Common Core

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News/Politics 4-3-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread.

1. Another mass shooting at Ft. Hood.

From NBCNews  “Four people were dead, including the gunman, and at least 11 others were wounded in a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, military officials told NBC News.

The gunman, identified as Ivan Lopez, 34 — an enlisted soldier — took his own life, officials said.

Three other people died in local hospitals, they said.The conditions of the 11 people who were wounded were unreported, but military officials said one was in “extremely grave” condition.

Doctors at Scott & White Memorial Hospital said they were treating four patients, some stable and others in “quite critical” condition. Two more patients were en route and were expected to be taken directly to surgery for what were described as very serious injuries.”

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2. Will liberals still claim it’s a myth?

From PJMedia  “The North Carolina State Board of Elections has found thousands of instances of voter fraud in the state, thanks to a 28-state crosscheck of voter rolls. Initial findings suggest widespread election fraud.

The second point is key, as double voting is election fraud under state and federal statutes. Punishment for double voting in federal elections can include jail time.”

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3. Another state smartens up.

From TulsaWorld  “The Oklahoma Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would repeal a controversial set of academic standards known as Common Core.”

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4. Maybe this explains why the PETA types are so cranky and miserable.

From Atlanta/CBSLocal  “Vegetarians may have a lower BMI and drink alcohol sparingly, but vegetarian diets are tied to generally poorer health, poorer quality of life and a higher need for health care than their meat-eating counterparts.

A new study from the Medical University of Graz in Austria finds that vegetarians are more physically active, drink less alcohol and smoke less tobacco than those who consume meat in their diets. Vegetarians also have a higher socioeconomic status and a lower body mass index. But the vegetarian diet — characterized by a low consumption of saturated fats and cholesterol that includes increased intake of fruits, vegetables and whole-grain products — carries elevated risks of cancer, allergies and mental health disorders.

Vegetarians were twice as likely to have allergies, a 50 percent increase in heart attacks and a 50 percent increase in incidences of cancer.”

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News/Politics 4-2-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. This seems absurd, but who knows what some judge might be inclined to do.

From TheTimesofIsrael  “Ahmad al-Gamal, an Egyptian columnist for Egyptian daily Al-Yawm Al-Sabi, advocated in the newspaper on March 11 that Egypt sue the State of Israel for damages caused by the 10 Biblical plagues, “We want compensation for the plagues that were inflicted upon [us] as a result of the curses that the Jews’ ancient forefathers [cast] upon our ancient forefathers, who did not deserve to pay for the mistake that Egypt’s ruler at the time, Pharaoh, committed,” the cranky journalist wrote, according to a translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute.”

“For what is written in the Torah proves that it was Pharaoh who oppressed the children of Israel, rather than the Egyptian people,” Gamal continued, “[But] they inflicted upon us the plague of locusts that didn’t leave anything behind them; the plague that transformed the Nile’s waters into blood, so nobody could drink of them for a long time; the plague of darkness that kept the world dark day and night; the plague of frogs; and the plague of the killing of the firstborn, namely every first offspring born to woman or beast, and so on.”

Gamal also pressed suing Israel for the “precious materials” used by the ancient Israelites in order to construct their desert tabernacle.”

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2. Anyone shocked?

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Before the Obama administration gave an inaccurate narrative on national television that the Benghazi attacks grew from an anti-American protest, the CIA’s station chief in Libya pointedly told his superiors in Washington that no such demonstration occurred, documents and interviews with current and former intelligence officials show.

The attack was “not an escalation of protests,” the station chief wrote to then-Deputy CIA Director Michael J. Morell in an email dated Sept. 15, 2012 — a full day before the White House sent Susan E. Rice to several Sunday talk shows to disseminate talking points claiming that the Benghazi attack began as a protest over an anti-Islam video.”

“That the talking points used by Mrs. Rice, who was then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, were written by a CIA that ignored the assessment by its own station chief inside Libya, has emerged as one of the major bones of contention in the nearly two years of political fireworks and congressional investigations into the Benghazi attack.”

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3. Most transparent administration never.

From TheFreeBeacon  “The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) blocked the release of the names of hospitals where 19 veterans died because of delays in medical screenings, leading to calls for transparency from news outlets and a bipartisan group of Capitol Hill lawmakers.

Earlier this month, the VA denied a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Tampa Tribune reporter Howard Altman, who had been investigating the deaths.

CNN reported in January that 19 veterans died as a result of delayed gastrointestinal cancer screenings, while another 63 were seriously injured. CNN obtained internal documents from the VA listing the number of “institutional disclosures of adverse events”—the bureaucratic phrase for a mistake that gravely harms or kills a patient.

However, the documents did not list the names of the hospitals and clinics where the deaths took place. When Altman asked VA for the names of the hospitals, he was told he would have to file a FOIA request. His subsequent FOIA request was denied.”

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4. Can somebody point out who is acting like the child here?

