Note to the Department of Education: Mao Zedong murdered 65 million people.

This is the estimated number is from The Black Book of Communism: if some people consider that number suspect, there’s also Frank Dikötter’s estimate* of 45 million killed during the “Great Leap Forward.”  Even the New York Times thinks that 30 million died in that atrocity, while noting that the ChiComs admit to 16 million murdered by the state** during that time period.  In short: Mao Zedong was a ruthless dictator who killed on a scale equivalent to Adolf Hitler and  Josef Stalin.

NEVER QUOTE HIM AGAIN ON A DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION-RUN KID’S WEBSITE.

EVER.

mao-zedong

Continue reading Note to the Department of Education: Mao Zedong murdered 65 million people.

SWAT team raids by… US Department of Education.

No.  Seriously.

[UPDATE: Folks, it looks like they just updated the story and changed the URL.  Here you go with the new one.]

Apparently, there was this woman who had skipped out on her student loans, so the feds sent a SWAT team to her house to deliver a search warrant.  That is to say, the SWAT team stormed the house, broke down the door, handcuffed her husband, and stuck around for six hours until it finally was successfully pointed out that not only was the woman not there; she had in point of fact skipped out on her family, too. [UPDATE: The government is now claiming that the Education/SWAT raid wasn’t due to student loan defaults; which doesn’t actually resolve any of the questions below.]

Now, you’re probably asking yourself the following questions:

  • Since when did the Department of Education get to do what sounds awfully like no-knock raids? Answer: I’m not sure.  Perhaps this question should be presented to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (Democrat), who is of course appointed by President Barack Obama (Democrat).
  • Since when does a search warrant for student loan defaults [UPDATE: or fraud, really] permit the same tactics that one would use to secure a crystal meth lab that has a sideline in illegal automatic weapons? Answer: there is no way that I can match the righteously outraged fury of Reason.com on this one, and I will not even try.
  • Wasn’t there some kind of student loan relief program signed into law?  Answer: HAHAHA!  No.  The closest thing to that is that students in the future who paid their loans all along will get forgiven the balance five years early – which means, in twenty years instead of twenty-five.  Yup, I know that the President promised otherwise.  The President makes a lot of promises that he doesn’t keep.  He lies a lot, too*.
  • Should I be paying off my student loans, then?  Answer: YES.  Or else the SWAT teams may come for you.  And, presumably, shoot you if you freak out about it.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Hey, I didn’t vote for him.