Monthly Archives: January 2016

Why Math Matters

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The Washington Free Beacon posted a story yesterday about a group of people who are getting serious about voter fraud.

The article reports:

A public interest law firm has threatened to bring lawsuits against more than 30 counties across the United States that have either more registered voters than eligible citizens, or a number of registrants that is implausibly high, the second such wave of notice letters sent by the group to various counties.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity group based in Indiana, sent the statutory notice letters on Jan. 19 to election officials spanning 37 counties in six different states. The group says that by failing to purge names from the rolls, the counties are failing to comply with the National Voter Registration Act.

Unfortunately voter fraud is a problem. Every fraudulent vote cancels out the vote of a legal voter. Voter fraud is something that impacts all American,s and we all need to work toward ending it.

The article reveals the contents of the letter and the counties that received it:

“Based on our comparison of publicly available information published by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Federal Election Assistance Commission, your county is failing to comply with Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA),” it continues. “Federal law requires election officials to conduct a reasonable effort to maintain voter registration lists free of dead voters, ineligible voters and voters that have moved away.”

“In short, your county has an implausible number of registered voters compared to the number of eligible living citizens.”

According to the foundation, five counties in Colorado, seven in Florida, two in Nevada, 12 in North Carolina, six in Pennsylvania, and five in Virginia show a substantially high number of registrants and will receive the warning from the group.

The article further reports:

The foundation sent notice letters in August to 141 counties across 21 states, including counties in Michigan (24 counties), Kentucky (18), Illinois (17), Indiana (11), Alabama (10), Colorado (10), Texas (9), Nebraska (7), New Mexico (5), South Dakota (5), Kansas (4), Mississippi (4), Louisiana (3), West Virginia (3), Georgia (2), Iowa (2), Montana (2), and North Carolina (2), as well as Arizona, Missouri, and New York (1 each).

The foundation discovered that some counties showed voter registration rates that exceed 150 percent during its first investigation into voter rolls.

The foundation has since filed litigation against two of the counties that received the letters in August.

I am grateful for the work this foundation is doing, but I am saddened by the fact that the states and countries are not following the law.

What Are We Doing To Our Children?

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This is the latest undercover video from Project Veritas posted on YouTube. It deals with Common Core.

The highlights below come from Breitbart.com:

“The dead white guys did not create this country,” Koerber says. “They [presumably conservatives] want to talk about those dead white guys.”

Koerber continues that Common Core is necessary because “it needs to be come cohesion between the states.” She expresses frustration, however, that “Texas keeps screwing it up over and over again.”

“People who say they want to teach the Constitution, only want to teach the part of the Constitution that they like,” she tells the journalist, who then asks her about the Second Amendment.

“But yet they don’t want to teach all of it,” she replies. “Damn the Second Amendment.

…Kim Koerber (KK): People that are not educated, Fox TV viewers think that Common Core comes from the educated liberal groups and that’s why they are against it. They don’t know anything about it. They think it’s liberal so they’re against it. That’s what I think it is. It’s a knee jerk reaction. My mother, oh my God, she’s a Fox person. If I could remove Fox from my television set, I would…

I did a big presentation yesterday for AP US History and the AP US History agenda was set, until Texas got upset about it and they wanted to have their founders – they wanted founders in it. And it’s like – come on. The dead white guys did not create this country. It was a whole bunch of different kinds of people. And yes there were women, and yes there were people of color, and yes…you need to talk about them too. But they want to talk about those dead white guys.

Note the tolerance for opposing ideas–“If I could remove Fox from my television set, I would…”

Note the hostility to ‘dead white guys’ who wrote the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Republicans want to get in there and talk about stuff and change things about school stuff because they want to, they want to influence what is being taught. Common core doesn’t put up with that.

Common Core is copyrighted–there is no room for local school boards to make changes.

PV: I am really glad I’m here in California, whatever religious affiliation you want to take is fine, but in Texas they want to push the Christianity.

KK: Because they think it’s the only one.

PV: They do, and I see that.

KK: That’s why it’s so offensive to have these prayers in the school board.

PV: Christianity is totally out of the common core?

KK: Yes it is. Totally. It’s not a core concept at all.

PV: But then there is a mention of other religions like Islam.

Christianity played a part in the founding of this nation–the churches of America played a role both in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. The settlers at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock both declared America to be a Christian nation–even before it was America. Christianity is an important part of our history. To say that Christianity is not an important part of the America’s history is to leave out a good portion of the story.

