spanish Louisiana

1870 – Stevens Institute of Technology is founded in New Jersey, USA and offers the first Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering.

1879 – President Rutherford B. Hayes signs into law a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.

1898 – The battleship USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor in Cuba, killing 274 crew members.

1933 – In Miami, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate US President Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but instead shoots Chicago mayor Anton J. Cermak, who later dies of his wounds.

1946 – ENIAC, the first first programmable, electronic, general purpose digital computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

1949 – Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux begin excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves, where they will eventually discover the first 7 Dead Sea Scrolls.

1954 – Canada and the United States agree to construct the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska.

1961 – Sabena Flight 548,  a Boeing 707, en route to the World Figure Skating Championships, crashes on approach to Zaventem Airport, Brussels, Belgium, killing all 72 passengers and crew aboard, including the entire U.S. figure skating team, 1 person on the ground and injuring another.

1982 – The offshore drilling rig Ocean Ranger, owned by ODECO ( Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company, Inc. of New Orleans ) sinks during a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, killing all 84 personnel aboard

1989 – The Soviet Union officially announces that all of its troops have left Afghanistan.

1992 – Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced in Milwaukee to life in prison.
Air Transport International Flight 805, A Douglas DC-8 crashes near Toledo Express Airport in Ohio, killing all 4 crew on board.

1996 – The U.S. Embassy in Athens is attacked by members of the criminal, terrorist Revolutionary Organization 17 November firing an antitank rocket that hits the perimeter wall of the parking lot causing minor property damage.

2001 – The first draft of the complete human genome is published in Nature.

2013 – An undetected, 60 foot diameter, superbolide meteor explodes at high altitude over Chelyabinsk Russia, with a force equivalent to around 500 kilotons of TNT, injuring 1,500 people as the shock wave blows out windows and rocks buildings.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein appears unaware of her retirement announcement during reporter gaggle

Democrat California Sen. Dianne Feinstein appeared unaware of her own retirement announcement Tuesday, telling a group of reporters at the Capitol that she hadn’t made a decision on her future despite announcing just hours before that she would not be seeking reelection in 2024.

According to multiple reports, a Feinstein staffer quickly notified the senator that a statement had already been made on her retirement, prompting her to say she was unaware the information had been released.

Reporters present for the interaction quickly took to Twitter to report on Feinstein’s apparent confusion.

“Asked by reporters about her announcement to resign, [Feinstein] says ‘If I haven’t made that decision, I haven’t released anything.’ A staffer then told the senator that a statement had been released. Feinstein responded saying ‘I didn’t know they put it out,’” one reporter wrote, later clarifying he meant “retire” instead of “resign.”

“Feinstein on her retirement: ‘I haven’t made that decision. I haven’t released anything.’ Staffer: ‘We put out the statement.’ Feinstein: ‘You put out the statement? I didn’t know they put it out,'” another wrote.

The second reporter later corrected her reporting by saying that it sounded like Feinstein said, “I should have known they put it out” rather than “I didn’t know they put it out.

According to another report from Raw Story, which included an audio clip of Feinstein speaking to a reporter, she wasn’t aware that she was retiring at all.

“Oh, no, I’m not announcing anything. I will one day,” Feinstein told the outlet in an interview only an hour after her retirement was announced.

This isn’t the first instance in which Feinstein’s memory and cognitive abilities have been questioned. Last year, a number of her Senate colleagues anonymously expressed concern that her memory was fading and that she no longer had the ability to serve.

Fox News Digital reached out to Feinstein’s office for comment and received a statement from a spokesperson attributing the confusion to the timing of the retirement announcement.

“The senator approved it going out today, just confusion on timing. The senator was out of the office for votes, a meeting, lunch and more votes when the announcement was sent,” the spokesperson said.

The New York Times Has an Embarrassing Epiphany About ‘Gun-free Zones.’

We’ve all seen signs announcing a particular place is a “gun-free zone.” While these signs are supposed to reduce gun violence by informing would-be shooters that their firearms aren’t welcome on the site, the reality is that they are instead beacons alerting criminals to soft targets.

