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How the Democrats Set Up Puerto Rico for Disaster

Posted October 2, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Democrats and Trump, FEMA, Puerto Rico hurricane, Trump administration response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico
Tags: Democrats and Trump, FEMA, Puerto Rico hurricane, Trump administration response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

How the Democrats Set Up Puerto Rico for Disaster, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 2, 2017

There has been no shortage of Federal aid to Puerto Rico. There are tons of supplies sitting and rotting. There are 10,000 shipping containers in a San Juan port alone. The dysfunctional local authorities were having trouble finding the drivers to deliver them.

The Governor of Puerto Rico has said that he doesn’t need more supplies. He needs drivers. And, currently, only 20% of the truck drivers are reporting for work. Meanwhile fuel trucks can’t travel because of a curfew.

Is that Trump’s fault?

Local relief is the job of local authorities. It is not President Trump’s job to dispatch truck drivers to Puerto Rico. The White House has, by the admission of local authorities, filled every aid request. According to FEMA, 11,800 Federal personnel are on the ground in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. FEMA personnel have helped 843 people and entered thousands of buildings.

But Mayor Yulin Cruz keeps singing from Nagin’s old hymnal about old people being trapped and massive death tolls. But where are the 1,500 employees of San Juan’s police department? Why can’t San Juan find municipal employees who can drive a truck or evacuate the elderly?

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We’ve seen this show before.

When there’s a national disaster, neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, shelters are filled with crying families, and a Republican is in the White House, the Democrats jump into action.

Not to help, but to make political capital from a disaster that they helped cause.

After Hurricane Katrina, the media shrieked that survivors inside the New Orleans Superdome were murdering each other. But there actually wasn’t a single murder in the Superdome. And no, NBC’s Brian Williams, never saw any corpses floating past the Ritz-Carlton. The media exaggerated and lied.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was all over the news shouting, “Get off your asses” and accusing the Bush administration of “spinning” while “people are dying”. The dirty Democrat demanded more resources while claiming that everything that the Federal government was doing wasn’t good enough. He called for Greyhound buses, when there were plenty of school buses in New Orleans that weren’t being used.

Much of the disaster was actually Nagin’s fault. And Ray Nagin has been convicted of his crimes.

Puerto Rico is the new New Orleans. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz is the new Nagin.

While media types claim that there’s a cholera outbreak in Puerto Rico (there isn’t), Yulin Cruz hops from CNN to MSNBC to accuse, demand aid, taunt Trump and throw around claims of “genocide”.

There has been no shortage of Federal aid to Puerto Rico. There are tons of supplies sitting and rotting. There are 10,000 shipping containers in a San Juan port alone. The dysfunctional local authorities were having trouble finding the drivers to deliver them.

The Governor of Puerto Rico has said that he doesn’t need more supplies. He needs drivers. And, currently, only 20% of the truck drivers are reporting for work. Meanwhile fuel trucks can’t travel because of a curfew.

Is that Trump’s fault?

Local relief is the job of local authorities. It is not President Trump’s job to dispatch truck drivers to Puerto Rico. The White House has, by the admission of local authorities, filled every aid request. According to FEMA, 11,800 Federal personnel are on the ground in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. FEMA personnel have helped 843 people and entered thousands of buildings.

But Mayor Yulin Cruz keeps singing from Nagin’s old hymnal about old people being trapped and massive death tolls. But where are the 1,500 employees of San Juan’s police department? Why can’t San Juan find municipal employees who can drive a truck or evacuate the elderly?

Yulin Cruz found the time to appear on every single cable news program, but has yet to visit a FEMA center. She poses against a backdrop of massive amounts of aid, which the local authorities can’t seem to distribute, but they did find the time to print out a “We are all dying” t-shirt for her to wear while chatting with Anderson Cooper on CNN.

Cruz is a member of the Partido Popular Democratico which is affiliated with the Democrats.

Despite being exposed to plenty of storms, Puerto Rico was obviously unprepared for the disaster, in all the ways that count, like having a Plan B for when the cell towers stop working. Like New Orleans, much of which is below sea level, the authorities had no viable plan to deal with an inevitable disaster. The PPD had one agenda. And that agenda was fighting “austerity”, not preparing for the day when the lights go out.