From EAGNews  “13WHAM.com reports at least 16 school districts in the Empire State have implemented a “sit and stare” policy for students who’ve been opted-out of the state assessments by their parents.

These students “will have to sit at their desks without any other reading or testing materials, while all the students around them take the 60- to 90-minute exams,” the news site reports.

It’s not difficult to read between the lines here. The “sit and stare” policy is a way petty and vindictive school principals and superintendents can get back at parents who are pushing back against the Common Core experiment.”

“That’s not just our interpretation of what’s happening; the leader of the state’s largest teachers union sees it the same way. “This (‘sit and stare’) policy aimed at students whose parents elect to ‘opt out’ their children from state standardized testing is unconscionable,” said Richard Iannuzzi, president of the New York State United Teachers, in a February press release.”

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5. Oh goody. Time to start testing Congress and the White House. 🙄

From Reuters  “District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray on Monday signed a bill that decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce (28 grams) of marijuana in the U.S. capital.

The law makes possession a civil violation with a penalty of $25, lower than most city parking tickets. Possession had been a misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

“He did sign it this morning,” said spokeswoman Doxie McCoy. Gray is facing a tight race in the Democratic primary on Tuesday after being tarnished by links to a campaign finance scandal.

Proponents had backed the marijuana measure as an issue of fairness. A study by the American Civil Liberties Union had shown that blacks in Washington were eight times more likely to be arrested for pot than people of other races.”

 The fact that he’ll gain votes from this is purely coincidental. 🙂

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6. The White House is touting having reached their 7 million sign ups goal. But as usual, the details are not as rosy as they claim.

From TheDailyMail  “A triumphant President Barack Obama declared Tuesday his signature medical insurance overhaul a success, saying it has made America’s health care system ‘a lot better’ in a Rose Garden press conference.

But buried in the 7.1 million enrollments he announced in a heavily staged appearance is a more unsettling reality.

Numbers from a RAND Corporation study that has been kept under wraps suggest that barely 858,000 previously uninsured Americans – nowhere near 7.1 million – have paid for new policies and joined the ranks of the insured by Monday night.”

“Others were already insured, including millions who lost coverage when their existing policies were suddenly cancelled because they didn’t meet Obamacare’s strict minimum requirements.”

 

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News/Politics 3-31-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread.

1. Is Common Core becoming a campaign issue?

From FoxNews  “Parents across the country may hold the key to this year’s mid-term elections as they vent their anger over the implementation of a controversial education achievement measure called the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have adopted the initiative in a bid, they say, to improve education standards in Math and English, and give new life to what many view as a sagging education system. Indiana recently voted to back out of Common Core.

But many parents see the initiative as a bid by the federal government to take over the education system. They are also angry over the “data mining” of students’ personal information, and say the stepped-up standards are not age-appropriate and are leading to anxiety and depression in their children.

Analysts warn the parental opposition could spill over into the November elections.”

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2. Social Justice isn’t clearly defined because it’s supporters use it as a catch-all phrase for whatever they want it to mean at the moment.

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3. What a waste of money, all in the name of PC versions of fairness.

From TheBlaze  “The U.S Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has forced a school in Michigan to tear down a brand-new set of bleachers for its boys’ varsity baseball team because the new seating is nicer than the girls’ softball bleachers.

The raised seating deck for the boys’ baseball team, which was paid for with money raised by parents, was put in place because fans who’d come to watch games at Plymouth High School in Canton, Mich., were having a hard time seeing the game through the chain-link fence WJBK-TV reported.

The parents installed the new bleachers themselves and even added a new scoreboard to the field, the station reported.

But after an investigation by government officials, which was prompted by an anonymous complaint, the school was told it had to remove the new seating because it was “no longer equal” to the adjacent girls’ softball bleachers, which have yet to get a makeover of their own.”

The clowns are running this circus.  

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4. Dissent will not be tolerated by the intolerant left.

From BusinessInsider  “Some employees at Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind the Firefox browser, are calling on new CEO Brendan Eich to resign. 

 Mozilla workers are upset with Eich because he supported Proposition 8 and donated to the politicians who backed it.”

“But some employees at Mozilla, such as design researcher Emily Goligoski, feel that Eich’s decision to back Prop 8 goes against Mozilla’s core values as a company.”

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News/Politics 2-20-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Another consequence of the Obama admins decision to rescind propaganda rules. Without the first action, he couldn’t get away with this. Pravda, it’s not just a Russian thing anymore.

From RedState  “The Obama Administration’s Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is poised to place government monitors in newsrooms across the country in an absurdly draconian attempt to intimidate and control the media.

Before you dismiss this assertion as utterly preposterous (we all know how that turned out when the Tea Party complained that it was being targeted by the IRS), this bombshell of an accusation comes from an actual FCC Commissioner.”

“Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring.

The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” along with “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”

In fact, the FCC is now expanding the bounds of regulatory powers to include newspapers, which it has absolutely no authority over, in its new government monitoring program.”

