McCain, Biden receive prize for civility?

Funny business at Allegheny College

The officials in charge at Allegheny College appear to be hard at work showing us that academia doesn’t have to be dry, tedious and dare we say, boring? In awarding civility prizes to Joe Biden and John McCain, they broadly display their own sense of humor.

Arizonans know McCain as much for his salty tongue, insults, vindictiveness and vicious slurs — even his heiress wife is not immune — as for his liberal bent, colluding with Democrats against the interests of the majority of citizens in his own state. Civility has never been his strong suit, a fact even more evident as he uses out-of-state PAC donors to lie about his GOP senate opponent, Dr. Kelli Ward.

Biden’s insulting gaffes would seem to take him out of the running, as well.

Yet the college‘s website quotes President James H. Mullen, Jr. calling the duo “two political giants – one from the left and one from the right – [who] regard civility to be a fundamental obligation of leadership in our democracy. And they have aspired mightily to honor that obligation – throughout their careers, and even in the cauldron of presidential politics.” 

We would further add, they are both from the left, which is why McCain has been censured by elected Republican leaders in Arizona.

“Ask anyone who has sat across a table from Joe Biden or John McCain and they’ll tell you the same thing – that these are men of principle who hold strong to their beliefs and will argue passionately in defense of their positions. But they also understand that one need not demonize their opposition in order to effectively govern,” according to Gov. Tom Ridge.  

A couple of thousand miles away, former Gov. Ridge hasn’t been exposed to the demonizing mailers and televised campaign ads John McCain is using against physician and former state senator, Dr. Kelli Ward. We wonder, however, if such information would have made a difference, since the civility award appears to be cooked up to coincide with a tough race for the 80-year-old McCain  — first elected in 1982 and arrogantly running for another 6-year term.

College students find nothing exceptional about U.S.

George Washington University students — attending a $50,000 a year school — find nothing exceptional about the United States. Citing “Christopher Columbus, colonialism and westward expansion” as negatives, students had difficulty finding anything positive to say about the nation that has afforded them the freedoms people in other societies only dream of.

The university was named in honor of George Washington, the first President of the United States and the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.  Washington would no doubt have been horrified to hear such ill-informed students, lacking the ability to comprehend  the greatness they so flippantly undervalue.

H/T Young America’s Foundation

SOS Kerry affirms left’s view: USA is inconsequential

National borders are meaningless, we must prepare for “borderless world”

Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry confirms the left’s position that American sovereignty is inconsequential in the commencement address he gave  at  Boston’s Northeastern University — an institution which emphasizes globalism.

“The future demands from us something more than a nostalgia for some rose-tinted version of the past that did not really exist in any case,” Kerry told the graduates. “You’re about to graduate into a complex and borderless world.”

Kerry also used the occasion of the school’s 114^th commencement  to hammer Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump without mentioning him by name, but honing in on Trump’s stated plan to build a wall along the U.S./Mexico border:

“So I think that everything that we’ve lived and learn tells us that we will never come out on top if we accept advice from sound-bite salesmen and carnival barkers who pretend the most powerful country on Earth can remain great by looking inward. And hiding behind walls at a time that technology has made that impossible to do and unwise to even attempt.”

Kerry is known for marrying heiresses but speaking foolishly, as evidenced by these examples. provided by Red Eye. He will also be remembered for his association with Jane Fonda and his deceitful congressional testimony regarding American military personnel serving in Vietnam.

John Kerry: the ultimate  self-promoting liberal hack.

Left’s utterly ridiculous education statements

Liberal Provocateur E.J. Montini, one of the remaining henchmen at the increasingly irrelevant Periódico de la República de Arizona (Arizona Republic) headlines his column “Arizona is selling our kids’ brains to the Koch brothers.”

In Liberal Land, the Koch brothers are targeted and reviled for being wealthy political conservatives who usually donate to GOP candidates. No such indignant hostility exists when radical leftist ideologues George Soros, Tom Steyer, or Michael Bloomberg — among the multitude of other Dems* finance the left-wing agenda.

Question for E.J. Montini: Would the disturbing facts dropping out of the mouth of Robert Chanin, longtime General Counsel for the “powerful” American Education Association (on the occasion of his retirement),  also qualify as “selling our kids’ brains?” Those leftwing unionist teachers spend more time with America’s children than most of their parents do. The NEA members  are proficient propagandists. Keep these words in mind when you mark your ballots on Prop. 123. Don’t fall for the con. Vote No. 

* H/T The Sunlight Foundation.

