06/3/20

Update On My Husband’s Cancer Treatment – The Near-Future And A Request

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

There are two parts to this post…

As many of you know, for the last year-and-a-half, my husband Garry has been battling Stage IV colorectal cancer. He is now in a semi-remission and his numbers are good. He just had gallbladder surgery and a stent put in his liver duct. It is a side-effect of the intense radiation and chemotherapy he has undergone, but he is doing really well and there were no complications.

Garry will have a PET scan on June 18th. If it shows that the chest tumor and the colorectal tumor are dead, they will most likely reduce or cease the chemotherapy which will be a blessing. Garry will be able to rest and recover from the constant fight against cancer. Since his numbers are so good, there is an excellent chance the tumors are now dead. Fingers crossed.

The next step after they cease chemo will be looking at two future surgeries. One to repair his ostomy hernia. The more substantial and serious one will be to remove the colorectal tumor itself. He could be down three months after that surgery. It is a complicated and serious procedure but we have known that in the end, it would probably be necessary. Prayers are appreciated in all of this.

That brings me to the second part of this post. We are still up to our necks with medical bills and this will add to that battle. Much of this is covered by Medicare but not all of it and it is the excess that is strangling us. We are really struggling since my business has been seriously impacted by COVID-19 and all the political nonsense going on. Right now, I’m down to a handful of clients and that income was used to pay the bills. I know many, in not most, of you are struggling too, so I don’t ask this lightly.

I would ask that, if you can, please give whatever is possible. Garry’s GoFundMe account is here. You can also donate on PayPal. My email there is [email protected] or you can use the PayPal link on the upper right side of NoisyRoom.net to get there. If you would like to donate some other way, email me at [email protected] and I’ll send you instructions.

We have come so far and it would be ironic if the medical bills were what took us down. I don’t think that will happen but I am asking for help here if you can.

Thank you to each and every one of you who has helped us. It means the world to us and we could not have gotten through all of this without you. Your prayers have kept us going and this is a fight we will win.

06/3/20

Why No Protests or Riots Over the Death of Jeffrey Epstein?

By: Cliff Kincaid

In the Michael Brown case, we were told that a white cop killed a black man for no reason. That was a lie. Brown, high on marijuana, lunged for the cop’s gun and got shot in the process. In the George Floyd case, we were told he was just minding his own business passing counterfeit currency when he was killed with the knee of a white cop on his neck. We now know he was using meth and fentanyl. Protests and riots broke out. Meanwhile, pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his network of elites rest in peace.

The medical examiner’s report shows Floyd was using meth and fentanyl, while the Minneapolis police union chief notes Floyd had a long criminal history that included cocaine and robbery. The report indicates that the drugs in his system were a factor in his death. It was truly unfortunate and sad. Perpetrators should not be dying in police custody. But Jeffrey Epstein died in the custody of the police, in this case, prison guards, too. Yet, the political left doesn’t seem to want to hold those responsible for his convenient death legally accountable. Does that have something to do with his connections to such institutions as Harvard, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Bill Clinton? Or is it because their 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden has been accused of sexual assault and a race war is a distraction?

Some accounts of the George Floyd incident suggest he may have been in custody and escaped from the police car before being cornered by the cops and subdued. All of this will come out in the trial of the police officer. Perhaps the cop ultimately went too far, in using a knee on his neck, but this does not seem to be deliberate murder and it is a police procedure that has been used to keep a potentially violent criminal from attacking the cops. In this case, the cop may have suspected he was high on drugs, some of which can provoke frenzied and aggressive behavior by the perp. Meth can cause people to stop breathing and suffer heart attacks and strokes. That can mean death, the outcome in this case.

Strangely, there has been no follow-up regarding the death in federal custody of Jeffrey Epstein, the pedophile with high-powered connections to those who run our political establishment. The story they want you to believe is that the prison guards were asleep when Epstein hung himself using sheets by constructing a hangman’s noose.

We are supposed to believe that his federal prison guards just didn’t notice that their Big Money inmate was in the process of killing himself with bedsheets.

How convenient for the George Floyd case to now arrive on the scene, to help make us forget about Epstein’s light sentence for child trafficking and the politicians who associated with him and the lawyers popular on the Fox News channel who helped him escape serious penalties in the first place? Some on the left AND the right seem to have an interest in this scandal going away.

