If you ever need much evidence that the growing “God gap” in American politics fosters an immense amount of ignorance and occasionally outright bigotry, look no farther than the concern — the alarm, even — that Amy Coney Barrett is on President Trump’s short list to replace Anthony Kennedy on the United States Supreme Court.
The alarm isn’t about her credentials. She’s checked every box of excellence — law review, appellate-court clerkship, Supreme Court clerkship (with Justice Scalia), elite law-firm experience, law professor at an elite law school, and now experience as a federal judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. She’s a young, brilliant woman at the apex of her profession.
So, beyond her obvious originalist judicial philosophy (shared to varying degrees by every person on Trump’s list of potential nominees), what’s the problem with Judge Barrett. Why do some progressives single her out for particular scorn?
It turns out that she’s a faithful Christian who lives a Christian life very similar to the lives of millions upon millions of her fellow American believers.
No, really, that’s the objection.
It’s not just that they’re afraid of losing Roe v. Wade (the Dred Scot of the 20th Century, but worse and so wrong even Jane Roe came around). They’re afraid of losing the battle to finish off what’s left of America. They’re afraid of failing their prince, not realizing that it’s a lost cause, win or lose.
Imagine if Barret was Jewish or Muslim. Or an atheist. Or a satanist. If she was, then the howls from the same progressives happy to attack a Christian would be audible on the moon.
The following story would almost be unbelievable if it didn’t come out of an American public “school” system.
Being your school’s valedictorian might be the greatest honor a student can achieve. But what happens when there’s a mixup? After delivering a valedictory speech at DeSoto High School’s graduation in May, Texas student Destiny Brannon was told she wasn’t the school’s valedictorian after all.
…
On June 12, Destiny’s parents were told that the school had made a mistake calculating the students’ final rankings, the Dallas Morning News reported. Even though she had already spoken at DeSoto’s graduation on May 31, Brannon was apparently third in her class, according to the new rankings, which put a student named Brian Uzuegbunam in first place. According to the Dallas Morning News, the error happened because DeSoto had calculated the final rankings based on grades through the school’s fall semester, not the spring semester.
The mistake is more than just an embarrassing moment for the school too; it’s a potential financial nightmare for the Brannon family. Texas state universities give each of the state’s public high school valedictorians the opportunity to attend one year at a state university tuition free. Destiny had planned to attend the University of Texas at Austin. The family claims she had already gone through the school’s first-year orientation when her family learned about the valedictorian mixup.
The biggest twist in the story, though, is the fact that Destiny and her mom apparently don’t think the mixup was an accident at all. Destiny’s graduation speech criticized the school’s administration for valuing athletics over education, according to the Dallas Morning News. The outlet reported that although former DeSoto principal Arista Owens-McGowan had approved the speech, Destiny and her mom think the new rankings came in response to the criticism.
Given how “schools” are desperate to shut down dissent, I buy the retaliation angle. However, given that some American public school teachers can’t read, it’s likely that some school administrators can’t add.
Destiny Brannon, Gloria Akinnibosun, and Brian Uzuegbunam are three of those very high IQ students I’ve noted before, the ones you can’t stop from learning even if you try. Their grade averages, for any semester, are likely all high “A’s,” separated by some small fraction. They excel because they’re smart and certainly not due to being in a school that can’t tell spring from fall.
For Ms. Brannon and all the graduates, I am happy they are free from this stupidity. The Brannons should seriously consider legal action due to the financial bite. The State and the People of Texas should consider shutting down this failed system. The system owes them all an apology.
Here’s how the DeSoto High “School” breaks down:
US News.
This school boasts a 91% graduation rate even as they admit, by their numbers, that only half the students are proficient in reading. It’s a 97% minority school; where’s the feigned outrage from the usual suspects? Oh, yeah. They don’t really care.
I do. So I’ll leave bright, young Ms. Brannon with this: You cannot be stopped. Forget these fools. (Sue them maybe). Destiny, your destiny begins now.
Somehow this “highly respected web log” missed the cut for Time’s 25 Most Influential People on Them Interwebs. I’m sure we fell in the second 25 … second 25,000 certainly…
In a field of pop culture garbage, a few figures stand out. Drudge is a given. Trump too; Tweets with a purpose. I imagine he’s the one right-winger safe from the safety and trusty councily SJWs.
