Dennis Prager defines LGBTQ+ ‘Pride’ as Totalitarian

As those who have read his thought-provoking books and listen to his nationally syndicated radio show know, Dennis Prager is a reliable conservative voice. His biography ends with these words: “When Dennis Prager speaks, America listens.”

With this intro, Seeing Red AZ brings our readers Prager‘s most recent, enlightening column, “LGBTQ+ ‘Pride’ Is Totalitarian,” On occasion we have posted informative columns under the heading, “Weekend Reading Guaranteed To Make You Smarter.” The column we’re directing our readers to today is too timely and pertinent to wait five days to read.

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Sex comes to the AZ legislature

Public schools are barely making the grade in imparting education to students in what is providing the left an easily controllable populace, short-changed on history and not even able to find China on a map. Cursive has been relegated to a relic and math is “too difficult” to bother with. We covered this educrat catastrophe recently in, ‘As Nat’l education report card reveals sinking test scores teacher’s unions support 4-day school week.’ Our children will be ill-equipped to be competitive in the international arena, but our boys can wear teal satin tights and girls will know the power of being known as Tom while at school.

Gaining prominence among educrats is the newly trendy “gender fluidity,” accompanying “preferred pronouns“ as teachers encourage Johnny to use feminine pronouns and Suzy is given the go-ahead to use male identifiers. Some classrooms have a closet filled with boys and girls clothing which the children are encouraged to wear in class as they take on a new sexual persona. This is all done without parent’s knowledge as the young students “role play.”

Fortunately Arizona’s state legislature has Sen. John Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican, who has introduced SB 1001,bearing the reference title: “pronouns; biological sex; school policies.” It has just been introduced in the 2023 legislative session, so it will likely take a few days for the full text to appear.

Sen. John Kavanagh’s bio and answers to questions can be read in the pro-life, pro-family Center for Arizona Policy Arizona’s Voter’s Guide.

In the November 8, 2022 District 3 election, Sen. Kavanagh recently defeated his democrat challenger 61.0% to 39%.

As Nat’l education report card reveals sinking test scores teacher’s unions support 4-day school week

As the world becomes ever more competitive, the harsh reality of America’s plunging educational test scores should provide a reality check. Blame is placed on the COVID pandemic, while omitting the fact that teacher’s unions are now advocating a four-day school week.  This comes as The Nation’s Report Card reveals disastrously low test scores. We have linked the Arizona’s Fourth Grade scores, though grades 8 and 12 are also accessible — showing proficiency in mathematics, reading, science and writing. Each area shows a “significant decrease from the national public average, indicated by plunging arrows. Despite the low scores, Arizona’s Liberty Elementary School District’s Governing Board approved a change to a four-day school week, which will begin in the 2023-2024 school year.

In addition to curtailing education studies by slashing a classroom day each week, there is a new educrat language threat including the use of code words, “diversity, equity and inclusion,”  for marginalizing some students to artificially benefit others. Education, including history, geography, math, English and grammar, are given short shrift. Public schools have eliminated cursive, so no one will have a signature.

When Robert Chanin, general counsel to the National Education Association, retired after 41 years, in his farewell address to the NEA convention he spoke honestly, (shocking video) stating,” Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas; it is not because of the merit of our positions; it is not because we care about children; and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child.

The NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of million of dollars in dues each year because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them; the union that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.

This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing drop-out rates, improving teacher quality, and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary these are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not, and must not, be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights, or collective bargaining.

That is simply too high a price to pay.”

For a more rational approach benefiting our children and America‘s future, read “How to Rein in the Teachers’ Unions” by Howard Husock, and “How Teachers’ Unions Handcuff Schools,” by Sol Stern in City Journal.

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AZ University presidents get massive salary increases, tribes get free tuition

The Arizona Board of Regents appears to go to great lengths to keep the public informed, but don’t be conned by a multitude of “pursuants.”  The key words are, “the board will call the meeting to order and immediately convene in executive session.” That translates to “cloak of darkness.”

According to a lengthy report in the local newspaper, Arizona’s university presidents at ASU, UA and NAU all will get steep pay increases granted by the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR), who unanimously approved the salary increases and contract extensions based on their annual performance reviews. The report states, “Regents raised no questions or comments prior to their vote.” The term of a regent is eight years, twice as long as the governor who appointments them.