The scandalous handling of the Epstein case has been forgotten as our attention has shifted to the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, as marauding bands of communists inspired by Mao kill people, including cops, and lay siege to many of our major Democrat-run cities. Trump’s threat to call out the military to restore order has been undermined by his own Secretary Of Defense.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Epstein’s murder is the subject of a four-part Netflix series “Filthy Rich” that only touches the surface of his operation of an international child sex trafficking ring. Where are the demonstrations in the streets calling for justice in this case? They don’t happen because they don’t serve the interests of members of the political establishment. There are too many powerful people in America who want the Epstein case buried. Some are connected to Bill Clinton. Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago after learning that he sought a young girl for purposes of prostitution.

America has been played over and over again by the race war agitators eager to burn down America, and it is happening again, for obvious political purposes. The police union chief, Bob Kroll, says Minneapolis has been a hotbed for “terrorist” elements for some time, and that liberal officials have failed to buttress the ranks of the police to deal with the growing problem of lawlessness. He says a request for 400 more officers was rejected by the powers that be, and the money was instead diverted to “community activists with an anti-police agenda.”

Now, jumping into the mix, some outfit called the Minnesota Department of Human Rights is launching an investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department for “discriminatory” actions. That’s typical. The lynching in this case will be of white police officers. The situation on the ground will get worse, as criminals arrested for rioting will be released when a second wave of coronavirus hits.

This railroad of racial “justice” is designed to rev up the black base to get Joe Biden elected president. The Democrats know Biden is uninspiring and barely able to talk coherently and function. He propped him up before a teleprompter on Tuesday to lecture America for 20 minutes about racism. Here was a guy who co-sponsored every major piece of pro-cop or anti-drug legislation over the last 20 years and now he is sounding like a bleeding-heart liberal who will somehow restore law and order by giving blacks reparations. The deception is carefully coordinated.

Biden is as believable as the claim that Epstein hung himself after jumping off a bunk bed in a heavily guarded jail cell.

None of this seems to matter much anymore, as the Party of Socialism and Liberation is predicting a long hot summer of racial unrest. This communist group is playing into Biden’s hands by changing the subject away from Biden’s sexual behavior and that of Epstein’s close friend Bill Clinton.

*Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org.

06/3/20

China Buying Private Schools in America

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

The death of knowledge and the death of outrage… exactly who in government approves these transactions?

***

In December 2017, two different Chinese investment firms bought primary schools and at least one secondary school in the United States.
Foreign nationals can obtain F-1 visas to attend U.S. schools beginning in kindergarten and running through graduate and post-graduate education.
In 2018, 39,904 Chinese F-1 students were attending secondary schools in the United States.
The strong demand among Chinese nationals for a U.S. secondary education reportedly comes from their families’ belief that attending an American high school will increase the likelihood that those students will be subsequently accepted to U.S. colleges and universities.

CIS: An almost two-and-a-half-year-old article in China Daily detailed an interesting phenomenon: Chinese investors purchasing private K-12 schools in the United States “in the hopes of cashing in on Chinese students’ quest for admission into a US college.” That report not only highlights an interesting pathway for foreign students to obtain a student visa to attend U.S. colleges and universities, but it also shines a light on the F-1 nonimmigrant student visa program at the primary and secondary levels.

The article explained that in December 2017, “Primavera Capital, a China-based private equity firm, paid about $500 million for the Stratford School system, which operates schools throughout California.” That same month, Newopen Group, a “Chinese education company”, bought Florida Preparatory Academy for an undisclosed amount.

Stratford School - Preschools - Santa Clara, CA - Reviews ...

Santa Clara/ The Stratford School system website has a slogan on their home page: A CLASSROOM OF COLLABORATION CAN CHANGE THE WORLD. There are 25 campuses in California

According to its website, Primavera Capital Group, which has offices in Beijing and Hong Kong, has a heavy presence of Goldman Sachs alumni, many of whom themselves have degrees from elite American universities (including Harvard, Columbia, NYU, and my alma mater, the University of Virginia).

Newopen USA is described as “a subsidiary of the Chongqing, China, based Newopen Group”. LinkedIn describes a “Chongqing Newopen Education Group” as “the most influential and valuable education group in China”, which “manages 2 universities, 5 middle schools, 2 affiliated primary schools, 31 kindergartens” (Florida Preparatory Academy is not on the list).

The website for that organization is largely in Mandarin (the English-language version does not load), but the Google Translate version states that it was established in 1993 and “currently has 2 universities, 13 primary and secondary schools, [and] 31 kindergartens”; its educational sites include Los Angeles and Florida — logically Florida Preparatory Academy.