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2. Bullying a bunch of Quakers and burning down their church for using non-union labor? Talk about low…..

From WFB  “The federal government on Tuesday indicted multiple union members for burning down a Quaker church in 2012.

Ten members of a Philadelphia ironworkers union face charges of arson and racketeering in connection with a fire against the church, which was employing non-union workers.

“Ironworkers Local 401 [was charged] with allegedly participating in a conspiracy to commit criminal acts of extortion, arson, destruction of property, and assault in order to force construction contractors to hire union ironworkers,” the FBI said in a press release. “Specifically, the indictment charges RICO conspiracy, violent crime in aid of racketeering, three counts of arson, two counts of use of fire to commit a felony, and conspiracy to commit arson. Eight of the 10 individuals named in the indictment are charged with conspiring to use Ironworkers Local 401 as an enterprise to commit criminal acts.”

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3. He did it again. This time Battleground Texas (ACORN) and the Wendy Davis for Gov. campaign. Forging voter signatures, illegal copying and storing voter contact info, which is forbidden by law. Same playbook Obama and OFA use.

Vote fraud is alive and well, and much of it happens way before the voting booth.

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4. Is Common Core crashing and burning? Let’s hope so. 🙂

From Politico  “The nation’s largest teachers union is pulling back on its once-enthusiastic support of the Common Core academic standards, labeling their rollout “completely botched.”

National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said he still believes the standards can improve education. But he said they will not succeed without a major “course correction” — including possibly rewriting some of the standards and revising the related tests with teacher input.

“In far too many states, implementation has been completely botched,” Van Roekel wrote in a letter Wednesday afternoon to his organization’s more than 3 million members.”

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News/Politics 1-21-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

After a couple of days off, I have a bunch, so I’ll try to be brief. As always, clicking the text will take you to the entire article.

1. Not shocking. It’s one of the reasons Planned Parenthood pushes both to young girls. It guarantees return business either way.

From CNSNews  “A new report released by the Family Research Council (FRC) on the demographics of abortion in the United States reveals that when and if a woman undergoes the procedure once or more is tied directly to chastity, monogamy and the use of contraceptives.”

“It also shows that 34 to 38 percent of women who became sexually active as young girls (12 or younger, 13, or 14) have had an abortion, while six percent of women who had intercourse for the first time at age 20 or later have had an abortion. “There’s a huge relationship between the earlier one starts being sexually active and the more likely things are going to go wrong, including undergoing an abortion,” said Patrick Fagan, director of FRC’s Marriage and Religion Research Institute and co-author of the report with Scott Talkington, research director for the National Association of Scholars and Senior Research Fellow at George Mason University School of Public Policy.

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2. Cuomo says pro-lifers aren’t welcome in his state. They can’t have conservatives challenging the abortion extremists, now can they?

From HotAir  “Forty-eight percent of Americans and all priests and nuns are no longer welcome in the Empire State, according to its governor. Delivering a monologue on Republicans with all the hyperbole of an MSNBC anchor and none of the charm, Cuomo offered this:

You have a schism within the Republican Party. … They’re searching to define their soul, that’s what’s going on. Is the Republican party in this state a moderate party or is it an extreme conservative party? That’s what they’re trying to figure out. It’s a mirror of what’s going on in Washington. The gridlock in Washington is less about Democrats and Republicans. It’s more about extreme Republicans versus moderate Republicans.

… You’re seeing that play out in New York. … The Republican Party candidates are running against the SAFE Act — it was voted for by moderate Republicans who run the Senate! Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.“

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3. I have a feeling the Gov. would welcome this though, because he obviously agrees with the ideology.

From TheDailyCaller  “Hillsdale professor Terrence Moore, author of  “Story Killers: A Common Sense Case Against Common Core,”  exposed some of the more distressing aspects of the controversial Common Core education standards program, saying that all teachers must tell young students that all right-wing groups are fascist.

Moore highlights how it is not just the reading lists and course materials — which have already attracted a large amount of criticism — that need to be examined by parents. It’s also the teaching notes and standard curriculum; the notes and standards come as part of a comprehensive package. Moore noted through his research that a distinctly political slant is introduced, one which dictates not only what children are taught, but also how they should be taught.”

““In the margin of the teachers edition, the teacher is instructed to explain the term ‘fascist’ to the students and to point out that the term ‘fascist’ is now applied to all right-wing extremist groups.”

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4. In other school news…..

It looks like Atlanta wasn’t the only city with a major teacher cheating scandal.

From FoxNews  “Just days after three Philadelphia school principals were fired for alleged cheating, news comes that the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office is conducting a criminal investigation into widespread cheating involving more than 100 educators around the city.

The Philadelphia Inquirer cites sources with knowledge of the criminal inquiry in reporting the attorney general’s involvement, as well as a grand jury to probe a growing scandal that has already ensnared 138 teachers and principals from schools all over the city.”

Union reps blame the high stakes test.