When Hurricane Georges hit Puerto Rico in 1998, 100% of electrical services were disrupted. Roads and bridges were destroyed. Utility workers actually had to be flown in from outside to handle repairs. (The media was much less interested in Georges because a Clinton was in the White House.) But a FEMA audit found questionable costs and no useful lessons were learned from the disaster.

In 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne hit Puerto Rico and all the power went out. Governor Sila Calderon, the Dem politico, who had also served as Mayor of San Juan, was back to warning that there was no water or power. Two years earlier, Caldreon had pressured the United States to leave Vieques. A referendum showed 70% Puerto Rican support for withdrawal. As a result, Roosevelt Roads Naval Station was closed.

Calderon and the PPD claimed that the abandoned base would become an international airport. Instead it’s an eyesore. And there are no more Navy bases in Puerto Rico. That makes it harder to ship supplies.

But the PPD has come full circle from “US Out of Vieques” to “Why the Hell Aren’t You in Vieques?”

“I cannot fathom the thought that the greatest nation in the world cannot figure out the logistics for a small island,” Mayor Yulin Cruz rants. But it’s Puerto Rico that hasn’t figured out its own logistics.

It’s deep in debt and yet it’s completely unprepared every time a storm arrives.

President Trump dispatched vessels to Puerto Rico before the hurricane. These included the Kearsarge; one of the Navy’s big powerhouses. The USS Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group had delivered 44,000 pounds of supplies and conducted 144 airlifts. It’s operating from Roosevelt Roads, which would have had a stable Naval presence if it wasn’t for the PPD and the left’s Vieques protests.

Military personnel are busy clearing roads. But the question is why can’t Puerto Rico do it?

And what was President Trump supposed to do about it? Was he supposed to magically ensure that Puerto Rico would be better prepared when its own authorities and Obama Inc. had failed to do so?

After Superstorm Sandy, the media flipped the script and turned its disaster coverage into a reelection commercial for Barack Obama. But the reality on the ground was a completely inept response. FEMA proved useless. Its centers shut down due to snow. Biker gangs, the local equivalent of the Cajun Navy, were much more useful. Obama took a photo op hug with a victim and then ignored her pleas for help.

But that too was business as usual.

The media has struggled to, in its own words, turn the latest disaster into Trump’s Katrina. They pivoted from initially ignoring the hurricane (just as they usually do) to accusing Trump of ignoring it. They pounded away at the Jones Act, and when that was waived, are berating Trump for not “caring enough”.

But this disaster is their puppy.

The Democrats have held the White House for eight years. If the disaster is a Federal problem, they had eight years to fix it.

They didn’t.

Governor Ricardo Rossello was an Obama delegate. He taped an ad for Hillary Clinton. Mayor Yulin Cruz is on the left. But, just like New Orleans, the local authorities somehow escape all the blame.

Trump didn’t make Puerto Rico dysfunctional. Puerto Rico has yet to come up with a functional response to a storm. And some of its dysfunctional politicians gleefully tour cable news denouncing Trump while ignoring their own people even as they exploit their suffering.

New Orleans, Houston and Puerto Rico share a common pattern. The left runs an area into the ground. And then when disaster strikes, it lashes out at a Republican in the White House. When local authorities fail to evacuate, when they don’t have a viable disaster plan, when they don’t use available resources, it’s Bush’s fault or it’s Trump’s fault. But it’s never the fault of the Democrats. Nothing ever is.

It’s the job of local authorities to deal with a disaster. The Federal government is only supposed to step in when local resources are overwhelmed. But in Puerto Rico, there seem to be no local resources.

Even expecting truck drivers to pick up supplies from the port is expecting too much.

That’s not President Trump’s fault. If you want someone to blame, talk to the angry leftist wearing her “We are all dying” t-shirt on CNN. Maybe the same driver who delivered her shirt and her news crew, can take the time to deliver some supplies to all the dying people.

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Why is the US against Kurdish independence?

Posted October 2, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Kurdish independence, Kurdish state, Rex Tillerson, Truman and Israeli independencce
Tags: Kurdish independence, Kurdish state, Rex Tillerson, Truman and Israeli independence

Why is the US against Kurdish independence?, Israel Hayom, Zalman Shoval, October 2, 2017

Back then, two people crushed all the schemes: David Ben-Gurion, who understood that it was an opportunity for the Jewish people that would not come again, and U.S. President Harry Truman, who despite the positions of most of his advisers decided to recognize the state of Israel as soon as it declared independence. Will Massoud Barzani, the undeclared president of the Iraqi Kurdistan, and President Trump follow in their footsteps?

