Project 21: New Visions

Standardized tests are a major factor in charting the career paths of America's children. College and university admissions officers rely on standardized test scores to help them determine if a student's goals are feasible and if they are a good fit on their campuses. There are several standardized admissions tests available to college-bound high schoolers, but states are beginning to play favorites. That's not a bright idea. For example, lawmakers in North Carolina recently voted to require all 11th graders to take the ACT — whether they want to continue their education past their high school graduation or not. But, ...
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Black leaders have consistently advocated that black Americans must "do for self." Frederick Douglass promoted education in order to do for self. Booker T. Washington thought the best way to do for self was to train and acquire practical, technical skills. W.E.B. DuBois predicted that a "talented tenth" of the black community would guide the remaining 90 percent toward a means of doing for self. Marcus Garvey and Elijah Muhammad charted a way of doing for self by organizing businesses and religious organizations. Sadly, over the years, black Americans seem to have lost the connection to this powerful lesson. We ...
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Faced with the reality that his policies have failed to spur significant job growth, President Obama is blaming technology for high unemployment. During a recent NBC News interview Obama said, "There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM. You don't go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate." ATMs provide convenience — they are ...
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When Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) signed same-sex marriage into law in New York, his action highlighted our country's deep moral decline. What consenting adults do in the privacy of the bedroom is not my business nor concern. My objection to same-sex marriage comes from a deep Christian faith, love of country and concern for the future of the African-American people. How does same-sex marriage affect black America? Consider this June 23 Associated Press excerpt: Preliminary census estimates also show the share of African-American households headed by women — mostly single mothers — now exceeds African-American households with married couples, reflecting ...
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Having experienced the psychological pain of Jim Crow laws firsthand, I won't allow those who likely only read about Jim Crow in history books to trivialize it. That's why I'm outraged about a recent edition of TV One's "Washington Watch" in which host Roland Martin and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) compared state-level voter identification rules to Jim Crow. To the contrary, requiring valid identification in exchange for something as sacred as a ballot is a pragmatic approach to governing. Martin mused: "We talk about [voting being] the fundamental right [of] Americans, but to put roadblocks up to… for… voting ...
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Exposingleftists.com arrived on the campus of the University of California, Merced last May to gather signatures on a petition calling for a redistribution of grade point averages. Not surprisingly, few star students wanted to share the fruits of their academic labors. But the logic was liberally sound. Students who worked hard and studied longer than their peers, in the spirit of fairness, should be willing to sacrifice their higher GPAs to benefit those whose grades weren't so high due to laziness or ineptitude, or both. Paradoxically, many of the same A students unwilling to take a B to save someone ...
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As the White House lobbies to raise the nation's debt ceiling, why not instead help raise its moral ceiling? After decades of rewarding bad behavior, it's in the government's best interest — and perhaps even its duty — to promote the morals and values that made our nation great. At present, the Obama Administration wants Congress to raise the debt ceiling so our government can borrow more than the almost $14.3 trillion currently allowed by law.  Conservatives want any debt increase tied to spending cuts, and a recent vote shows Obama lacks the political capital to ram through an increase ...
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Our nation's natural resources and access to affordable energy are under assault from environmentalists, business interests and progressive politicians. Their plan is to raise the price of fossil fuels to make renewable energy economically competitive. But too many Americans already face significant financial difficulties due to soaring energy costs and rising food prices. For example, a May 2011 USA Today/Gallup poll found that seven in ten Americans say high gasoline prices are causing them personal financial hardship. Lower-income families are hardest hit by soaring energy prices. A recent study concluded that these households are spending nearly a quarter of their ...
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While I've supported a far less radical and more free market version of black nation-building than the New Black Panther Party, I realize that, for many reasons, nation formation in the traditional sense is a difficult and unlikely prospect today. At the same time, I am intrigued by cybernetic governance — the notion of conducting government affairs via computer. In a world of cyber governance, citizens are informed of societal issues and concerns and can then participate in the decision-making process through their electronic devices. Cybernetic government creates a non-spatial society where it does not matter what physical area one ...
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While pundits debate if Obama's decision to kill Osama bin Laden benefits the President politically, the average American — after some celebration — is still fixated on the economy. Unemployment still hovers around nine percent. Home values are still down and the dollar is in a nosedive. Food and gas prices are soaring, and one in seven Americans receives food stamps. Is this how we "win the future"? After all, how can so many Americans sidelined by joblessness, more people joining the entitlement rolls and the budding normality of a more marginalized and cheapened understanding of individual responsibly be seen ...
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America's involvement in Libya is not the fault of America's military leaders. Put the blame at the feet of President Barack Obama and his advisors. Blame the White House for the bad planning, the last-minute decision to get in the game, bypassing Congress for approval to intervene and for embroiling our nation in Libya's civil war. With his actions, Obama has pleased no one — especially his traditional base of support. There's much discord within the liberal rank-and-file over what Obama is doing in Libya. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has even gone so far as to say that Obama's Libyan ...