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5. In other union news…..

From TheFreeBeacon  “Two of the most powerful unions in the country have voiced objections to a bill that would provide better background checks for teachers, Campbell Brown writes in a Thursday Wall Street Journal column.

After the Government Accountability Office found “hundreds of potential cases of registered sex offenders working in schools” across the United States in 2010, the House passed a bill that would streamline the vetting process and close inconsistencies across state lines.

The bill is a common sense measure, according to Campbell, yet powerful teachers unions are opposed to the new standards.”

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6. Who’s up for some judicial stupidity?

From Boston.com  “A federal appeals court in Boston today upheld a judge’s ruling that a transsexual inmate convicted of murder is entitled to a taxpayer-funded sex change operation as treatment for her severe gender identity disorder.

In a ruling that was a first of its kind, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said courts must not shy away from enforcing the rights of all people, including prisoners. “And receiving medically necessary treatment is one of those rights, even if that treatment strikes some as odd or unorthodox,” the court said.”

Odd, unorthodox, and stupid. They forgot to mention stupid. 🙄

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7. The new intolerance.

From TheNewStatesman  “The new intolerance: will we regret pushing Christians out of public life?  In this provocative challenge to the left, the former New Statesman deputy editor Cristina Odone argues that liberalism has become the new orthodoxy – and there is no room for religious believers to dissent.”

“Only 50 years ago, liberals supported “alternative culture”; they manned the barricades in protest against the establishment position on war, race and feminism. Today, liberals abhor any alternative to their credo. No one should offer an opinion that runs against the grain on issues that liberals consider “set in stone”, such as sexuality or the sanctity of life.

Intolerance is no longer the prerogative of overt racists and other bigots – it is state-sanctioned. It is no longer the case that the authorities are impartial on matters of belief, and will intervene to protect the interests and heritage of the weak. When it comes to crushing the rights of those who dissent from the new orthodoxy, politicians and bureaucrats alike are in the forefront of the attacks, not the defence.”

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8. Makes sense to me.

From TheTelegraph  “Older people do not decline mentally with age, it just takes them longer to   recall facts because they have more information in their brains, scientists   believe.

Much like a computer struggles as the hard drive gets full up, so to do humans   take longer to access information, it has been suggested. “

“The human brain works slower in old age,” said Dr. Michael Ramscar, “but only because we have stored more information over time

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News/Politics 1-18-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread, so post whatever you’d like.

Here’s a few from me.

1. Not only didn’t they learn their lesson, and how could they when no one was held responsible for it, they’re planning the same strategy again.

From TheWallStJournal  “President Obama and Democrats have been at great pains to insist they knew nothing about IRS targeting of conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofits before the 2012 election. They’ve been at even greater pains this week to ensure that the same conservative groups are silenced in the 2014 midterms.

That’s the big, dirty secret of the omnibus negotiations. As one of the only bills destined to pass this year, the omnibus was—behind the scenes—a flurry of horse trading. One of the biggest fights was over GOP efforts to include language to stop the IRS from instituting a new round of 501(c)(4) targeting. The White House is so counting on the tax agency to muzzle its political opponents that it willingly sacrificed any manner of its own priorities to keep the muzzle in place.”

“The fight was sparked by a new rule that the Treasury Department and the IRS introduced during the hush of Thanksgiving recess, ostensibly to “improve” the law governing nonprofits. What the rule in fact does is recategorize as “political” all manner of educational activities that 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations currently engage in.

It’s IRS targeting all over again, only this time by administration design and with the raw political goal—as House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) notes—of putting “tea party groups out of business.”

A goal the RINO faction of the GOP went along with.

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2. It’s been said by some that America’s number one export to the world is abortion and debauchery. That would be correct. And Planned Parenthood is staying true to their racist roots.

From CNSNews  “In its strategic plan for Africa for the years 2010-2015, the International Planned Parenthood Federation has set an organizational goal of increasing its “abortion services” in that part of the world by 82 percent.  

The number is in Figure 2, the “performance framework” of the plan (page 7), under “performance milestones/benchmarks” and notes its expectation of an “82 percent increase in abortion services: 212,021 services by 2013, and 273,656 by 2015.”

Democrats will of course be happy to assist and fund it whenever they can.

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3. CONTENT WARNING!!!!

For adult, sexual material. It’s not for the kids. But it’s being taught to kids.

But don’t worry, they justify it by saying it’s only part of the curriculum. Just one more reason to home school.

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4. And yet another reason……

From TheWaPo  “Viewed from Washington, which often is the last to learn about important developments, opposition to the Common Core State Standards Initiative still seems as small as the biblical cloud that ariseth out of the sea, no larger than a man’s hand. Soon, however, this education policy will fill a significant portion of the political sky.

The Common Core represents the ideas of several national organizations (of governors and school officials) about what and how children should learn. It is the thin end of an enormous wedge. It is designed to advance in primary and secondary education the general progressive agenda of centralization and uniformity.

