Tag Archives: Piedmont Chronicles

From TPC, Today: Who Separates Kids?

21 Thursday Jun 2018

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My latest at TPC: on the illegals, the kids, etc.:

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This is an ongoing trend of which you are surely aware. America (and the West) is currently undergoing the largest mass migration of humans in recorded history. Since 1965, when US immigration and naturalization law was … tweaked… scores of millions of newcomers have come forth, changing the face of our country. Europe has seen a similar phenomenon.

 

Trump is correct about the Dems, at least as it concerns their affinity for bad policy. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Keep Families Together Act, S. 3036, as currently (poorly) drafted would literally exempt almost all parents (illegals, immigrants, or citizens) in the country from federal criminal prosecution. Given what’s become of federal law and law enforcement, that may not be such a bad idea; I doubt it’s what the author originally intended, however.

 

Much of this mess can be traced back to another Democrat’s bad law. Emanuel Celler’s hideous Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 shifted America’s immigration and demography from the traditional to the radical and the globalist. Celler, Ted Kennedy, and other proponents at the time lied when they assured the nation that nothing would change.

 

And, when did liberals start caring about immigrant children and keeping them together with families in the United States? You might recall the following picture and the young child, Elian Gonzalez, featured therein – the one crying and with the submachine gun aimed at him – courtesy of Bill Clinton and Janet Reno:

 

Recall Feinstein’s defense of Elian? Me neither. Historycollection.co/CNN.
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READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE AT TPC

 

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From TPC, Today: Suicide is Not the Answer to a Culture Gone Mad

14 Thursday Jun 2018

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This one really wraps up several pressing issues, particularly toward the end and in the notes I added:

The CDC reports strong growth in suicide rates nationwide over the past generation. These rates are up 30% in half the states. Self-inflicted demise is now the tenth leading cause of death in our country. This, at a time of supposed peace, prosperity, and economic growth. 54% of the recent suicides were by persons with no previously known mental disorder. No age, race, situation, or condition seems immune. Look through that report; odds are you’ll be staggered.

The venerable CDC suggests what can be done about the trend. I see good, bad, and incomplete in their advice. At a superficial level, they get it right about life stress being a major factor. Their solutions, some of them I think, are perhaps a little misplaced.

“Making sure government, public health, healthcare, employers, education, the media and community organizations are working together is important for preventing suicide.”
– CDC, Overview.

That certainly sounds fine and well. But, what if the government, the “public” health, and all those institutions are contributing to the problem? Contributing to all that stress, consternation, and perplexity. Then what?

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE AT TPC

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Grit and Steel: Fiction at TPC

06 Wednesday Jun 2018

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And, by fiction, for once I don’t mean a goofy political poem. A short, short story:

It was as delightful a late-October afternoon as anyone could want, cooler and quieter than most. Wendell “Dell” Hubbard looked out the office window as the leaves shimmered in a breeze, their autumnal transformation slowly proceeding. It was a great afternoon, a great Friday afternoon. So far as Wendell knew he was the last man in the building. Friday’s usually meant leaving a little early. And now it was a little late – five past five. ‘No rush,’ he thought as his gaze returned to the stack of files on his desk. His blushing bride and her sister were held up at the family beach house for the weekend. He could afford to take it easy. Stay a little longer. Get a little more done. Later, perhaps, a cigar and a little Scotch was in order.

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READ THE WHOLE THING AT TPC

*Is this the beginning of the Dell Hubbard chronicles? Who knows?

**TPC fans: the National Affairs shall return in force next week.

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Perrin.

Free Schools, Home Schools, and Un-Schools

31 Thursday May 2018

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns, News and Notes

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Solutions for better, education abound.

From today’s TPC bit:

Today, some good news. Great news. Last week, in PART ONE of this series, we examined the dreadful state of the existing public high schools. The state spends a small fortune per student and then produces horrific academic results, even by its own watered-down standards. And, the kids have the luxury of experiencing this fraud while suffering prison conditions to shock the Nuremberg prosecutors.

I promised I’d be back this week with solutions. We’re about to get to those. First, it occurred to me that this short series on education just happens to coincide with graduation schedules. This is a coincidence, I suppose. I also suppose we can graduate to something better.