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“The vote and the results lack legitimacy,” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared, referring to recent events in Kurdistan. Similar remarks were made by the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Douglas A. Silliman, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Brett McGurk.

The American opposition to Kurdish independence takes us back in time 70 years, when the leadership of the Jewish population in prestate Israel announced its plan to declare independence. In response, the U.S. State Department began working assiduously, sometimes making threats, to scupper that decision. Then-Secretary of State Gen. George Marshall, who was covered in glory after World War II, as well as the entire American foreign policy and defense establishment, took a firm stance against the establishment of the Jewish state.

Their official reasons (other than the anti-Semitism that was rife in the State Department and the defense and intelligence establishments) were very similar to Washington’s arguments against Kurdish independence – namely, that it will destabilize the region. Then, like now, oil factors into the U.S. position. Back in the day, American officials were worried that supporting the Jewish state would endanger the supply of Arab oil to America and its relations with the Arab world in general. This time, America is afraid that the Kurds’ intent to control Kirkuk, one of Iraq’s main oil-producing areas, will hurt the chance of it developing good relations with the government in Baghdad, including on oil issues.

Washington is trying to convince the Kurds that it only wants them to “postpone” their declaration of independence to a more convenient time, whereas in 1948, the U.S. administration – encouraged by the British Foreign Office – intended to thwart the establishment of a state by setting up a provisional international government in Palestine. Now the U.N. is also trying to persuade the Kurds to be satisfied with a compromise under which they would “postpone” independence in exchange for various rights and benefits as part of a united Iraq. In 1948, too, the U.N. played an active part when Count Folke Bernadotte suggested tearing the Negev Desert and Jerusalem off of Israel.

While the opposition of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, which also have sizeable Kurdish minority populations, to an independent Kurdistan is clear, it is harder to justify the American administration’s position. Washington claims that the Kurdish declaration of independence supposedly hurts the war against the Islamic State, but the Kurdish peshmerga army aims to oust the Islamic State from the land Kurdistan wants to claim as its own. This interest will be even more important once independence is declared.

Aside from the moral aspect, it is difficult not to wonder at the mistake that is dictating the current U.S. position that preventing Kurdish independence and preserving the unity of the artificial Iraqi state will secure Washington’s influence in the region when in practice Iran is increasingly the one that is running the show. As with Israel 70 years ago, the new state – if it is founded – can expect violence from day one. Back then, it was the Arab states; this time, it will be the Iraqi government or possibly Iran and Turkey.

Back then, two people crushed all the schemes: David Ben-Gurion, who understood that it was an opportunity for the Jewish people that would not come again, and U.S. President Harry Truman, who despite the positions of most of his advisers decided to recognize the state of Israel as soon as it declared independence. Will Massoud Barzani, the undeclared president of the Iraqi Kurdistan, and President Trump follow in their footsteps?

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China openly discussing collapse of North Korea

Posted October 2, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: China and North Korea, Kim regime, North Korea - regime change
Tags: China and North Korea, Kim regime, North Korea - regime change

China openly discussing collapse of North Korea, American Thinker, Thomas Lifson, October 2, 2017

China has sent an unmistakable signal that Kim Jong-un had better not rely on the historic alliance between China and North Korea to resist President Trump’s demands. In fact, as he dallies with his troop of teen sex slaves, he had better keep in mind that Beijing is wondering what it might be like with the Kim dynasty out of the way.

The Chinese way of delivering such a harsh message is to use a third party. Preferably one without a policy role, but who clearly speaks for the ruling elite. Someone, for instance, like the Dean of International Studies at Beijing University (the Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford of China). Patrick Baert of AFP writes:

Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, raised eyebrows earlier in September when he published an article entitled: “Time to prepare for the worst in North Korea”.

The paper was published in English in East Asia Forum, a website of the Australian National University, but it is unlikely that he could have released it without the approval of Chinese authorities.

Jia urged Beijing to start discussing contingency plans with the United States and South Korea — talks that the two nations have sought in the past but China has resisted for fear of upsetting Pyongyang.

“When war becomes a real possibility, China must be prepared. And, with this in mind, China must be more willing to consider talks with concerned countries on contingency plans,” Jia wrote.

This comparatively mild language is telling KJU that in a war, China might not be on the North Korean side.