Stratford School’s website lists 30 separate locations, five in Southern California and 25 in the greater Bay Area (including in tech-heavy San Jose, Palo Alto, and San Francisco). Those locations offer differing levels of education, from pre-school through eighth grade (a high school is planned), as well as summer camps. Its curriculum “introduces learning and innovation skills through STEM based learning. Anchored in science and math, the STEM classroom emphasizes critical thinking, authentic problem solving, creativity, and innovation.”

Florida Preparatory Academy, “a coeducational college-prep school for grades 5-12” founded in 1961, describes itself as “a premier day and boarding school in Melbourne, Florida.” Among other programs (including an “English Language Program … designed for International Students that are learning English as a new language”), it offers a “unique dual enrollment opportunity at Florida Institute of Technology and Eastern Florida State College”.

Notably: “Any high school senior completing six or more credits at Florida Tech with a 3.0 overall GPA is guaranteed … [a]dmission to Florida Tech upon completion of the full-time undergraduate admission process.” Such admission would facilitate, if not guarantee, the extension of F-1 status for foreign students.

Florida Preparatory Academy is not cheap, at least for students who live there full time: seven-day boarding students (likely the vast majority of F-1s) pay $40,500 in tuition, room, and board (before uniforms). Day students, by comparison, only pay $14,200.

Returning to the China Daily article, I would note that a key point for the investments by Primavera and Newopen in those institutions is to tap into the market of parents in China who want to put their children on a path to higher education in the United States. That article notes: “The strong demand comes from the Chinese families’ belief that the experience at US secondary schools will increase their children’s chances of being accepted to US universities.”

Although we generally think of F-1 student visas in the context of colleges and universities, those visas are also available for foreign nationals to study in the United States at a private K-12 school, or a public high school, as well. Study at a public high school is limited to 12 months for an F-1, and the foreign student must reimburse the costs of tuition (dependents of F-1s, known as “F-2s”, can study wherever they like, including public school), but there is no limit on the amount of time that a foreign student can attend a private K-12 school.

The first step to obtaining that visa is acceptance by a school approved by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP, which is administered by ICE), followed by that school’s issuance of a Form I-20 and the filing of an application by the student at a U.S. embassy or consulate for an F-1 visa.

The list of SEVP certified schools runs 272 pages, and includes the middle schools run by Stratford Schools in Sunnyvale, San Jose, and Fremont, as well as Florida Preparatory Academy. Tuition at the three Stratford schools runs $23,510 per year, and there is no boarding option, raising the question of where F-1 middle school students live.

There are, by my count, at least 200 elementary schools on the list (the level of education offered for many is not entirely clear, and I am basing my count on the number identified as “elementary”) and at least 75 middle schools (again, they are not all identified as such, and there are likely many more).

The number of high schools is similarly not clear from the SEVP list (not all identify themselves as such), but one report stated that 2,800 U.S. high schools hosted international students in 2016.

How many Chinese students are in pre-college programs in the United States? I was unable to find the number of those at the primary school level, but the report, “Globally Mobile Youth: Trends in International Secondary Students in the US, 2013-2016”, from the Institute of International Education (IIE), states that in 2016, there were 59,392 secondary school students in the United States on F-1 visas (an additional 22,589 were exchange students on J-1s).

Of that number, 33,275 (56 percent) were from China. According to SEVP, by 2018 (the last year for which reporting was available) there were 39,904 F-1 students at the secondary school level from that country — an increase of almost 17 percent in two years.

Consistent with excerpts above from China Daily, the IIE report states: “A common perception among international secondary students and their families is that a U.S. educational experience at the secondary level will make them more competitive applicants to American colleges and universities.” Given the increase in F-1 secondary students from China, and the actions of Primavera Capital and Newopen Group, that perception is likely correct.

With respect to the fact that F-1 students at public high schools are limited to one year of study, the report notes that some “students may seek to transfer to a private school after completing their public school experience or come to a public school for just their senior year and then apply to a college or university in the United States.” And, relevant to the Florida Preparatory Academy/Florida Tech “dual enrollment opportunity”, the report states:

There have also been instances of higher education institutions establishing affiliated international high schools on their campuses to aid higher education recruitment. These expanding models widen the opportunities for international students to receive a U.S. high school education that provides a clear pathway to U.S. higher education.

In summary, F-1 student status is not limited to college and university students, but is available to foreign nationals beginning in kindergarten. For many foreign nationals — and in particular students from China — K-12 education in the United States, while an expensive endeavor, is a pathway to higher education. At least two different firms have put money on it.