And it looks like the New York Times may have finally figured that out. After a murder took place in Times Square on Thursday night, the paper openly questioned why posted signs banning guns from the area didn’t stop the violence. “The shooting was the first since the creation of the expansive, signposted zone, the police said in a statement, and it immediately renewed questions about whether such a designation can truly protect the area,” the so-called paper of record reported.

“People feel emboldened to carry guns on the street,” said Tom Harris, a retired New York City police inspector and the president of the Times Square Alliance, told the Times. “A gun-free zone is not going to stop a criminal from carrying a gun.”

I have to admit I’m shocked that the New York Times acknowledged this. While I’d like to give them credit for that, the fact is the inefficacy of gun-free zones is something conservative media has been pointing out for years.

In fact, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Pulse nightclub, Sandy Hook Elementary School, and Virginia Tech University were all targeted by mass shooters despite being gun-free zones — and that’s barely scratching the surface. According to a 2018 study by the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), a whopping 97.8% of mass shootings over a 68-year period occurred in “gun-free zones.”

So, while it’s great that the New York Times finally has acknowledged that gun-free zones are useless, this epiphany is decades too late.

Why all of a sudden this comes out now? The demoncrap PTB are stabbing SloJoe in the back to so he can be forced to not run for re-election. so Goobernor Newsome can.

Jim Biden admitted he was hired to negotiate with Saudis over a secret $140 million deal ‘because of his position and relationship’ to his VP brother Joe — who would be ‘instrumental to the deal,’ bombshell affidavit claims.

President Biden’s brother was hired to engage in secret negotiations with the Saudi government on behalf of a US construction company because of his relationship with the then vice president, legal documents claim.

Jim Biden was selected because Saudi Arabia ‘would not dare stiff the brother of the Vice-President who would be instrumental to the deal,’  bombshell affidavits obtained by DailyMail.com allege.

Joe’s younger brother Jim, 73, was at the center of a $140 million settlement negotiation between Hill International and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2012.

According to the documents, Jim told a former senior US Treasury official working as a private investigator that he was hired to negotiate with the Saudis ‘because of his position and relationship’ to VP Joe Biden – who led delegations to Saudi Arabia at the time.

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Will Oklahoma lawmakers increase firearm access? More than 100 bills are seeking just that

One bill would allow guns in parked cars on school property. Another wants to expand access to a firearm while on a boat. And one proposal would increase the area in which a person can reasonably discharge their gun in self-defense.

Four years after Oklahoma’s Republican Legislature approved “permitless carry,” removing any training or licensing requirements to handle a firearm, lawmakers have filed more than 100 bills to expand gun access even further.

With a history of being the first to pass some pro-firearm laws, including the nation’s first ban on “red flag” laws in 2020, Oklahoma’s Legislature often provides a glimpse of what gun-related policies will be a focus for gun rights groups across the nation.

“We try to be ahead of the curve in Oklahoma,” said Don Spencer, leader of the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association, a local organization that aggressively pushes for pro-gun laws.

“Right now, the big focus is on pushing back on federal government overreach or getting ahead of it, which I think you will see a lot more of.”

House Bill 1002 would allow county sheriffs to arrest federal employees who enforce laws that are “counter” to the Second Amendment, while House Bill 2643 would make Oklahoma-made firearms exempt from federal gun laws.

Those bills have not yet been scheduled for a committee hearing, but they would likely face legal challenges if passed into law.

The politics of pushing back on federal firearm restrictions are already in play in some parts of the state, including in Oklahoma and Logan counties where sheriffs recently said they would not enforce U.S. Department of Justice rulings against some gun accessories.