Understandably, proponents of the Common Core want its nature and purpose to remain as cloudy as possible for as long as possible. Hence they say it is a “state-led,” “voluntary” initiative to merely guide education with “standards” that are neither written nor approved nor mandated by Washington, which would never, ever “prescribe” a national curriculum. Proponents talk warily when describing it because a candid characterization would reveal yet another Obama administration indifference to legality.”

“Nevertheless, what begins with mere national standards must breed ineluctable pressure to standardize educational content. Targets, metrics, guidelines and curriculum models all induce conformity in instructional materials. Washington already is encouraging the alignment of the GED, SAT and ACT tests with the Common Core. By a feedback loop, these tests will beget more curriculum conformity. All of this will take a toll on parental empowerment, and none of this will escape the politicization of learning like that already rampant in higher education.”

That is the real purpose. Indoctrination, not education.

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News/Politics 12-11-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Looks like a budget deal been reached.

From TheWashingtonPost  “House and Senate negotiators unveiled an $85-billion agreement late Tuesday to fund federal agencies through the fall of 2015, avoiding another government shutdown and ending the cycle of crisis that has paralyzed Washington for much of the past three years.

In a rare display of bipartisan cooperation, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) stood side-by-side in the Capitol with Senate Budget Committee chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to announce the deal, which would cancel half the sharp spending cuts known as the sequester for the current fiscal year.”

“I am very proud to stand here today with Chairman Ryan to say that we have broken through the gridlock,” said Murray, calling the agreement “an important step in helping to heal some of the wounds here in Congress and show we can do something without another crisis around the corner.”

Ryan called the agreement “a clear improvement on the status quo” that protects the Pentagon from fresh cuts set to hit January while trimming deficits by more than $20 billion over the next decade.”

Call me unimpressed.

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2. I told you the other day about Holder’s DoJ was steering settlement money to community organizers. Seems the USDA has a similar program to steer large piles of cash to questionable individuals and groups.

From TheBlaze  “Between 2008 and 2011, the U.S. government awarded roughly $6.12 million in federal farm subsidies to several groups in the Chicago area, including a charity owned by Louis Farrakhan’s The Nation of Islam, according to a report released by government watchdog group Open the Books.

The report, titled “Farm Subsidies and the Big Dogs,” is based on data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture & information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The report examines total farm subsidies that have been paid into selected cities and urban areas.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, federal farm subsidies are being poured into several non-farming metropolitan areas, including New York City and Chicago, according to the report.

Several entities in Chicago, for example, “receive the federal subsidies at their downtown loop office buildings or residential mansions,” the report reads. “Nearly every neighborhood in the city receives federal farm subsidy payments — including the Gold Coast, Downtown — Loop, Lincoln Park, and even the President’s neighbors in Hyde Park.” A total of 930 entities in the Chicago area received farm subsidies between 2008 and 2011.”

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3. A Dem pollster has been shocked to find no racism in Tea Partiers. So they had to make some up. 🙄

From Mediaite  “The Democratic pollster Democracy Corps, commissioning research from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, recently dug into that foreign species commonly referred to as “the conservative voter.” In a dispatch that reads like the curious field notes Charles Darwin scribbled while observing the natural wonders of the Galapagos, the Democratic pollsters have found that the family Republican is made up of a variety of genera, including moderates, tea partiers and socially conservative evangelicals.”

“We know that Evangelicals are the largest bloc in the base, with the Tea Party very strong as Well,” the memo reads. They feign shock at the notion that Republicans view President Barack Obama as a “liar” and a “manipulator,” two designations that the majority of American voters would agree with but to which the Democratic base’s Pavlovian response is to point and shriek “racism.”

Indeed, the pollsters even confess that they “expected” to find more racism among Republican voters. “We expected that in this comfortable setting or in their private written notes, some would make a racial reference or racist slur when talking about the African American President,” they confess. “None did.”

“But this response by the voters they surveyed is viewed by Democracy Corps pollsters more as a clever evolutionary response to a history of predation. The Republican voter, the pollsters declare, harbors racial consciousness that is only masked by an effective camouflage:”

They couldn’t find any, but just know it’s there. Why else would they be against Obama, right? 🙄

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4. More Common Core indoctrination masquerading as education.

From EAGNews  “Next month, the organization, Creating Balance in an Unjust World, will hold its annual conference on “math education and social justice”.

The conference is sponsored by Radical Math, an organization founded by Jonathan Osler, a math and community organizing teacher at a Coalition of Essential Schools high school in Brooklyn, NY.

The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) is the progressive education reform movement expanded by President Obama and domestic terrorist William Ayers through their work with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in the 90′s.”

“Radical Math’s website provides over 700 lesson plans and other resources covering a wide range of political and social issues (with extreme bias), including globalization, the redistribution of wealth, and various ways the poor are discriminated against and oppressed by whites, banks, corporations, the rich, and the government. One such resource, Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers, contains chapters titled, “Sweatshop Accounting”, “Racism and Stop and Frisk”, “When Equal Isn’t Fair”, “The Square Root of a Fair Share”, and “Home Buying While Brown or Black”.”