The inclusion of “Q” was a surprise. His entry was tinged with doubt but there, too, was a sense of foreboding. What if he’s right about some things?
And, what if he is? Q or not, things keep changing. Dinesh D’Souza has a new documentary coming in August: Death of America. I’m not sure if that’s already happened, something we’re desperate to head off, or if it’s just a historical certainty. My gut feeling is that it’s a mix of all three.
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go work on the blog CV for next year’s list…
The first great luxury and prestige point of being your C.F. Floyd National Affairs writer is the simple fact of being such. Really, I’m honored and grateful. The second great luxury is the wide latitude I’m allowed in picking subjects. Yet, therein, within the unbridled discretion, lurks the first menace.
Mine is an admittedly strange but active mind. Every week I literally have 100 potentially actionable ideas and maybe as many potential ways to present them. There are so many important issues which affect our culture, our freedoms, and our lives that it is hard sometimes to delineate the “one” for a given segment. You may have detected a slight tendency, here, towards the long-winded. It’s difficult, once a subject in pinned down, to limit it and prevent it from devolving into a novella. I do my best…
It’s also a minor goal of mine to keep the work here at least loosely interwoven with predecessor issues. In a way, all of this stuff is interrelated – at least in part. So here, today – and I’m getting to the subject matter de jure! – I picked a seemingly whacky and obscure story out of Texas which has slight bearing on what I’ve already printed and on some other features swirling. We’ll get into the other pressing matters of the maelstrom in due time. (I hear ya, “Perrin, hurry it the hell up!”). But. Now. On to the Vampires of Austin!
Frequently, if one really wants quality news about what’s happening in America, one has to turn to the European press. Even their tabloids do a better job of fact-finding than our sold-out CNNABCNBCBS cabal. Today’s American news of the weird comes courtesy of a story I read in The Sun (UK). There is in Austin, Texas, of all places, an active coven of vampires. (Here I’ll note that even the best fiction-minded author simply can’t make this stuff up to compete with reality).
Everyone I know, with maybe one exception, that has journeyed to Cuban has been disappointed. Still, I foresee the cruise liner set will still keep going, still keep eating, drinking, “playing,” showing off the tats, gracing the rest with that not-so-unique American obesity. And, yeah, those Cubans from the man on the dock, wrapped in cellophane, in the plexiglass-topped box, are real – real in that they physically exist…
The United States government knows him as certified foreign claim number CU-2492. But he wants to make a more personal introduction to Tampa Bay.
He is Mickael Behn, a 43-year-old U.S. citizen residing in England, where he works in television production.
And, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, Behn is the rightful owner of Havana Harbor, the cruise ship terminal for Cuba’s capital city.
The harbor was taken from Behn’s family when the socialist government nationalized property without compensation.
So, Behn said, those who book a cruise from Port Tampa Bay to Havana support illegal activity. “This is an American crime on an American corporation,” he said. “Don’t go to Havana.”
The nonprofit Cuban Democratic Directorate recently put up billboards near Port Miami and is running radio ads that say those booking cruises to Cuba support the trafficking of stolen property.
How many damned offices, agencies, and programs can one government have?! Geeze.
Family from Cuba. Theft in Cuba. “American” living in England… I fail to see how this… Nevermind.
This case is especially interesting to a man whose family’s land was similarly confiscated by soldiers, at gunpoint, and without compensation. Do we get a claim? I think I already know the answer there. America and its laws are now for Cubans living in England. Got it.
It used to be a place for Englanders living in America. They’re, we’re completely out of fashion now. Even Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was an author. That is, for the new “Americans” and the tubby, tatted cruisers, someone who produces books. Books are the things they are tossing from libraries. Libraries are buildings taking up real estate needed for more sports watching venues, women’s African diversity centers, buffets, and tattoo shops.
I was just interviewed by two Temple journalism students, Amelia Burns and Erin Moran, and though they appeared very bright and enterprising, with Erin already landing a job that pays all her bills, I feel for these young ladies, for this is a horrible time to make and sell words, of any kind, and the situation will only get worse. We’re well into postliteracy.