Observers say the public debate might be a tactic to try and coerce Pyongyang into cooling its weapons programme, with its nuclear and missile tests visibly angering Beijing, which has backed tough new United Nations sanctions on the country.

But it may also indicate growing calls to overhaul its relationship with the North, a longterm ally that it defended during the 1950-53 Korean War and has a mutual defence pact with.

Yalu River bridges from China into North Korea at Dandong, Liaoning, Provicne/

As most readers know, the Korean War never ended. So, an “overhaul” of the relationship could only mean weakening or abandoning the alliance, and allowing the war to be fought to completion — without Beijing backing Pyongyang in the fighting. Even raising this possibility, indirectly and via a scholarly journal published in English, is calculated to let Kim know he could be on his own.

This could indicate a shift in the tectonic plates of China’s geostrategy:

But there are also signs of a genuine shift in perceptions over how China should handle North Korea.

David Kelly, director of research at Beijing-based consultancy China Policy, said the thinking among Chinese academics was: “We could do better without them, a unified Korea would be incredibly good for China, the northeast would boom”.

China has long supported North Korea because it serves as a buffer from US troops stationed in South Korea, but Barthelemy Courmont, a China specialist at the Institute of Strategic and International Relations in Paris, said Pyongyang’s downfall could be good for Beijing, especially economically.

“China now believes that a collapse of North Korea would not necessarily be to its disadvantage,” Courmont said.

“If North Korea were to fall in a peaceful way, China would be best positioned for its reconstruction. China is the only country capable of overseeing the reconstruction of North Korea,” he said.

This has to be related to the current “conflict” between SecState Tillerson and President Trump that has progs reveling in what they see as amateur hour. The New York Times:

President Trump undercut his own secretary of state on Sunday, calling his effort to open lines of communication with North Korea a waste of time, and seeming to rule out a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear-edged confrontation with Pyongyang.

A day after Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said he was reaching out to Pyongyang in hopes of starting a new dialogue, Mr. Trump belittled the idea and left the impression that he was focused mainly on military options. Mr. Trump was privately described by advisers as furious at Mr. Tillerson for contradicting the president’s public position that now is not the time for talks.

This sounds more like Good cop/bad cop than outright conflict. As with President Reagan, Trump is regarded as a bit of a madman, who might just start a nuclear war. Even Kim Jong un understands that North Korea cannot win such a conflict. But now, the old passivity and delay that characterized American policy towards North Korea for the past three decades is over.

If (and it is a big if), China switches over to a policy of Korean reunification and dumps the embarrassment in Pyongyang, it would be an achievement of President Trump that echoes Nixon opening relations with China and Regan winning the Cold War.

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Las Vegas shooting: Isis claims responsibility for deadliest gun massacre in US history | The Independent

Posted October 2, 2017 by Joseph Wouk
Categories: Uncategorized

Source: Las Vegas shooting: Isis claims responsibility for deadliest gun massacre in US history | The Independent

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Mass Shooting Outside Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay; 50+ Dead, 406 Sent to Hospital

Posted October 2, 2017 by Peter Hofman
Categories: Uncategorized

by Breitbart News2 Oct 2017

Source: Mass Shooting Outside Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay; 50+ Dead, 406 Sent to Hospital – Breitbart

A gunman reportedly opened fire on a country music concert outside the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Sunday evening.

Fifty-plus people are confirmed dead and there are 200-plus reported injured. One suspect named as Stephen Paddock is confirmed dead by Joseph Lombardo, the sheriff of Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Las Vegas Police have closed I-15 from Tropicana to Russell Road, and are asking people on the Strip to avoid the area. Reports indicate at least one gunman opened fire on crowds gathered for the Route 91 Harvest country music fest.

More here :

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/10/02/las-vegas-report-one-gunman-open-fire-mandalay-bay-casino/

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Yemen’s Houthi rebels threaten to attack Israel with missiles

Posted October 1, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, Houthi missiles, Houthi threats to Israel, Iranian missiles, Iranian proxies, Israeli security, Saudi Arabia and Israel, Yemen
Tags: Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, Houthi missiles, Houthi threats to Israel, Iranian missiles, Iranian proxies, Israeli security, Saudi Arabia and Israel, Yemen

Yemen’s Houthi rebels threaten to attack Israel with missiles, DEBKAfile, October 1, 2017

While Israel has no reason to fear an Iranian missile attack on its soil by Yemeni insurgents as yet, its Red Sea shipping is definitely vulnerable to the P-20 (Chinese Silkworm) shore-to-ship weapon, a kind of cruise missile, which the Houthis have available for shooting at the Israeli war fleet and merchant vessels sailing in the Red Sea to and from the Gulf of Aqaba.