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Pro-life activists exposed serious abuses at Planned Parenthood. There was outrage from the left. In offices around America, actors pretending to be a pimp and an underage girl taped Planned Parenthood employees giving out advice about obtaining illegal abortions and getting back into the sex trade as quickly as possible without running afoul of the law. Exposure of these prohibited practices at facilities supported by taxpayer dollars played an obvious role in the U.S. House of Representatives vote to strip Planned Parenthood of funding on February 18 and the demand from many lawmakers that a ban be included on any ...
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Freedom is flourishing in the Middle East. Popular movements against dictators and monarchs from Tunis to Tehran prove the doctrine of the Reagan and Bush presidencies to promote freedom and democracy abroad was a sound investment. Unfortunately, President Obama may have done his predecessors' work a disservice with his reluctance to engage. He was late to the game in supporting the mostly peaceful Egyptian revolution, and his similar tardiness with Libya — where Muammar Gaddafi's violent response virtually obliterated the opposition before Obama stepped in (without the congressional involvement he once promised and his Vice President once insisted upon1). While ...
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Throughout the recent budget debate, liberals blamed the impasse over the final numbers on the tea party movement. This progressive political strategy served a two-fold objective. First, by assigning responsibility for the failing budget negotiations on the tea party, liberals hoped to avoid any culpability in the morass. Second, if there was a government slowdown, they want any public hardships blamed on anyone but themselves. After years of trying to label the tea party movement as extremist, liberals hoped that shuttered museums, national park closures and concerns about grandma not getting her Social Security check would turn public opinion against ...
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Washington is regulating the common light bulb out of existence and raiding America's medicine cabinet. Now, the Obama Administration's EPA is preparing to go after soap! Remember the hand sanitizing gels that were on virtually every countertop, desk and in every restaurant during the 2009 swine flu scare? They were promoted at the time by the Centers for Disease Control as a means of preventing the spread of the deadly disease. Spurred by radical environmentalists, the EPA could be on the verge of trying to ban one of the key ingredients in many hand sanitizer gels, soaps, toothpastes and other ...
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As a black conservative, I've come to the conclusion that my progressive critics don't dislike me as much as they fear people such as me. Black progressives are particularly embittered of us because black conservatives can counter their lies, smears and all-around disinformation in claiming to represent the views of all blacks. Nowhere has this been more evident lately than when black progressives seek to smear the tea party movement as racist. Despite tea partiers coming together in opposition to out-of-control spending and a record deficit, the crushing regulatory control of the Obama Administration and Obama's rubber-stamp on Capitol Hill ...
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It's clear that the civil rights establishment, knee-jerk toward what it perceives to be discrimination, turns a blind eye to intolerance and incivility directed at conservatives — even when the victims are black. Over the past two years, for example, the NAACP paired itself with virtually every left-wing group opposing the Tea Party movement. The nation's oldest civil rights group seemed eager to lend its credibility to efforts painting proponents of less government and more freedom as racist. The NAACP partnered with ThinkProgress, Media Matters for America and New Left Media on TeaPartyTracker.org, a website that suggested racism could be ...
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Last year, not long after the Food and Drug Administration got legislative authority to regulate tobacco, "flavored" cigarettes were banned — on behalf of the children. This was largely a publicity stunt since Twista Lime, Kauai Kolada and other flavored cigarettes made up less than one percent of the cigarette market and manufacturers had largely scaled back their production of flavored cigarettes by the time the FDA announced the ban. Now the FDA is embarking on something more ambitious: Going after menthol cigarettes. Perhaps the attack on flavored cigarettes was a practice run, because the stakes are much higher now ...
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President Barack Obama is surrounded by a broad and diverse array of challenges.  From slow economic growth and high unemployment to emerging international crises, Obama faces mounting pressure to show leadership. But all of these weighty national and international burdens have not prevented Obama from sticking his nose in to a purely state matter. Instead of concentrating on flashpoints in the Middle East or working with Congress to cut the budget and avoid a government shutdown, the commander-in-chief chose to jump in the middle of a budget battle between public unions and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. While the newly-elected Walker ...
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As a tea party organizer and black man, I am often asked how a movement with the critical mission of saving and restoring our republic can attract minorities currently weak in numbers in tea party ranks. The mainstream media and civil rights lobbyists have perpetuated the myth that tea partiers have racist tendencies. These untrue accusations must be countered. Tea party activism is born out of concerns about the direction our leaders are taking this country.  Excessive spending, expanded government, ever-higher taxes and government-run health care are driving concerns that are common to every American. So the tea party began with ...
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