The article at Breitbart.com concludes:

“It doesn’t matter if it’s corporate cronyism or liberal ideology, if you are slipping your agenda into our education system, we are going to expose you, one by one, until the whole rotten system is revealed,” O’Keefe tells Breitbart News about his project on Common Core and education. “Corporate cronyism and underhanded political deals have contributed to Common Core’s massive disruption and the unraveling of America’s educational fabric.”

Policies Have Consequences

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From the beginning of the Obama Administration, one of the goals of the administration has been to remove guns from the hands of ordinary citizens. I don’t believe this goal has ever been stated in those exact words, but if you look at some of the laws attempted and the executive actions taken, that is the goal. One of the early attempts at convincing Americans that guns were really awful was the “Fast and Furious” program. We still don’t have all of the details of the program–there are ongoing legal battles to obtain information about the program, but basically we sold guns to criminals in the hopes that the crimes committed by the people who bought them would sour Americans on the idea of buying or selling guns. The program was discovered and shut down, but the consequences remain.

Fox News posted the following today:

A .50-caliber rifle found at Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s hideout in Mexico was funneled through the gun-smuggling investigation known as Fast and Furious, sources confirmed Tuesday to Fox News.

A .50-caliber is a massive rifle that can stop a car or, as it was intended, take down a helicopter.

After the raid on Jan. 8 in the city of Los Mochis that killed five of his men and wounded one Mexican marine, officials found a number of weapons inside the house where Guzman was staying, including the rifle, officials said.

When agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives checked serial numbers of the eight weapons found in his possession, they found one of the two .50-caliber weapons traced back to the ATF program, sources said.

Federal officials told Fox News they are not sure how many of the weapons seized from Guzman’s house actually originated in the U.S. and where they were purchased, but are investigating.

Out of the roughly 2,000 weapons sold through Fast and Furious, 34 were .50-caliber rifles that can take down a helicopter, according to officials.

If you are unfamiliar with Fast and Furious, please use the search engine on this site to learn about the program. It was one of the nastiest plans of the Obama Administration.

The article at Fox News concludes:

The operation allowed criminals to buy guns in Phoenix-area shops with the intention of tracking them once they made their way into Mexico.

The operation became a major distraction for the Obama administration as Republicans in Congress conducted a series of inquiries into how the Justice Department allowed such an operation to happen.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt after he refused to divulge documents for a congressional investigation into the matter.

This is the third time a weapon from the Fast and Furious program has been found at a high-profile Mexican crime scene. 

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NEW YORK – I’m a photographer. This is my daughter…and this is the first photo of her that I have ever hated.

Common Core tears

You may have already seen this image today. I posted it this morning on my business page and after returning from a session out in Syracuse, it has been shared over 400 times. I want to take a moment to explain this image so as those who do not know me, can understand how this image came to be.

I am a photographer, a hobby farmer, a child advocate and a mother of 3 elementary-aged children. This is my middle child in the photo … she is 7 and is in 2nd grade. My kindergartner and my 4th grader were already finished with their homework and had left the table. I had brought my camera in to work on my white balance skills while shooting in low light as I had a session the next morning to prep for.

After checking her work, I had found 2 math problems were incorrect. I tried to help her understand where she went wrong through her process but I don’t understand it myself and was not much help.

I told her to forget about it and we’d try again tomorrow but she became very upset that she could not get the answer and kept trying and trying to fix it. She is hard on herself as she very much wants to excel in school and not be pulled for extra help all of the time. I was talking to her and clicking my camera as I changed settings … it’s something that is very common in our household … and that is when I caught this image.

My daughter is incredibly strong.  My daughter is a 4-year cancer survivor.  She is a fighter with a resilient spirit.  It crushes me to see her cry; to see her struggle.  My daughter deserves a happy childhood.

Please know that 5 minutes later I had convinced her to leave the homework behind and go snuggle with her dad on the couch and watch some Olympics coverage. She is not neglected. She was not abused or left alone to cry. And this photo was not staged.

A Way Of Thinking That Is Incompatible With Civilization

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Breitbart.com posted an article yesterday about some recent comments by Imam Sami Abu-Yusuf, the Imam of a Salafist Cologne mosque.