With widespread screen addiction, hardly anyone buys books or newspapers anymore. My local newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer (Inky), no longer has a book review section. Its retired editor, Frank Wilson, was never replaced. Frank had three of my books reviewed, Night, Again, Fake House and Blood and Soap, but the last was in 2004.
We’re both right, kind of, about books sales. I say the sales are up. They are, or were the last time I checked, by the numbers. He’s right in that the quality of WHAT is sold has utterly collapsed. I think most buy the books now to have something to rest those screens on. Newspapers are dying.
The trend in the US and much of the world is towards lower IQs. The US is also witnessing a steep decline in the quality of education. Something like half the population is functionally illiterate. Thus, it is somewhat surprising that, over the past few years, more and more folks are reading or at least buying books.
What are they reading? A giant percentage of book sales fall among adult coloring books (yeah) and romance novels. The latter category does require the minimal mental synthesis of words. But, what do those words mean? If you’ve browsed the stacks in a coffee shoptoy store bookstore lately, then you’ve probably noticed the mass emergence of “postmodern literature.” Simply put, this involves the use of big words, without context, to wow the simple-minded and smugly reassure the nuevo elite trash. Much is said, nothing is communicated. Perfect for the Twitter Age.
The main theme of von Ludwig’s[2] essay on socialist
realism is the dialectic, and eventually the absurdity, of postcapitalist
class. In a sense, Sontag promotes the use of Debordist situation to modify and
challenge language. Many theories concerning a self-fulfilling totality may be
revealed.
“Class is part of the futility of consciousness,” says Lacan; however,
according to Cameron[3] , it is not so much class that is
part of the futility of consciousness, but rather the genre of class. It could
be said that Sontag’s analysis of socialist realism holds that the raison
d’etre of the writer is significant form, but only if art is distinct from
truth; if that is not the case, Debord’s model of cultural situationism is one
of “patriarchial narrative”, and thus responsible for elitist perceptions of
society. If presemioticist construction holds, we have to choose between
Debordist image and capitalist objectivism.
It even adds footnotes. Use it to impress your boss. You’ll feel smarter, smugger instantly.
For years, a debate has simmered at the nation’s universities and colleges over how much weight should be given to standardized tests as officials consider students for admission — and whether they should be required at all.
A growing number, including DePaul University, have opted to stop requiring the SAT and ACT in their admissions process, saying the tests place an unfair cost and burden on low-income and minority students, and ultimately hinder efforts to broaden diversity on campus. But the trend has escaped the nation’s most selective universities.
Until now. The University of Chicago announced Thursday that it would no longer require applicants for the undergraduate college to submit standardized test scores.
While it will still allow applicants to submit their SAT or ACT scores, university officials said they would let prospective undergraduates send transcripts on their own and submit video introductions and nontraditional materials to supplement their applications.
Or that. Transcripts from a government high school graduating 90% of seniors, of whom 25% can read (no fraud there!), and a cat video! Our future academic success is guaranteed!
It’s not your imagination. People are really getting dumber.
Over the weekend I started a draft on a similar subject, something I noticed. Here and now, I finish it with a few changes. Those were brought about by several stories which surfaced yesterday, which largely validated what I was suspecting all along.
Young people’s IQ scores have started to deteriorate after climbing steadily since Wold War Two, a new study has found.
The fall, which equates to about seven points per generation, is believed to have begun with those born in 1975, according to the first authoritative study of the phenomenon.
“Wold” War Two is likely a plain, old error and not an example of the point…
It’s true. But it’s not technology causing the trend. It’s not the fish or lack thereof. And it is not some nebulous social “force.” There are three causes:
1) Smarter people are having fewer children, passing on fewer genes. This has particularly dire consequences for the West. This works in conjunction with the other two.
2) Lower-IQ peoples are increasing in number, passing on their genes.
3) Modern Western immigration is geared toward the importation of non-Western peoples from countries with populations known to correspond with number two, immediately above.