Arizona State University President Michael Crow’s base salary (excluding numerous perks and bonuses) is now $809,846, up 5% from $771,282 a year ago. University of Arizona President Robert Robbins will receive $792,241 in base salary, Northern Arizona University President Jose Luis Cruz Rivera will get a base salary of $576,800, up a hefty 12% from when he assumed the position just six months ago. Crow, who was appointed in 2002, is among the nation’s highest paid public university presidents. Arizona’s governor, who runs the entire state, is paid $95,000 — minus all of the perks paid to the university presidents. Governors are limited to two consecutive four-year terms in office.

In addition to their salaries, the university presidents also receive housing and vehicle allowances, numerous benefits, retirement contributions and the opportunity for hefty bonuses each year based on “achieving various goals for their universities.” All of their contracts were extended.

Regents “approved payouts for achieving some of those goals and set new goals for each of the presidents and the university system over the next year and next several years,” ensuring the money stream keeps flowing.

ABOR members previously discussed the contracts in closed-door executive session “because they are employment and salary issues.” The public, whose taxes fund these excessive salaries, and cash strapped students, often working multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet, as their tuition and fees rise yearly, are unable to be privy to the details of those conversations.

The latest absurdity comes in the form of NAU’s announcement that it will begin providing free tuition for members of any of Arizona’s 22 federally recognized tribes. The University of Arizona already has such a program in place as does Arizona State University. Guess whose tuition will be raised to cover this extremist separatism?

Deceptive tactics shroud newspaper‘s “new poll,” crucial omission in report

A front page news article titled, “New poll clarifies issues Arizonans care about ahead of the mid-terms,” typifies the skew the local newspaper puts on its so-called reports. Ask anyone who follows current events what they would classify as items of importance, topping the list would be the crisis-level inflation brought about by the Biden administration. On equal footing would be the chaotic open border that is a portal for illegal invaders, including frequently returning, violent criminals, who have previously been deported. Democrats view the invading hordes as future party voters.

The newspaper, however, prefers to offer up another vantage point, which it claims represents “the views of Arizona voters across the political spectrum.” These mythical respondents not only “trust the state’s election system,” they also “support investment in infrastructure to keep up with growth, workforce housing options for essential workers from teachers to firefighters, worry about water and want leaders who will compromise to get things done.”

To call this Kyrsten Sinema-type “getting things done” mantra pure lunacy would be understating the absurdity of the allegation. As Republican former presidential candidate Herman Cain told a Tea Party rally over a decade ago, “Singing Kumbaya is not a foreign policy strategy.”

Political principles differ greatly depending on party affiliation. While democrats often cloak their positions to attain greater appeal, they are not adept at concealing their true leftist bent for long. Republicans hold our founding documents in high esteem and protecting our national borders from invaders, both of which requires educated voters. Dems prefer easily manipulated voters.

The survey referred to in the opening paragraph emanates from the Center for the Future of Arizona and McCain aligned HighGround Public Affairs. The Center for the Future of Arizona’s website asks for donations. Interested parties have do a good deal of digging to find that the President and CEO of the organization is Sybil Francis, Ph.D. Nowhere in her grandiose bio is she identified as being the wife of ASU President Michael Crow. According to ASU’s State Press report by Piper Hansen, as of 2021, his salary including an 8% raise of $55,000 put his base salary over $771,000. This is 857 percent higher than average and 1,096 percent higher than the median salary at Arizona State University putting higher education out of the reach of many who desire to continue their schooling and in direct conflict with the Arizona Constitution Article 11, Section 6 — which states “education should be as nearly free as possible.”

Crow is one of the highest paid university administrators in the United States, making more than $1 million after taking into account his other pay sources, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. These figures do not include the $70,000 housing allowance for their $multi-million Paradise Valley home, automobile, other perks, benefits and additional bonuses. There is no separate allowance for a better quality toupee, which is probably why he doesn‘t spring for one himself.

Is civilization approaching crisis mode?

Seeing Red AZ has occasionally shared a particularly enlightening column we’ve encountered with our readers — posting it under the headline, “Weekend Reading Guaranteed to Make you Smarter.”  Today we upgrade our previous description as we bring you the genius of favored columnist, Victor Davis Hanson, and his most recent commentary titled, “The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization.” Appearing on Townhall, it embodies sheer brilliance. Reading it is sure to raise knowledge levels and possibly our IQs. 