Yeah…..

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5. Hey Canada…. what gives, eh? 🙂

From MyFoxNY  “Canada plans to make a claim to the North Pole in an effort to assert its sovereignty in the resource-rich Arctic, the country’s foreign affairs minister said Monday.

John Baird said the government has asked scientists to work on a future submission to the United Nations claiming that the outer limits of the country’s continental shelf include the pole, which so far has been claimed by no one.

Canada last week applied to extend its seabed claims in the Atlantic Ocean, including some preliminary Arctic claims, but it wants more time to prepare a claim that would include the pole.”

“Countries including the U.S. and Russia are increasingly looking to the Arctic as a source of natural resources and shipping lanes. The U.S. Geological Survey says the region contains 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 15 percent of oil. If Canada’s claim is accepted by the U.N. commission, it would dramatically grow its share.”

Will Santa’s workshop be in the claim too? 😯

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News/Politics 12-5-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. More Benghazi testimony says the Obama admin had plenty of time to respond, but didn’t. This matches previous testimony on the matter.

From PJMedia  “Members of the House Intelligence Committee learned in a closed-door briefing yesterday that more contractors are corroborating the report that the Obama administration had plenty of time to respond to the attack on the Benghazi diplomatic facility.”

“And essentially what they were able to prove today, they basically backed up the other contractors who were on the ground in the two previous hearings. So this is an ongoing investigation,” Nunes said Tuesday evening. “And I think they gave us a lot of good leads today and I feel very comfortable moving forward with where we are at today.”

The congressman confirmed the White House claim that the attack was sparked by protest over a YouTube video “was a completely lie, and we always knew that.”

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2. They’re just wingin’ it now.

From HotAir  “President Barack Obama’s administration has found a short-term fix to pay insurance companies for plans selected on HealthCare.gov, the not-yet-complete government website used to shop for insurance required under Obama’s healthcare program.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not yet finished building the part of the website that would transfer billions of dollars in subsidies for plan premiums and cost-sharing payments to insurance companies. …

The administration is planning a “workaround” for payments, said Daniel Durham, vice president for policy and regulatory affairs at America’s Health Insurance Plans.

What will the “workaround” be? Well, the insurers will tell HHS what taxpayers owe them in subsidies, and, er … HHS will cut checks with no questions asked:”

Sure. What could possibly go wrong? 🙄

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3. Here’s another slick holiday weekend move, so the media is sure to mostly ignore it.

From TheFreeBeacon  “The Obama administration quietly finalized the Health Insurance Tax (HIT) over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, a provision in Obamacare that will cost nearly $60 billion over the next five years and raise health care premiums by 3 percent.

The final rule, published on Nov. 27, imposes a fee beginning in 2014 for health insurers with premium revenues over $25 million per year. The annual tax is levied for “United States health risks,” and is hidden from consumers since it is directly assessed on health insurance companies.

David R. Burton, a senior fellow in economic policy at the Heritage Foundation, said the tax will disproportionally impact small businesses.”

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4. Another Common Core lesson with questionable methods and no educational value.

From IllinoisReview  “An assignment sent home from an Oak Forest, IL high school government class is raising eyebrows among parents who are shocked by the questionnaire they and their children are required to fill out. The questionnaire (below) has the parents identify their positions on a number of highly-charged issues, and then places them on a “political spectrum.”

The survey is from the textbook “U.S. Government 2“, published by the “The Center for Learning”. It is part of Oak Forest High School’s Common Core curriculum, which according to the school district’s website is to …”provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.”

I’m sure this will be used to profile students and parents who might be a problem.

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5. Here’s a group of students rebelling against liberal indoctrination. They’re white, so they must be…….?

From TheDailyCaller  “The politics of faux victimization are spiraling out of control at a community college in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where several white students, their black professor and irritated administrators have one-upped each other with complaints, reprimands and now a lawsuit.

The trouble began in English professor Shannon Gibney’s Introduction to Mass Communications class at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Though the class ostensibly has little to do with race, Gibney considers herself an activist on racial issues, and frequently invokes white privilege and oppression during class time, according to her students. (She has previously taught classes on race and gender.)

Recently, several white students announced that they had had enough with Gibney’s incessant racial screed. They interrupted her during a lecture, and said, “Why do we have to talk about this in every class? Why do we have to talk about this?” according to Gibney’s account of the incident, which was recorded by the City College News.”

“As a vocal black female younger looking… faculty member here, unfortunately this is no the first time,” she said. “I’ve actually had multiple verbal and institutional attacks on me by white males, whether they were students, faculty, administration or staff.”

How original. 🙄

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News/Politics 11-29-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. What a desperate bunch. Nothing like a Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the long holiday weekend news dump huh? And notice the delay is until after the elections. Can’t have millions more being cut by employers right before now can we? Weasels.