Prescott College: Liberalism soars to irrational new heights

Smugly mandates student support of illegal invasion

Prescott College, which bills itself as “for the Liberal Arts, the Environment and Social Justice,” takes the “Liberal” handle seriously. The Arizona school is now one of only two U.S. schools to mandate student fees earmarked specifically for illegal alien students. Jesuit-run Loyola University is the other school to take up this absurd program.

Under the heading, Students Approve Fee for College’s Full Scholarship for Undocumented Students, is the statement indicating the school “will implement a $30 student fee for all on-campus students that will go towards the Freedom Education Fund, a scholarship for undocumented students, starting in the 2016-2017 academic year. Prescott College is proud to announce the availability of this scholarship to undocumented students as part of National Institution’s Coming Out Day in support of undocumented students, an annual event hosted by United We Dream.”

There is an undeniable interaction between the school’s leftward lurch and its fascination with the word “undocumented” which is used four times in the first sentence. SRAZ’s still popular 2008 post titled, “Lingo,” addresses that term under Number 3 on the list.

Prior to becoming president of Prescott College in 2014 John Flicker was president of the National Audubon Society for 15 years. That must have been where he honed the Arizona school’s for-the-birds skill set.

Flicker says, “I am proud that our students take on the role of scholar activists. Their passion around this issue really motivated our part to make up the difference between what the fee will provide for and the full cost to attend one of our programs. We’re committed to broaden access to higher education for a diverse group of students and mobilize our resources towards social justice.”

Prescott College, typical of today’s leftist bastions of education run by committed educrats, has its priorities skewed. Imagine if it thought as highly of American citizens desirous of furthering their education rather than elevating foreign national lawbreakers as worthy recipients of special status and funding. Scroll through the Open Secrets website, which reveals the multimillions of dollars donated to leftist causes and politicians by teachers unions.

Why Justice Scalia mattered

On Tuesday we witnessed the full impact of the unexpected loss of Justice Antonin Scalia who died February 13. The U.S. Supreme Court rendered a 4-4 decision on a challenge to organized labor, giving unions a major victory in a case they had previously seemed certain to lose.

The deadlocked decision in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association upheld a lower court ruling dealing with union fees and is a substantial setback for union foes. Lyle Denniston writing for SCOTUS blog provides an opinion analysis.

A decision in favor of the petitioners would have eliminated what’s known as agency fees –– money paid to unions by non-union members.

Plaintiffs in the case argued that agency fees presented a “significant impingement” on their First Amendment rights of free speech and free association, since collective bargaining is unarguably political. In negotiating with school boards, for example, unions can take positions on issues such as tenure that nonmembers may not support, so teachers who decide not to join the local union should not have to contribute to those costs.

The California Teachers Association and its parent union, the NEA, argued that the fees are not a violation of First Amendment rights because a portion is reimbursed annually, claiming the money covers things that benefit non-union members.

In 1977, the Supreme Court’s decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, held that no one can be forced to join a union or contribute to its political activities, but that teachers unions can charge nonmembers a fee to cover the costs of nonpolitical activities, oddly including collective bargaining.

In recent years, public sector unions have experienced numerous setbacks, with Republican governors and state legislatures successfully challenging collective bargaining — even in Michigan and Wisconsin, regarded as longtime labor strongholds.

The Friedrichs case was not the first to challenge union fees. Last year, in Harris v. Quinn, the justices ruled 5-4, that Medicaid home health workers were not full public employees and therefore could not be compelled to pay collective bargaining union fees –– a  decision that many Supreme Court watchers viewed as a sign the court seemed poised to overturn the precedent set by Abood.

Open Secrets (Center for Responsive Politics) reveals the $19.2 million the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, teachers unions contributed in the 2012 elections and their continuing donations in 2016. Democrats and liberal groups are their favored beneficiaries. Since 1989, the NEA has been the fourth biggest donor out of all organizations tracked by CRP.

Weekend reading guaranteed to make you smarter

Who better than Dr. Thomas Sowell — the brilliant historian, author, renown economist and professor — to feature today exposing “The Lure of Socialism,” as the failed system relates to today’s young Americans and their support for Socialist Bernie Sanders.

It’s the fourth sentence in his commentary that nails the premise upon which Sowell’s column is written: “…. dumbed-down education.”

Take time to read Sowell’s wisdom today. Then pass his column on to your favorite high schooler or college student. Prepare for scoffing and then wait. It may take awhile, but one day you’ll hear a sincere thank you.