VP Kamala all in for Gay Pride Month, identifies her pronouns, dem’s agenda

"I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit." pic.twitter.com/kz7tx712wK

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 26, 2022

Vice President Kamala Harris was addressing a group of people with disabilities, including some with visual impairment, which explains the blue suit description. Her appearance was part of the June Gay Pride month festivities, which “celebrate” perversions, now trendily repackaged for mainstream consumption — and being fed to America‘s children by educrats as reported by WND which covered the extreme leftist agenda promoted at the recent National Education Association convention. Make it a point to read the linked article. Knowledge is power.

Leftist NEA has more pressing matters than educating America’s children

Parents who object to radical agenda labeled “domestic terrorists”

The National Education Association (NEA) has an agenda that would likely stun most parents who mistakenly think it is dedicated to educating their children. Bob Unruh (bio), reporting for WND, headlines his must read coverage, “NEA announces its priorities for teachers: abortion and LGBT agenda.”

He reveals, “The convention of the nation’s largest teacher’s union reportedly drew some 6,000 delegates to Chicago, where many of the decisions are all but determined by NEA’s staff and board officers. Delegates can raise business items and resolutions, but the 6,000 delegates represent a tiny slice of the NEA’s 3 million members.”

Previously, the New York Post editorially covered Biden’s U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland referring to concerned parents as “domestic terrorists.”

Open Secrets details the astronomical donations from teacher’s unions which gave $hundreds of millions to leftwing candidates and causes during the last election cycle. Republicans were not worthy of contributions from the teachers and their organizations. These people spend more time with America’s children than many parents do. Pay attention and discuss current news and politics with your children…or we will lose our country. They are getting daily infusions of indoctrination by the union members.

Cornell University obscures American history

“Someone complained, and it was gone:” Cornell biology professor Randy Wayne

Ivy League universities have always had a certain panache that elevated them over other colleges and state universities. Cornell University has recently removed itself from that lofty pedestal.

Jennifer Kabbany, editor of the College Fix, reports “Cornell library removes Gettysburg Address, Lincoln bust.”

As Americans prepare to celebrate Independence Day — commemorating the Declaration of Independence from British rule following the Revolutionary War, and ratified by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776 — this article is a must read.  It reveals how our history has transmogrified into nothing more than a soiled past, rife with transgressions and weaklings rather than Founding heroes.

American history is given short shrift in recent years. Ask a teen or college student a few pertinent questions and you’ll quickly learn that our public school system has failed in educating, which is the obligation it is paid to fulfill. Indoctrination is the name of the game as evidenced by this shocking information from Open Secrets…which follows the money in politics.

Then read this fact-filled Fox News report by Tyler Olson, “Biden received more money from teachers unions than any other candidate in 2020.”

Socialist Bernie Sanders, older than most of their grandfathers, won the 18-to-24-year-old primary vote by significant margins in 2020.Those who know American history realize the United States and the Allied Forces fought and won World War II against socialistic lies and gruesome cruelties. Young voters, disastrously, have no such knowledge. They have been dumbed down to the point that they voted for Biden.

As college costs surge, UofA gifts free degrees to 22 “tribes”

Want that “as nearly free as possible” AZ university education promised in  Article 11, Sec. 6 of our state Constitution?  According to this April 14, 2022 edition of the University of Arizona’s Wildcat newspaper, the Arizona Board of Regents did what has become routine, and hiked the rates at all three universities: ASU, UA and NAU. They attempt to confound us with fancy terminology such as “collaborations of key partnerships,” but don’t be conned by the deceitful educrat doublespeak.

Now we find that the University of Arizona is gifting free college tuition to members of 22 Indian tribes, now referred to as “Native Americans,“ a title not accorded to other Americans with generational roots on American soil.

Some questions?  What constitutes a “tribe“? What percentage of tribal DNA qualifies a claimant?  If your heritage includes multiple tribes, can you continue accumulating free degrees?

Why would this sweet financial deal be limited to Ak-Chin, Cocopah, Yavapai, Mohave, Hopi, Apache, Tohono O’odham (who changed their name from Papago), Gila River, Salt River Pima-Maricopa etc.? There are 17 federally recognized tribes completely within the borders of Arizona and others that overlap our border. Nearly one-quarter of land in Arizona is reservation land. Currently, there are twenty-six tribal owned lucrative casinos located across ten counties of the state. Cannabis is advertised and sold at the casinos.

Why are members of Africa’s estimated 3,000 tribes excluded from this ridiculous freebie? Jewish Americans are descended from the Biblical 12 Tribes of Israel, detailed in Deuteronomy 27: 12–13. Are those tribes worthy? No…nor should they be.

Dropping free money on selected groups is never a good idea. The Regents, none of whom are needy, should know that.