The problems in the schools result from many factors. But, they are mostly the product of a never-ending series of increasingly heavy-handed laws, regulations, and rules. Students, parents, taxpayers, and those who enjoy intelligent civil society keep trading one liberty after another in exchange for fake security that resembles illiterate, zero tolerance fraud and little else. The trouble boils down to, in a word: “tyranny.”

The solution, in a word, is “freedom.”

READ ALL AT TPC

 

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The Addison Gallery of American Art, Fall Opening, 2013, Andover.

Remedial America: On the Public Schools

24 Thursday May 2018

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Somewhat fitting with this being graduation season. Yesterday’s TPC piece on schooling, part one of two:

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The top ten schools in several categories are front and center in the USN report. There is other good performance outside the upper extreme, such as one school I found in a large Floridian city: 96% graduation rate; 64.4% college readiness; 84% AP participation with 69% success; and 71% reading and 66% math proficiency.

That school ranks 29th among all Florida schools and 343rd in the nation. However, this “best” school still graduates 96% of students when 29% are not reading at the level and 34% have trouble with arithmetic. It makes one wonder. It should make one suspicious.

Then, there are the “worst” schools. I skewered them recently in a related article. Please pardon any caustic effect therein. The worst offender districts spend more money than the average while delivering single-digit proficiency results. I think it’s safe to say “fraud” again.

The situation, the fraud is much worse than just poor test results. The whole basis and structure of the public schools in this country is so out of touch with American values that placing children in many or most of our schools is tantamount to child abuse. Seriously. The American model, in many states, is built on the fraud and historic bigotry of Blaine Amendment meddling. A beginning based on hating Catholics. Then, segregation and the hampering of black achievement. Next, integration, both of students and of plans to lower expectations and results. No free thinking citizens produced, just barely competent and obedient worker drone units. That was then. Now, the schools have become prisons.

I’ve been to more than a few schools recently. And I’ve been in more jails and prisons (on professional business…) than the average. There really is little difference. To convert a prison into a school, just add some desks. To make a school into a literal prison, just add bars to the windows. Beyond the physical similarities, there is congruence in the treatment of the inmates. And, in many places, the students literally have fewer rights, less freedom that prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. Click here, read, and think about the application of these principles to your child’s school: Basic Rules and Protocols. In addition to suspicious, you should now be getting angry.

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READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE AT TPC

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Watch Out! The NRA is Taking Over

17 Thursday May 2018

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From today’s TPC:

Rank Hypocrisy: Gun Control Charlatans vs. the NRA

A Piece by Contributing Writer Perrin Lovett

Special to The Chronicles

Like with a really bad drug trip, there’s a disconnect with reality when it comes to liberals and guns in America. Despite Americans being the most heavily armed people in the world and concurrently being among the safest, most responsible people in the world, some on the left just don’t get it. The safest of the safe, the most competent of gun owners, tend to be members of the National Rifle Association.

Yet, whenever something bad happens … or is contrived, the NRA gets undue blame. For instance: a few weeks ago an older, out-of-touch, politically-motivated Georgia man penned his sly emotional sentiment: “the NRA has taken over”. I didn’t hear him audibly say it, but I imagine his tone and inflection was something like Palpatine’s “the Jedi are taking over!” Same sort of lie and motivation.

He claimed that 80% of Americans, including gun owners, want more “common sense” gun control. When one hears a gun controller call for “common sense,” one can safely assume the caller has none.

As best I can tell, his touted percentage comes from an informal poll among select NPR listeners. Something tells me not to trust the figure. NPR took their poll shortly after the Parkland, Florida high school shooting. Gallup also ran a post-Parkland poll, among teachers, and only found 33% support for more “common sense” nonsense. I’m even suspicious of those findings, especially given the hysteria associated with Parkland.

Of course, we know little about that particular crime, except that the NRA was not involved in any way, shape, or form. (Come to think of it, the NRA and its members are never involved in any mass shootings and very few crimes in general. Hmm…). We do know that government keeps changing the official narrative, in evolving CYA fashion.

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READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE AT TPC

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From TPC: Georgia Gets a New Clover Law!