The article reports:

Explaining in the view of Salafist Islam why hundreds of women found themselves groped, sexually assaulted and in some cases raped by gangs of migrant men in cities across Germany the Imam said: “the events of New Year’s Eve were the girls own fault, because they were half naked and wearing perfume. It is not surprising the men wanted to attack them. [Dressing like that] is like adding fuel to the fire”.

The tone of the report was telling, expressing no surprise that Muslim mass migration would result in violence and gang-rape. The narrator of the report told viewers that after the events of New Year’s Eve it was becoming difficult to tell who’s country Germany was, one belonging to Muslims or to Germans. Also expressed was the opinion that the sex attacks were no more than a dress rehearsal for something much bigger to come.

Again, according to the teaching in this sector of Islam, the groping and rapes were justified by the way the women were dressed. I would be the first to state that I don’t always agree with the way some women dress, but last time I checked, western civilization did not have a dress code.

Remember, rape of non-Muslim women is an acceptable practice in the eyes of some sects of Islam. We need to consider that when accepting refugees into America. The compromise might be to allow refugees in small numbers on the condition that they are willing to assimilate and adopt western culture. If they are not willing to do that, they need to find a country where their views on women and other matters are accepted.

The horrid conditions in the countries Middle Eastern refugees are fleeing are not due entirely to wars–they have a lot to do with the prevailing culture in these countries. We need to consider how much of that culture we are willing to tolerate in America.

Will We Actually Have Equal Justice Under The Law?

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Fox News posted a story today about new information regarding Secretary Hillary Clinton’s email. Some of the emails on Secretary Clinton’s private server were marked “special access programs” (SAP).  This is a label higher than Top Secret. These emails were on her private server, which did not have the layers of security that a State Department server would have had. A private server is much more vulnerable to hacking than a State Department server would have been.

The article reports:

According to court documents, former CIA Director David Petraeus was prosecuted for sharing intelligence from special access programs with his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. At the heart of his prosecution was a non-disclosure agreement where Petraeus agreed to protect these closely held government programs, with the understanding “unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention or negligent handling … could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation.” Clinton signed an identical non-disclosure agreement Jan. 22, 2009. 

Fox News is told that the recent IG letter was sent to the leadership of the House and Senate intelligence committees and leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and State Department inspector general. 

Representatives for the ODNI and intelligence community inspector general had no comment.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. If Secretary Clinton is not prosecuted for her mishandling of classified information, then the charges against General Petraeus should be dropped.

If Your State Has High Unemployment, Read This

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Forbes Magazine posted a story last Tuesday about what has happened to the North Carolina economy. The change began in 2013 (just before we got here). At that point the North Carolina General Assembly was controlled by Republicans and a Republican was governor.

The article reports:

Unemployment insurance (UI) reform in North Carolina continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. The 2013 UI reform, made possible by the Republican-dominated General Assembly and Governor Pat McCrory, will enable $240 million in tax savings for state employers in 2016 alone, thanks to a UI Trust Fund that has grown to over $1 billion. In addition, the Tar Heel State’s 2013 tax reform bill will once again lower the corporate income tax rate, from 5% to 4% (it was 6.9% prior to 2013).

Please follow the link above to read the entire story, but here are a few of the highlights:

In February of that year, Governor McCrory signed a bill that reduced the maximum amount and duration of unemployment benefits to levels in line with those of neighboring states. This triggered the cutoff of long-term federal UI benefits being moved up by six months.

…Ironically, in his 2010 economics textbook, Krugman (Paul Krugman) expressed an opposing sentiment. “Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect,” wrote Krugman, explaining that granting more generous benefits “reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job.”

…Due to the reforms, however, the federal UI tax hikes were halted in 2014, and dropped back to standard rates after the debt was paid off last year. The result has been significant tax relief for job providers.

The second major change in 2013 was the recalibration of DES under the leadership of former state House Speaker pro-tempore Dale Folwell. Today, the call center answers 97% of incoming calls, up from a dismal 5%, and the average appeals process has been driven down to just 74 days from seven months.

…Today, North Carolina’s fiscal health is in far greater shape than it was in 2012, thanks to bold unemployment insurance reforms that will enable an additional $240 million in tax relief for state employers in 2016. For a roadmap to UI reform, states should look no further than North Carolina, where a crackdown on fraud has saved tax dollars and early debt repayment has enabled massive savings for job creators.