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Virginia: House Subcommittee Voted Down Senate Anti-Gun Bills

Last week, the House Judiciary Subcommittee killed the remaining anti-Second Amendment bills. Despite efforts from the anti-gun majority in the Senate to restrict your rights, no gun control bills have advanced. The following bills were voted down by the Subcommittee:

Senate Bill 918 bans selling or carrying many firearms and magazines that law-abiding citizens commonly own for legitimate purposes, such as self-defense, competition, and recreation, with no exemption for carry permit holders.

Senate Bill 1139 requires anyone with firearms in the same residence as a minor under 18 years of age, to store them unloaded in locked containers, and store ammunition in separate locked containers. Loaded firearms may only be stored in “biometric storage device[s].” There is an exemption for firearms carried on or about the person.

Senate Bill 1181 essentially ends the centuries-old practice of manufacturing firearms for personal use by restricting certain unregulated components commonly used by hobbyists to make their own firearms, far beyond what federal law requires.

Senate Bill 1382 bans many commonly-owned firearms and magazines. Owners of banned firearms and magazines that are at least 21 years of age may continue to keep them, but they cannot sell them. Also, SB 1382 discriminates against young adults aged 18-20 by prohibiting them from purchasing many types of commonly-owned firearms.

Why are “gun safety” activists opposed to teaching real gun safety?

Even though groups like Everytown and Moms Demand Action have tried to rebrand themselves as “gun safety advocates” and not anti-gun activists, their definition of “gun safety” boils down to “don’t own a gun.” When it comes to actual training and education, the gun prohibitionists tend to demand a host of mandates for would-be gun owners; requirements that seem less designed to improve safety and more to make it a difficult and burdensome process to exercise your right to keep and bear arms.

When it comes to educating kids about how to be safe and responsible around firearms, however, anti-gunners adopt a strident abstinence-based approach; don’t even mention firearms, and certainly don’t use programs like the NRA’s Eddie Eagle GunSafe program to teach younger kids that if they ever see a gun they should stop, don’t touch, run away, and tell a grown-up. Not because that’s bad advice, but because it’s coming from the NRA.

The anti-education ideology of the gun control lobby is on full display in Kansas, where lawmakers are debating a bill that would allow school districts to adopt a firearms safety and education curriculum for K-12 grades and self-proclaimed gun safety advocates are now demanding kids be kept intentionally ignorant, lest they be brainwashed into supporting the Second Amendment when they’re older.

Moriah Day, executive director of the Kansas State Rifle Association, said the state affiliate of the NRA requested reintroduction of the bill because establishing a unified curriculum for firearm education in public schools was “the only way to counteract the dangerous perspective many young people have from learning about firearms only through violent and careless examples on display across pop culture.”

He said the NRA approach was pragmatic because it acknowledged firearms were part of preparation for dangers of everyday life in the way advice was shared about the being safe while swimming, using electrical outlets or around fire hazards.

Johnson County resident Ephren Taylor III also addressed the Senate committee, but pointed to research indicating the Eddie Eagle program was “absolutely ineffective.” He said lobbying for firearm training in Kansas public schools was part of a campaign to build support for the NRA.

“Let’s be honest,” Taylor said. “We know why we’re choosing the NRA’s program. It’s not about gun safety. It’s about promoting the NRA to young kids so when they grow up they say, ‘Oh, Eddie Eagle. I remember him.’ You want to indoctrinate young kids into loyal NRA supporters.”

Under the Senate bill, the state Board of Education would be compelled to establish curriculum guidelines for firearm safety training conforming to programs offered by the NRA and Department of Wildlife and Parks. A local school board would make the final decision about whether to offer students instruction in gun safety.

If adopted in the 2023 legislative session, the statute would take effect July 1 and the new firearm programs could begin this fall. The Senate bill would require nearly 500,000 students in Kansas schools be afforded an opportunity to study how to responsibly deal with a gun. The anticipated annual cost of the program to the state would be $70,000.

Under the bill, students in kindergarten through grade five would exclusively have access to the NRA’s trademarked Eddie Eagle program. Students in grades six through eight would be in either the Eddie Eagle curriculum or the hunter safety program of the Department of Wildlife and Parks. The state parks department’s Hunter Education In Our Schools Program would be exclusive in grades nine through 12.