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Israel heard a new threat this week from an entirely new quarter, Yemen’s rebel Houthis. Their military spokesman, Col, Aziz Rashid, said Sunday, Oct. 1, in reference to Israeli bases in Eritrea: “Israel’s military bases in Africa are within range of Houthi missiles,” adding, if necessary, “Our forces would soon have missiles capable of reaching Israel itself.”

He did not need to spell out where those missiles come from. It is no secret that the Houthis are amply armed and supplied with intermediate range ballistic missiles from a single source, their sponsor, Iran.

Interestingly, the spokesman mentioned missiles able to cover the 1,720km distance between northern Yemen and the Israeli port of Eilat. However, according to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the Yemeni insurgents don’t have missiles with that sort of range. Tehran has given them Borkan-1 and Borkan-2 tactical ballistic missiles, whose ranges are respectively 800km and 1,400km. Both are short of the distance to Israel.

In the past year, the Houthis fired a number of missiles into neighboring Saudi Arabia, leader of the coalition fighting their insurgency. Some were aimed at the capital Riyadh. Two fell short near the Yemeni border and one hit a military target outside the Saudi capital. But most of the others were either intercepted by Saudi anti-missile defenses or exploded on open ground far wide of target.

While Israel has no reason to fear an Iranian missile attack on its soil by Yemeni insurgents as yet, its Red Sea shipping is definitely vulnerable to the P-20 (Chinese Silkworm) shore-to-ship weapon, a kind of cruise missile, which the Houthis have available for shooting at the Israeli war fleet and merchant vessels sailing in the Red Sea to and from the Gulf of Aqaba.

Exactly a year ago, a Houthi missile struck a United Arab Emirate warship and set it on fire. Ten days later, on Oct. 10, they launched missiles against the USS Mason destroyer and drew an American retaliatory blow to their missile batteries.

More recently, on September 14, the Houthi leader, Abdulmalek Badruddin Al-Houthi, declared that the UAE is within his forces’ missile range. He noted that he spoke from experience after a successful test launch at the oil emirates, which is 1,500km away. He did not say when the test took place or which missiles were fired. But he went on to boast that his army possessed drones capable of cruising through Saudi air space.

The Houthi spokesman’s threat Sunday of a missile attack on Israel was the second time in a month that the Yemeni insurgents had referred to new Iranian long-range missiles for attacking a nation accused of siding with Saudi Arabia.

They claim Israel has become involved in the Yemen war by providing the Saudis with intelligence from its reconnaissance fleet which is based at the Eritrean port of Assab just 97km across the sea from the Yemeni coast.

Israel has never acknowledged those bases, but foreign sources began reporting in 2012 the discovery of Israeli war ships and submarines in permanent berths at Assab port, as well as an early warning station built there.

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Jason Chaffetz Full Interview With Judge Jeanine Pirro (9/30/2017)

Posted October 1, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Hillary Clinton scandals, Obama administration scandals, Refusals to prosecute, Republican establishment, US Congress
Tags: Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Hillary Clinton scandals, Obama administration scamdals, Refusals to prosecute, Republican establishment, US Congress

Jason Chaffetz Full Interview With Judge Jeanine Pirro (9/30/2017), Fox News via YouTube, September 30, 2017

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Robert Spencer vs. Richard Spencer: Counter-Jihad vs. White Supremacy

Posted October 1, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Islamic Jihad, Racism, Richard Spencer, Robert Spencer, White supremacy
Tags: Islamic Jihad, Racism, Richard Spencer, Robert Spencer, White supremacy

Robert Spencer vs. Richard Spencer: Counter-Jihad vs. White Supremacy, Acts17Apologetics via YouTube, September 30, 2017

The blurb beneath the video states,

A number of journalists and bloggers have confused counter-jihadist Robert Spencer with white supremacist Richard Spencer, just as they confuse opposition to jihad terror with racism. In this video, Robert Spencer and David Wood discuss the differences between opposing terrorism and promoting race-based bigotry.