From Politico  “The Obama administration today announced a one year delay of online enrollment for small  businesses looking to purchase health coverage through federal Obamacare  exchanges, another high-profile setback for HealthCare.gov.

It’s the second delay for online small business enrollment, which the administration had said would begin this month.”

“The delay of the small business exchanges comes as little surprise, as the  administration had said earlier this week it would offer alternative ways for  small businesses to enroll. Still, it undercuts the White House message that  it’s beginning to turn around the disastrous rollout of the health care law.”

“The announcement just before Thanksgiving is the latest in a series of delays  and miscalculations for the president’s signature domestic legislation. On July  2 — also just before a holiday —it delayed the employer mandate for a year.  Small businesses with fewer than 50 workers are exempt from the requirement to  cover them, and the exchanges are supposed to give more options to those that  choose to offer coverage.”

It’s all so cowardly.

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2. Wow, that’s pricey. 😯

Pretty cool though too. I’d go to see it.

From CNN  “The world’s most valuable book sold Tuesday for $14.16 million at Sotheby’s in New York, according to the auction house.

The rare Bay Psalm Book is the first book ever written and printed in what is now the United States. Its sale set a record for a book sold at auction, Sotheby’s said.

Philanthropist David Rubenstein purchased one of 11 surviving copies.

He “plans to share it with the American public by loaning it to libraries across the country, before putting it on long-term loan at one of them,” according to Sotheby’s.”

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3. Normally I stay away from stories like this, but I’m making an exception. The reason being that it exposes the lie about not “recruiting.” Let’s face it, these minors were preyed upon at what was supposed to be a safe place for them. The fact that the President has honored one of these individuals also makes it newsworthy.

And yes, a big ol’ Content Warning!!!

From LifeSiteNews  “An openly homosexual teenager, who was given a position as an “adviser” to Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and honored by President Barack Obama at a White House “gay pride” dinner, has been indicted on more than a dozen counts of sexual misconduct with a minor under the age of 15.

Caleb Laieski, now 18, was 17 at the time of the alleged abuse. His alleged victim, a close friend he met on TrevorSpace (a social media site for children and young adults aged 13-24 who have an interest in homosexuality), was only 14 at the time. The younger boy said the sex was consensual, but that he felt “pressured” to participate. However, Arizona law says no one younger than 15 is capable of giving consent.”

“In an unusual twist, Laieski is also considered a victim in the case, since at least some of the charges stem from a three-way sexual encounter the boys had with 43-year-old Chris Wilson, an openly homosexual Phoenix police officer who was arrested more than a year ago and is now in jail awaiting trial for his role in the abuse of both children. Although Laieski was a minor at the time, his participation in sex acts with the younger boy violate state law, which says it is a crime for older minors to have sexual contact with children under the age of 15.”

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4. The hits just keep comin’ for Common Core.

From EAGNews  ” On the heels of a controversial children’s book about Barack Obama – which stated “white voters would never vote for a black president” and that “Barack’s former pastor” said “God would damn the United States for mistreating its black citizens” – comes a new lesson that casts America’s 44th president in a messianic light. Literally. And – surprise – it’s Common Core-aligned.

The lesson plan and accompanying visual presentation were authored by Sherece Bennett, and is for sale on TeachersPayTeachers.com. It’s all based on a book titled, “Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope,” by Nikki Grimes.”

“Another excerpt from the book reads: “Before dawn each morning, Barry rose – his mother’s voice driving him from dream land. ‘Time for learning English grammar and the Golden Rule. Be honest, be kind, be fair,’ she taught him.”

The story continues: “One morning, he slipped on the name he’d been born with. The name of his father, Barack. For the first time in his life, he wore it proudly – like a coat of many colors.”

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5. While they may place him high on a pedestal, some see him in a different light. 🙂

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by

News/Politics 11-26-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Let’s hope this sends the message loud and clear that covering stuff like this up will not be tolerated.

From CNN  “A grand jury investigating the 2012 rape of a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, has indicted four school employees, including the school superintendent, who faces felony charges, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced Monday.

Steubenville City Schools Superintendent Michael McVey faces three felony counts: one charge of tampering with evidence and two counts of obstructing justice. He also is charged with making a false statement and obstructing official business, both misdemeanors, DeWine said.

Also indicted was elementary school principal Lynnett Gorman and wrestling coach Seth Fluharty, both of whom are charged with misdemeanor failure to report child abuse. Volunteer assistant Steubenville football coach Matt Belardine was charged with four misdemeanors: allowing underage drinking, obstructing official business, making a false statement and contributing to the unruliness or delinquency of a child.

This brings to six the number of people the grand jury has indicted after two students were convicted of rape, DeWine said. A school technology director and his daughter were indicted in October.”

And Anonymous deserves some credit here for shaming authorities into doing the right thing.

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2. This one doesn’t surprise me.