09 Wednesday May 2018

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Starting on July 1, 2018, Georgia will suffer a new law, the Hands-Free Georgia Act, HB 673 (2018). Said Act is allegedly aimed at preventing “distracted driving,” or, at least, certain kinds of distracted driving by certain people. The usual exalted classes are exempted. Per the preamble, it amends:


Title 40 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to motor vehicles and traffic, so as to prohibit actions which distract a driver while operating a motor vehicle; to provide for the proper and safe use of wireless telecommunications devices and stand-alone electronic devices while driving; to provide for definitions; to prohibit certain actions while operating a commercial motor vehicle; to provide for violations; to provide for punishment …

In brief, they don’t want Georgians holding mobile phones while talking, texting, or emailing. The viewing of and recording of videos is also prohibited. Safe use. Punishment. Control. Obey.

The vote, in both houses of the Generally Useless Assembly, was a wonder of that thing they call bipartisanship. The Act passed the House, 144-18 (with several members loafing about elsewhere); in the Senate, only one decent man had the nerve to stand up against mob hysteria.

Safety is a big seller when it comes to laws. I wanted to quote Ben Franklin here, but we’ll not wear out the liberty/safety trade line. Here’s an older admonition, seemingly ratified by “your” representatives:

“Only a few prefer liberty, the majority seek nothing more than fair masters.”

– Gaius Sallustius “Sallust” Crispus, Histories, 1st Century, BC.


The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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THE WHOLE ARTICLE AT TPC

 

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A Couple of Videos (and Random Thought)

04 Friday May 2018

Posted by in News and Notes, The Perrin Lovett Show

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First, limping along with the news at FP:

 

And, a welcome of sorts to the wonderful readers over at The Piedmont Chronicles:

A few remain hidden but the YT editor tells me that last one is No. 100. Wow…

Additional thought of the day: Reverse Mortgages:

 

Tom Selleck is hawking reverse mortgages, equity loans aimed at seniors. He says older Americans are woefully under-saved (they are) and the solution is a loan on the equity! Why not?! These things have been around a while. And all that while I’ve thought the smelled funny.

Without much research, my gut reaction is that this is a terrible idea. It might be helpful to some at times, but it looks like, feels like the end of the debt-ification game. Literally, the banksters grab up the last of the assets, issuing new debt in its place. Cannot be a good idea for the economy as a whole: ownership only by the financial elite only benefits the financial elite. Beware.

2.5 Million Reasons to Love Guns

02 Wednesday May 2018

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Today’s column at TPC is out:

The Amazing Truth About Guns in America

A Piece by Perrin Lovett, C.F. Floyd Feature Writer of National Affairs


“It was downright embarrassing. Especially for me. Perrin Lovett, the gun guy, … was wrong about guns. I was wrong for the better part of two decades. Horribly wrong.

Specifically, I had been citing a rounded, general statistic: 1 million defensive gun uses every year in America (sometimes phrased as a million lives saved every year by guns). It was a very handy number to refute the claims by various gun control freaks that guns take X number of lives per year (usually in the 10,000 – 30,000 range). It was an order of magnitude of positive difference. And it was dead wrong.

Guns do not save 1 million lives each year in America.

They save 2.5 million lives. The CDC says so. Well, they say it quietly and only when pushed. You see, dear readers, the CDC did a study from 1996 through 1998. They discovered 2.46 million defensive gun uses each year. With inflation, let’s call it 2.5 million. Every. Single. Year.

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READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE AT TPC.

 

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Perrin.

*Please like, share, comment, and demand your local paper start carrying the column (they may inquire here).

The Who and Socrates Together At Last!

25 Wednesday Apr 2018

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More today from TPC’s C.F. Floyd Feature Writer of National Affairs, the second of what will surely become a sought-after nationally syndicated column:

The “New” Students: Intellectually Incurious? or Intellectual Curiosity?

…The scene was much the same as it is, here and now, in ancient Athens: “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” So said Socrates, a man somewhat familiar with the youth and their educational endeavors.

Latter day academics continue to observe the various faults of humanity as expressed (or repressed) through the lives of American college students. Twenty five centuries and no change?

Current teachers say the kids are “situationally confused,” sharing no “intellectual curiosity.” Theirs, we’re told, is a listlessly drifting life of boredom, confusion, and constant sexual activity. A former Yale professor of English felt the crisis so compelling that he disavowed the Ivy League. A UVA professor of Christian studies describes the academy as a “sexual free-for-all.”

As inhibitions of the flesh evaporate, resistance to challenging perception and thought seems to grow. …

Read all at TPC. This one with touching tribute to the real C.F. Floyd!

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