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Cartoon of the Day

Posted October 1, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Humor
Tags: Humor

H/t Second City Cop

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New Book Sheds Light on Anti-Trump Agenda in Public Schools and Politicization of the Classroom

Posted October 1, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Academia and freedom of speech, Academia and the left, Academia and Trump, Political indoctrination of children, Public schools in America
Tags: Academia and freedom of speech, Academia and the left, Academia and Trump, Political indoctrination of children, Public schools in America

New Book Sheds Light on Anti-Trump Agenda in Public Schools and Politicization of the Classroom, Washington Free Beacon, Ali Meyer, October 1, 2017

Getty Images

In his newly published book, The Corrupt Classroom, Lance Izumi of the Pacific Research Institute illustrates how the public school classroom has become increasingly politicized, with liberal teachers indoctrinating students with an anti-Trump and leftist agenda.

Izumi makes the case that while many school choice supporters rely on academic school performance data to show that public schools are failing, there are many other equally important reasons to support it.

“Many parents, for example, are rightly concerned about the growing politicization of the classroom,” Izumi explains. “Far from being mere anecdotal incidents—and there are lot of those—political bias is becoming systemic in public school systems and has turned many public schools into indoctrination centers for progressive ideologies and causes.”

For example, the United Educators of San Francisco, a teachers’ union, created an anti-Trump lesson plan and distributed it to 6,000 members. In the lesson plan, Trump was labeled a “racist and sexist man” and included only reports from left-wing sources such as Mother Jones. Teachers were instructed to tell students, “we will keep fighting” and “we must and will fight for justice against an unjust system and an unjust people.”

Izumi also cites the example of Yvette Felarca, a teacher at a middle school in Berkeley, Calif., who is the leader of By Any Means Necessary, which was described as a militant, radical group that uses violence to spread its message.

“Felarca reportedly shoved a man to the ground at a demonstration in Sacramento,” Izumi explains. “The brawl resulted in seven people being stabbed. Felarca told the Mercury News that the First Amendment should not protect speech with which she disagrees and that she labels ‘hate speech.'”

Izumi says that following these actions, parents were outraged and complained that her violent message should not have a place in the classroom. The book cites many more examples of how students were subjected to indoctrination in the classroom, including some who were asked to complete assignments with an anti-Trump bent or teachers who were very open about their liberal beliefs—including one who yelled “Die!” in front of students at a photo of President Trump.

Izumi says that parents should also be aware of school-related crime and the safety of their child when deciding what school to choose.

“There have been many instances of appalling crimes on school campuses, ranging from peer-to-peer bullying to classroom sexual assaults that make every parent shudder with fear for the safety of their own children,” Izumi writes.

For example, Lanny, a 9-year-old in Alabama, was attacked by a bully at her school and suffered a concussion, a bruised face, and two black eyes. Instead of accurately reporting the incident to the child’s mother, school officials said Lanny had fallen on accident. Lanny’s mother decided to homeschool her daughter following the incident because she doesn’t feel the school did enough to prevent bullying and did not even punish the bully.

“When I asked the principal what was being done about the bully, he said she would be suspended for two days,” Lanny’s mother said. “Then I found out they didn’t even do anything to her.”

In addition to safety, Izumi says there are religious biases that have been present in the classroom that parents should be concerned about.

“Just as parents do not like teachers and school officials to favor one political candidate over another, so parents oppose the promotion of one religious faith over another,” Izumi says. “Yet, in public schools across America, teaching, curricula, and policies seem intended to disfavor Christianity and favor other religious faiths.”

There have also been instances of sexualization in the classroom. Izumi explains that a school in Fremont, Calif., distributed a textbook for ninth-graders that taught teenagers about vibrators, oral sex, bondage, female sterilization procedures, and sexual techniques that went beyond the activities that cause birth.

“Not surprisingly, the textbook ignited outrage among parents in the school district, despite the socially liberal reputation of the San Francisco Bay Area,” Izumi explains. “Hundreds of people signed a petition to urge the Fremont school board to rescind its decision to use the textbook in ninth-grade health classes.”

Izumi says that all of these reasons are cause for parents to be concerned about what school their child is attending.

“A public school might have decent test scores, but if parents feel their children are being politically indoctrinated, are at risk of being victimized by other students or teachers, are being shortchanged because of mismanagement by school officials, or are having their basic value system overturned, then parents and their children should have the right and the tools to exit the public school system for educational alternatives that better meet their needs and preferences,” Izumi said.

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