From TownHall  “The magnitude of this Obama administration’s “progressive” radicalism becomes more evident with each passing day. In recent months, there has been a drastic spike in acts of both anti-Christian and anti-conservative discrimination and intimidation on military bases across the country. This mounting harassment is not being carried out at the hands of regular enlisted folk but, rather, at the hands of high-ranking officials who, in their official capacity, are targeting Christian and conservative organizations and individuals in an effort to silence them.

It has long been suspected that the Obama administration is using propaganda circulated by the roundly discredited Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, a left-wing extremist group that, in recent years, has adopted two primary goals: 1) raising truckloads of money and 2) smearing as “domestic hate groups” dozens of mainstream Christian ministries like the Family Research Council, or FRC, and the American Family Association, or AFA.

This suspicion has now been verified.

The problem on military bases has gotten so bad, in fact, that the U.S. Congress is demanding answers from the Pentagon. Recently, the AFA-affiliated OneNewsNow.com newsgroup reported that “Congressman Alan Nunnelee (R-Mississippi) is 1 of 38 members of Congress signing off on a letter to the Secretary of the Army – especially about an incident last month at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, in which the Tupelo-based American Family Association was labeled in Army training material as a ‘hate group.’ The Army initially claimed it was an isolated incident.”

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3. This one? Wow. Just wow.

From TheDailyCaller  “In a frank and stunning letter to parents, eight school principals from  around the state of New York have expressed deep concerns about the validity and  usefulness of new Common Core-aligned tests foisted on all public-school  children in grades three through eight.”

“We know that many children cried during or after testing, and others vomited  or lost control of their bowels or bladders. Others simply gave up. One teacher  reported that a student kept banging his head on the desk, and wrote, ‘This is  too hard,’ and ‘I can’t do this,’ throughout his test booklet.

The principals also observe that students are spending considerably more time  taking standardized tests this year. New York third-graders, for example, are  now spending 163 percent more time filling in bubbles thanks to Common Core.

In addition, the principals say the tests are too long and contain too many  experimental questions which don’t count toward a student’s score. “We know that  many students were unable to complete the tests in the allotted time,” they say.  They point out that it’s hard to know if students don’t know the answers to all  the scored questions, or if they just aren’t getting to them in time.”

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4. Some of the victims of Syria’s war are finding care in Israel. The Islamic rebels will not be pleased.

From BBCNews  “She had to be taken to a point inside Syria from where she could be seen by Israeli soldiers patrolling the fence that marks the old ceasefire line between the two countries that dates back decades. A military ambulance then took her to hospital – she made it on time.”

“The humanitarian chain that got the woman from her home village under heavy shellfire to the boundary fence and then to hospital links guides in Syria to Israeli Army paramedics on the frontier, to the doctors and nurses in Tzfat.”

“She was the 177th person to make the journey to the emergency room in what has become one of the most extraordinary subplots of Syria’s agonising civil war.

“And yet, since the first patients arrived around nine months ago, the informal system of patient transfer has become so well-established that some patients have even arrived with letters of referral written by doctors in Syria for their Israeli counterparts.”

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5. This one is quite lengthy and made it’s way around Facebook yesterday, so you may have read it. You don’t need to be an animal rights activist to think that this is wrong.  

From TheHollywoodReporter  “A year later, during the filming of another blockbuster, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, 27 animals reportedly perished, including sheep and goats that died from dehydration and exhaustion or from drowning in water-filled gullies, during a hiatus in filming at an unmonitored New Zealand farm where they were being housed and trained. A trainer, John Smythe, tells THR that AHA’s management, which assigned a representative to the production, resisted investigating when he brought the issue to its attention in August 2012. First, according to an email Smythe shared with THR, an AHA official told him the lack of physical evidence would make it difficult to investigate. When he replied that he had buried the animals himself and knew their location, the official then told him that because the deaths had taken place during the hiatus, the AHA had no jurisdiction. The AHA eventually bestowed a carefully worded credit that noted it “monitored all of the significant animal action. No animals were harmed during such action.”

A THR investigation has found that, unbeknownst to the public, these incidents on Hollywood’s most prominent productions are but two of the troubling cases of animal injury and death that directly call into question the 136-year-old Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit’s assertion that “No Animals Were Harmed” on productions it monitors. Alarmingly, it turns out that audiences reassured by the organization’s famous disclaimer should not necessarily assume it is true. In fact, the AHA has awarded its “No Animals Were Harmed” credit to films and TV shows on which animals were injured during production. It justifies this on the grounds that the animals weren’t intentionally harmed or the incidents occurred while cameras weren’t rolling.”

“The full scope of animal injuries and deaths in entertainment productions cannot be known. But in multiple cases examined by THR, the AHA has not lived up to its professed role as stalwart defenders of animals — who, unlike their human counterparts, didn’t themselves sign up for such work. While the four horse deaths on HBO’s Luck made headlines last year, there are many extraordinary incidents that never bubble up to make news.”

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