The head of the Kansas branch of the National Education Association also objects to the plan, insisting that when it comes to gun safety education schools are not the proper environment, and that any such efforts “ought to be operated outside the school day and outside school buildings.”

Given that the national NEA continues lobbying for all kinds of gun control, including bans on so-called assault weapons and criminalizing firearm transfers without a federal background check, I’m pretty sure that the Kansas chapter would object to any program that doesn’t paint gun ownership in a negative light; even something that completely avoids the political debate over gun control in favor of providing simple tips that can keep kids safe. Though school districts would have to opt-in to providing these programs, even that’s too much for the teacher’s union. If the anti-gunners had their way, the only “gun safety” lessons taught in school would be the talking points of Everytown, March for Our Lives, Brady, and the like shared by educators in their classrooms.

It looks like SB 116 will soon be headed to the Senate floor, and I expect that it will pass with wide margins. So far Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly hasn’t indicated whether she’ll sign the bill if it gets to her desk, however, so a veto-proof majority may be needed if lawmakers want to help school districts provide a real education on firearms safety when kids head back to class in the fall.

Trains carrying these carloads of chemicals run nationwide every day. There’s been no cause determined for this derailment, and likely one never will be.
And there’s two problems;
1, maintenance – actually the lack of it – which was a significant concern that nearly led to a rail worker’s strike, and
2, the lack of security and the easy target the rails are for anyone bent on mayhem.

By now, we’ve heard this. Attested by people who have relatives who attend MSU, all the buildings are ‘gun free zones’, even for those with carry permits.
As always, that sure seems to work, doesn’t it?

Michigan State Shooter Found Dead.

(UPDATED 12:05 AM EDT, 2/14/23: According to multiple sources, the suspected shooter shot himself in the head as police approached. CPR was being performed but the shooter had no pulse. Sources added that a handgun was recovered.)

 

ORIGINAL STORY:

A shooting at Michigan State University gripped the news cycle on Monday evening. Reports of two separate shootings on campus broke (one at a residence hall and another in a gym), apparently carried out by the same person. Currently, at least one person is dead while five have been hospitalized.

Hours after the shootings, police held a press conference and officially released a description of the suspect. Shortly after that, the MSU Police Department released pictures as well.

 

Unfortunately, some used the immediate aftermath of the tragedy as a way to spread false information in an attempt to paint the shooter as some kind of right-wing white supremacist. I won’t link those posts, which went viral within an hour of the first shots fired, so as to not further defame the guy who is being targeted by them. Pictures of three men walking down the street were also being spread to suggest there were three shooters. That was also false.

The shooter, who is described as a short, black male with red tennis shoes, is still at large and is assumed to be armed and dangerous. RedState will provide further information as it comes in.

UPDATE:

The death toll has now risen to three.

 

February 14

269 – Refusing Emperor Claudius II Gothicus command to renounce his faith, Sebastien Valentinus is martyred in Rome.

1778 – The United States flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a 9 gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.

1779 – Captain James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.

1849 – In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.

1855 – With the completion of the line between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas, the state is linked by telegraph to the rest of the U.S.

1859 – Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.

1876 – Both Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray separately apply for a patent for the telephone.

1899 – Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.

1903 – The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established, later split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor. (more departments, more Cabinet Secretaries and bureaucraps)

1912 – Arizona is admitted as the 48th and the last contiguous U.S. state.
The U.S. Navy commissions its first diesel powered submarine, the “E” class USS Skipjack, under the command of Lt. Chester W. Nimitz.

1920 – The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago.

1924 – The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changes its name to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).

1929 – In Chicago, 7 members of George “Bugs” Moran’s North Side Gang are murdered by members of rival Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit gang in what is quickly called The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.

1945 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations.

1949 – The Knesset, the parliament of Israel, convenes for the first time.

1979 – In Kabul, Setami Milli militants kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs, who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.

