Good News Americans #6
The Virginia Board of Education has just approved new uniform standards for its various grade-level student history curricula (K-12), which is to include lessons on the meaning of patriotism, as well as , “respect for the American flag through the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem.” The teaching is also to include knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, the three-branches-of-government structure, and the responsibilities of U.S. citizenship. Sounds like a terrific and much-needed step forward to ensure that more students know about and can better appreciate the history and leadership traditions of our great country. This should eventually help counter the seeming ‘hate’ feelings for America that too many young people have adopted as their personal banner of dissent and disrespect.
Former sanitation worker (i.e., trash collector) Rehan Staton will soon graduate from Harvard Law School. He went on to Harvard after completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Maryland. Rehan grew up within a family of sanitation employees, remembering that at times “there was very little food and unreliable electricity” in his home. Thankful for the vital financial help from others, and acknowledging that it often “takes a village,” or as he said: “No one does it alone.” That reality in mind, he and leaders from his former employer have formed a nonprofit aimed, initially, at showing support for the team of staff who are often-behind-the-scenes employees (custodial, cafeteria, etc.) at Harvard Law. “There’s a lot of prideful people that work at this university that do things a lot of people wouldn’t have pride in doing. To acknowledge those people is very important,” said one of those woman who has worked at the university for 16- years. Clearly, Rehan Staton is a bright young man, about to launch his legal career, while taking with him a clear understanding of from where he has risen, and to always remember and acknowledge those folks who helped him, financially, and often literally “served him,” along the way.
There is a bright-light private Christian college out there, previously unknown to me. It’s Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. Founded in 1949, the college has grown from over 7-thousand students on campus in 2012, to now over 25-thousand in 2022 (on-line enrollment has also doubled in that decade). Said understandably proud GCU president Brian Mueller: “Core competency, we think, is to understand where the economy is going, where the jobs are going to be, how people can build great careers, and how they can do it without taking on large amounts of debt.” President Mueller “attributed some of the university’s growth to the college building up the campus in a disadvantage neighborhood, freezing tuition costs, and offering generous scholarships.” It’s obvious from the discussion that the college is fortunate to have very strong and committed financial supporters, helping to explain the ability to freeze tuition expense for ten years, and to buy the land and build up the campus to absorb 25-thousand students currently (with dreams of hitting 50-thousand in ten more years!). Low tuition, and scholarships available. Please do the research you would normally do about any school being considered, but if you are seeking a private Christian college experience, Grand Canyon University in Phoenix sounds like it might well be one more to consider.
The Republican legislature in Kansas has overridden their Democrat governor’s wishes resulting in the banning of transgenders from girl’s and women’s sports in the state, from kindergarten through college. Reportedly, to date, 19 other states have passed laws imposing biological (not “identifying as”) restrictions on transgender student athletes. LGBTQ-rights advocates claim “it’s part of a national campaign from right-wing traditionalists to erase transgender, non-binary, gender-queer and gender-fluid people from American society.” Frankly, it’s nothing of the sort. It’s simply about fairness in women’s sports competitions. It’s about not having to remove women’s sports “from American society” because of the unfairness imposed on women’s competitions when non-biological ‘women’ are allowed to participate and compete against them. Period.
Congratulations, as well, to the State of Indiana whose Republican governor has signed into law a bill “banning sex change surgeries and hormone treatments for underage children.” Effective July 1st, “all individuals in the state, under the age of 18, will be forbidden from undergoing so-called “gender-affirming care,” such as genital mutilation surgeries and cross-sex hormones.” Said Indiana governor Eric Holcomb: “Permanent gender-changing surgeries with lifelong impacts and medically prescribed preparation for such a transition should occur as an adult, not as a minor.” Of course, there was opposition expressed from the other side, but thankfully common sense prevailed, rather than the increasingly persistent, woke-infested, clouded judgment and ignored lifelong physical reality.
We’re told that “the United States is working to free several Americans detained in Afghanistan and to assist 44 others trying to leave the country, said Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.” Oh, how wonderful, and self-caused far too long after the fact. Attempting surgical removal of untold numbers of Americans left behind would not be necessary if this administration had taken the logical route to begin with, which was to leave a comparatively small peacekeeping force there, maintaining control of both the capital and our huge air base, rather than ceding total control of both, and the nation, to the Taliban. Best case would have been to withdraw our forces, and Americans there, group by group, over a reasonable amount of time, allowing not only Americans, military and civilian, to leave but also time to take our millions of dollars’ worth of military equipment with us, rather than leave it in haste to arm and outfit very nicely the Taliban’s Army. The inexcusable hasty withdraw was done purely for Democrat political purposes and for no other reason. It defied logic, reasonableness, and human need. The Biden administration’s pure and ruthless politics overrode everything, regardless of the pain and the immense loss it caused, not to mention instantly turning the Afghan nation over to the Taliban, likely now forever.
There is some considered judgement, now, that Biden’s helter-skelter instant withdrawal was the sign to the world of leadership weakness, one that Mr. Putin was watching and evaluating prior to his decision to invade Ukraine. Foolish adherence to perceived political need (vs. harsh reality) directly caused the uncivilized, tragic loss of Afghanistan, and may very well have contributed, indirectly, to the equally uncivilized, tragic invasion of Ukraine. Leaving Mr. Blinken now, after all this time, to “work to free” remaining Americans, so says the administration. The whole operation, from the start until now, was an absolutely unnecessary debacle, an example of the apparent pressure of politics overriding reason, international image, and genuine national leadership.
Since the administration has failed miserably, by intent, to stem the flow of illegal migrants across our southern border, while allowing great harm to our nation (annual cost, admission of undesirables some, with possible crime or terror intent, etc.), Texas governor Greg Abbott has assembled a targeted response team to protect his state. Deployed initially to the El Paso sector, team members from the Texas National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety combined to turn back, over just a two-day period, several thousands of illegals. In fact, cutting the normal entries in half. Texas efforts are working well to date. Congratulations to Governor Abbott for his aggressive initiative in response to a serious need for state border protection.
And, now, concluding this edition of Good News Americans with some really great news. With construction finally completed, Exxon Mobil has just begun actual output operations from “America’s largest oil refinery expansion in over a decade.” Its total processing capacity is now over 630,000 barrels per day. “When you put it all together,” said Exxon Mobile Senior VP of Global Operations Janet Matsushita, “and you look at this particular location (Beaumont, TX), what I love about it, is that it allows us to (produce) what I consider to be very much needed, affordable energy, and in a very reliable supply to fuel the economy that we have in Texas, the U.S., and across the globe.” The keys here are: (1) huge expansion of daily oil output, and (2) increased affordable energy for America! Our thanks to, actually all of America’s thanks, Exxon Mobil for working to keep our nation’s industries and vehicles moving with acceptable prices at the pump!
(Fact Sources: Virginia upgrades statewide K-12 U.S. history instruction standards via dailycaller.com, Reagan Reese, 4-20-23; Former sanitation worker graduate from Harvard Law via nypost.com, Brooke Kato, 4-15-23; Introduction to Grand Canyon University via foxnews.com, Megan Myers, 4-16-23; Kansas bans transgenders from competing in women’s sports via breitbart.com, Associated Press, 4-6-23; Indiana bans sex-change surgeries for minors via amgreatness.com, Eric Lendrum, 4-6-23; Working to get remaining Americans out of Afghanistan via breitbart.com, AFP, 3-23-23; Texas takes action to protect its border from migrants via breitbart.com, Bob Price, 4-20-23; Exxon Mobil refinery expansion via foxbusiness.com, Kristen Altus, 4-24-23).