Five years ago, parents across the country were angry and frustrated. Schools had remained closed or offered only limited in-person instruction long after evidence of the damage to children was impossible to ignore. Mask mandates dragged on. Parents were discovering that schools had embraced radical ideas about race and gender that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier. So they did what Americans are supposed to do in a representative democracy. They showed up at public meetings, stood at the podium, asked questions, demanded answers and challenged policies they believed were harming children.
The soft bigotry of low expectations strikes again. In New York, the City Council is moving to get rid of tests for specialized schools because whites and Asians outperform blacks and Latinos.
The conspiracy theory that James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, recently went to Ohio to receive treatment for mental health issues began after he stopped making campaign appearances at the beginning of October. Several readers asked us about these claims, which they saw on social media. Talarico and a campaign spokesperson have said that he was at his Austin, Texas, home, recuperating from the flu at the time. And the New York Times said it verified that Talarico was at his house by reviewing time-stamped camera images from Talarico's home security system that was provided by his campaign. Read more
Katie Zacharia's tenure as White House press secretary got off to a rough start Tuesday, when she made her briefing-room debut.
The 41-year-old conservative commentator turned top Trump official began her appearance by reading from a script that lavished praise on President Donald Trump. She then took questions from three reporters before fleeing the room.
Her entire appearance at the podium barely lasted 14 minutes, during which she stumbled through her prepared remarks and called on reporters from a list. Read more
Ex-NYC Councilman Daniel Halloran (54) was detained by CBP at Miami Int'l Airport when an inspection of his smartphone revealed thousands of files of child pornography. Dan Halloran was previously investigated and convicted for a litany of blasphemies and crimes. This miscreant is just one of an army of Republican hypocrites in the GOP, AKA the "Guardians of Pedophiles."
Throw away the key for this corrupt sexual deviant
Chargers vs Broncos ... An old man can hope, can't he?
The Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation said in a statement that today's attack on King Khalid international airport in Riyadh "resulted in injuries" but did not specify how many. The statement said that an "assessment of the damage and verification of the safety of the facilities is ongoing". Earlier on Sunday, an "unidentified projectile" hit Riyadh's international airport, the same site targeted in Saturday's strike which injured hundreds of people and killed 12. Minutes earlier, Yemen's Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack.
Leadership positions at the Tennessee Valley Authority are the most lucrative government jobs in the U.S. Since 2020, the top six executives at TVA have collectively banked nearly $90 million. CEO made $12M a year for three years. Part of those salaries came from decisions to put more fossil fuel infrastructure in the Tennessee Valley, and residents essentially signed the checks through their electricity bills, according to a new report by the Center for Biological Diversity. "People who rely on TVA for power are the ones losing out. They're continuing to pay executives who are making decisions contrary to the public good," said Gaby Sarri-Tobar, an energy justice campaigner at the center. Read more
Zohran Mamdani, New York City's mayor, set off a firestorm of criticism Wednesday morning with a social media post ostensibly intended to commemorate the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis. It devoted a brief paragraph to condemning Hamas and commiserating with its victims. The rest was a much longer denunciation of Israel's "ongoing genocide in Gaza," a "world in which occupation and apartheid continue" and a situation in which "our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment." In response, Ammiel Hirsch, the president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said the statement was "so offensive to so many Jews that it is hard to describe how offensive it is." In fact, it's a moral obscenity. Let me count the ways.
Nine people were killed, including children, during a mass shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania, officials said. Police first responded to a home on Perry Street in Erie on Friday, Oct. 9, around 5 p.m., after witnesses reported seeing a gunman firing shots outside the house before entering the residence. When police arrived, they found two women who had been shot to death in the street. The shooting escalated into a standoff as Erie Police and SWAT teams surrounded the home. More shots were then heard inside the home. When police entered, they found the bodies of seven other people, including children, as well as the gunman who died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to investigators.
An ICE agent who was found sleeping on a lawn in Fresno was shot in the stomach after police say he refused to move and attacked the 72-year-old homeowner, causing the homeowner to shoot him in response. Police say 32-year-old David Gonzalez of Texas also appeared intoxicated during the incident. Investigators established that one of the two victims in the incident returned home to find the ICE agent, David Gonzalez, sleeping on her front lawn. She told her 72-year-old father, who also lived there, causing her father to go outside to send Gonzalez on his way. Officers say Gonzalez refused to move and assaulted the 72-year-old victim, forcing him to the ground. The 72-year-old victim's daughter then intervened, causing him to attack her as well. The 72-year-old victim then produced a gun and shot the ICE agent, David Gonzalez, in the stomach.
A new court filing in the criminal case against State Representative Brett Easterbrook alleges the Republican lawmaker spent $500 in exchange for sex from an individual he believed to be a minor. Easterbrook was among nearly 15 men arrested as part of a sting in Escambia County on Thursday that also included at least two other public officials: Satsuma City School Board President Kory Wesley and Orange Beach Public Works Director Timothy Tucker also face charges stemming from the sting. Easterbrook had billed himself as a protector of family values and last session voted for a bill that would allow the death penalty for child predators, although it would not apply to these charges.
Friday Night Music Dixie Chicks - Lullaby
A Peruvian mayoral candidate named Hitler Mussolini Simen Flores has won an election with more than 30 per cent of the vote. Mr. Flores, a candidate from the centre-left Ahora Nacin (Now Nation) party, secured victory in the town of Queropalca. The Queropalca District is one of seven districts of the province of Lauricocha in Peru, with a population of just 730 people. Mr. Flores received 229 votes, 34.5 per cent of the recorded 663 valid ballots. Read more
PROTESTS have taken place across Britain in support of the Garvaghy Road residents who are blocking a planned march through their area in Co. Armagh by the Orange Order. A demonstration has been underway along the road in Portadown for more than a week, after legal challenges failed to overturn a ruling from the Parades Commission allowing the march to go ahead for the first time in 28 years. More than 15,000 people made their way to Garvaghy Road to protest against the march over the weekend. Read more
Andrew Tate allegedly had some seriously disturbing material on his devices ... including extreme porn depicting sex acts with a horse and an eel ... according to newly filed court docs obtained by TMZ. The allegations are laid out in a massive filing connected to the UK's effort to extradite Tate from the U.S. ... and things get pretty dark. British authorities allege Tate possessed explicit images depicting people having sex with live animals -- specifically a horse and an eel -- along with other extreme porn showing acts likely to cause serious genital injuries. And that's nowhere near the end of it ... the docs also accuse Tate of making and possessing scores of indecent images and videos of a minor.