1989 – Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

1990 – The Voyager 1 spacecraft takes the photograph of planet Earth that later becomes famous as the Pale Blue Dot.

2005 – YouTube is launched by a group of college students

2008 –A mentally ill man off his medications, opens fire in a lecture hall of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb County, Illinois, killing 5 in attendance and wounding 21 more before committing suicide.

2018 – A former student stages an attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 students and faculty and wounding 17 more before fleeing.

Understanding and Misunderstanding American Gun Culture and Violence

As I discussed recently, I had the opportunity to share my views on American gun culture and gun violence at the 31st annual gathering of the Lutheran Ethicists’ Network (LEN) in January.

A written version of my talk will be published in the Journal of Lutheran Ethics later this year. For the time-being, I have put a preprint of the paper online as a free download at SocArxiv.

Yamane on Guns for Journal of Lutheran Ethics V3.0 Feb 23

Why? The public school indoctrination system

Why 65 Percent of Fourth Graders Can’t Really Read.

On Saturday, I wrote about the 230,000 children who failed to show up for class when public schools reopened after the pandemic. It’s a tragedy without parallel in American history as many of the no-shows are very young — K through 3rd grade. Critical skills learned in early education were not taught to these kids, who are now hopelessly behind.

The pandemic didn’t necessarily cause the problem. It exposed problems that already existed and were exacerbated because of incompetence and, as it turns out, wrongheaded teaching.

Consider the fact that 65% of American fourth-grade students can barely read. This is a result of a radical shift to a new way of teaching children how to read.

What was wrong with the old way? Well, it was old.

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Man who brought gun to Phoenix restaurant dead after shooting

PHOENIX — A 26-year-old man died after a shooting occurred at a Phoenix restaurant on Saturday night, authorities said.

Officers responded to the area of Camelback Road and 27th Avenue just before 10 p.m. and found Oscar Luna with a gunshot wound, the Phoenix Police Department said in a press release.

The Phoenix Fire Department transported the man to a hospital, where he died from his injuries.

Police detained a man on site and spoke with witnesses, authorities said.

Detectives learned that Luna allegedly entered the Tacos El Rancho with a firearm and shot multiple rounds inside.

The man detained allegedly provided statements that he shot Luna in self defense which ended the confrontation. Witnesses confirmed the statement, and no arrests were made.

The shooting remains under investigation, and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office will review the incident for criminal charges.

BLUF:
Congress is not likely to ban anything, leaving Biden and his anti-gun allies frustrated, while gun rights organizations, including SAF and CCRKBA continue using the Bruen doctrine to push back against restrictive gun control laws, which history may ultimately show should never have been passed in the first place.

CBS Report Details ‘Bruen’ Impact on Restrictive Gun Control Schemes

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- A lengthy CBS News report on the impact of last summer’s Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen indicates lingering angst among gun control proponents now faced with the daunting challenge of justifying restrictive gun laws when they may not be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

In the first paragraph, CBS acknowledges, “the new legal test laid out by Justice Clarence Thomas in his majority opinion has reshaped the legal landscape for firearms laws and led to uncertainty over whether measures that aim to curb gun violence can survive legal scrutiny.”

  • SAF filed a federal lawsuit challenging the recently-signed Illinois gun ban legislation, alleging it to be unconstitutional and asserting the state has criminalized “a common and important means of self-defense.” The case is known as Harrel v. Raoul.
  • SAF filed an amended complaint in its challenge of New Jersey’s revised gun permit law, adding one plaintiff and expanding its scope on so-called “sensitive places.” The case is now known as Koons v. Platkin. The case was previously known as Koons v. Reynolds. SAF was already granted a temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge Renee Marie Bumb in Camden in that case.
  • SAF and its partners in a federal case challenging the federal prohibition on handgun sales to young adults ages 18-20 filed a reply brief supporting their motion for summary judgment in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia. SAF is joined in this case by the West Virginia Citizens Defense League and two private citizens Benjamin Weekley and Steven Brown. The case is known as Brown v. ATF.

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