What prompted my drafting earlier is immaterial. Last fall I reported on the various national IQs and the world average (86). Then, I wrote:
“I’m a little surprised the USA came in as high as it did. I would not be surprised if that number (and the global average) slips a little with each coming decade and/or generation. …”
Back then I had it in my head that the US was somewhere in the mid-90’s, I’d have settled for 95 (and this wasn’t via random guessing). 98 is just too high. More likely, it’s around 94.5. It’s not that big of a difference but, as its a point on a downward trend, it’s especially troublesome.
Last year I quipped: “98 will have trouble returning to the moon. 86 will not go the first time. 72 might have trouble finding the thing with a telescope.” This principle applies to all areas of society. Space travel is one thing. Running water, indoor plumbing, electricity, gasoline refinement, and relative judicial stability are others.
It’s become a vicious cycle – and yes, 1975 would be about the time it should have started manifesting itself. A crazed and deteriorating culture drives brighter people to work longer and harder while embracing the selfish and the trivial and delaying or foregoing starting families. They pay taxes to support the others, who keep having children. This is, obviously, not sustainable. Those on the right tail of the curve are increasingly squeezed by those in the shifting middle.
And, societally, it’s the middle, the average that really counts. If you’re reading this and understanding it, you’re above average. Surely you have noticed the decline of late during your interactions with the masses. It’s real. And it’s a real problem.
Others have noticed as well. Vox Day on the subject yesterday:
Vox Day/Youtube.
By the way – related good news here: Youtube assigns “related” channels to a particular creator. How? I’m not exactly sure. Regardless, I now have three related channels:
Vox appeared last night. It’s an honor to be algorithmically included in his and Stefan’s company. Banshee Moon was a prepper-esque channel. Now it’s more a bikini lifestyle channel – which I am also proud to associate with…
Note: the decline in the schools does not really factor into the general lowering. It fits with the general decline, however. Children with less base intelligence have less need for real education.
Gang-related fights are now a near-daily occurrence at Wirt, where a small group of suspected MS-13 members at the overwhelmingly Hispanic school in Prince George’s County throw gang signs, sell drugs, draw gang graffiti and aggressively recruit students recently arrived from Central America, according to more than two dozen teachers, parents and students. Most of those interviewed asked not to be identified for fear of losing their jobs or being targeted by MS-13.
Although administrators deny Wirt has a gang problem, the situation inside the aging, overcrowded building has left some teachers so afraid that they refuse to be alone with their students. Many said they had repeatedly reported incidents involving suspected gang members to administrators, only to be ignored — claims supported by documents obtained by The Washington Post.
“Teachers feel threatened but aren’t backed up. Students feel threatened but aren’t protected,” one educator said. “The school is a ticking time bomb.”
The gang’s presence at Wirt comes at a time when the Trump administration has declared war on MS-13, and communities throughout the country are confronting a surge in MS-13-related violence.
Nearly a dozen parents told The Post that they were worried about gang activity at the school, which is 10 miles from the White House. Many said they were intent on transferring their kids. Several said they were scared their children would be killed.
The blame may be a little misplaced, methinks. I looked into this story.
The problem at William Wirt Middle “School” is not:
A culture decayed to the point of collapse;
Incompatible immigration (can’t really call it “policy” anymore);
MS-13;
Any other gang;
Gang violence;
The brewing race war;
Guns or the NRA (Young Hogg would have blocked the local dairy aisle if that was it);
Rapes, drugs, or fights;
The moldy, leaky building;
The 8% math proficiency rate;
The 20% reading proficiency (better than Detroit!);
The total failure of a “school” that should be closed;
The failure of a “school” system that spends close to 50% more per student than the national average;
The total failure of the police; and
Most certainly not the failings of any particular individual students (civilized behavior is, like education, so yesterday).
The real problem, which I have identified following hours of research, is:
THE NIKE CORTEZ.
Who, police and the military aside, needs such a dangerous assault shoe with hi-capacity laces and “bump” soles? This is not the footwear the Founders had in mind. No hunter wears them. You’re 285,000 times more likely to be killed in your own shoes than to use them to outrun a perp. Sweden made the Cortez illegal in 1979.
Ban them!
#ShoeControl! #NotAnimals #PublicSkoolz
How many children? Nike.
*I wasn’t sure, am still not sure, if this one was education or 2A related. Maybe both. Is what it is.
PERRIN LOVETT 
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