The numbers above are helping draw additional businesses and jobs to North Carolina. I like that, but I also wish that other states would follow our lead. The five-percent plus unemployment rate in America is a joke–the labor participation rate is dangerously low. I am hoping for all Americans to have a chance to find the jobs they want. Following the example set by North Carolina would be a step in that direction.

Sometimes The Media Just Doesn’t Tell The Story

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ABC News is reporting today that an agreement has been reached in New York City to insure the continuation of the horse-drawn carriage tradition.

The article reports:

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement in concept on the future of New York’s horse carriage industry,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a joint statement with City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and the Teamsters union, which represents the carriage drivers.

The horses currently live in private stables on Manhattan’s West Side, and animal rights advocates have been fighting to get the carriages banned entirely, calling it inhumane to keep horses in loud, car-clogged Manhattan. The Democratic mayor also pledged when he was sworn in two years ago to end the popular carriage rides through the park. But that was met with public and political opposition.

City officials Sunday said the deal would eventually reduce the number of licensed horses from about 180 to 95 when a permanent home is built for them in Central Park by Oct. 1, 2018. The agreement also limits the operation of horse-drawn carriages, with the exception of travel to and from their existing stables to Central Park beginning June 1.

I am thrilled that the horse-drawn carriages will still travel Central Park. But there is a major part of this story that the media isn’t telling.

From The American Spectator via rightwinggranny in January 2014:

The bad guy in this drama, according to the carriage drivers, is  Steve Nislick, chief executive officer of a New Jersey-based real-estate development company, Edison Properties. The company “employs legions of lobbyists to influence city decisions on real estate and zoning in its favor,” journalist Michael Gross reported in 2009, pointing out that two of Edison’s businesses “have multiple locations in the same Far West Midtown neighborhood as the stables where the Central Park horses are housed.” An anti-carriage pamphlet Nislick circulated in 2008 made this interesting observation: “Currently, the stables consist of 64,000 square feet of valuable real estate on lots that could accomodate up to 150,000 square feet of development. These lots could be sold for new development.”

Notice that in this agreement the existing stables will no longer house the horses. Any bets on how long it will be before Edison Properties buys the existing stables, tears them down, and puts up a high-rise. It never really was about the horses, but somehow ABC News didn’t mention that.

Upholding Religious Freedom

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I don’t have to agree with your religion, but I don’t have the right to infringe on your practice of it. There are exceptions–if your religion requires you to kill non-believers, that is against the law in America, and you are not free to do that. However, in matters that are legal, the First Amendment protects your right to follow your religion whether or not I or anyone else agrees with it!

On Thursday, The Guardian posted an article about a California judge who upheld the First Amendment. The article includes information that might cause you to question his decision, but the fact remains that under the law he did what was right.

The article reports:

A San Francisco judge on Thursday refused to order a Catholic hospital to allow an obstetrician to use its facility to sterilize a woman just after the birth of her third child.

In denying the American Civil Liberties Union’s emergency request, superior court judge Ernest Goldsmith recognized the right of a Catholic hospital to adhere to its ethical and religious dictates.

“The religious beliefs reflected in their operation are not to be interfered with by courts,” Goldsmith said during an hour-long hearing in San Francisco. “There’s no law that says that hospitals are mandated to perform sterilizations.”

The case, brought by the ACLU, spotlights increasing tension over women’s rights to contraceptive healthcare in Catholic institutions.

Note–it is a Catholic institution. The article claims that this was the only hospital within 70 miles of the woman’s home. Admittedly, this would have been the ideal medical time to have the procedure done, and she is inconvenienced by this decision, but she does have other options in the future. A tubal ligation is simple surgery and I am sure she can find a hospital willing to do it.

The article further reports:

Goldsmith ruled that the ACLU is unlikely to win its discrimination case because the hospital’s sterilization policy applies equally to men and women. The judge also found that Chamorro could have the elective procedure in another hospital. In addition, he found insufficient evidence that the hospital allowed other tubal ligations solely for contraceptive purposes.

The ACLU challenged the use of religious directives to deny tubal ligations in a lawsuit it filed last month on behalf of Chamorro and Physicians for Reproductive Health, a nonprofit, and against the hospital and its parent, Dignity Health of San Francisco – California’s largest hospital provider. The suit alleges sex discrimination because the prohibition against sterilization disproportionately impacts women. The ACLU also contends that the hospital arbitrarily allowed some women to have the common surgical procedure while refusing it to others.

The hospital is within its First Amendment rights. The law is clear. The judge upheld the law. That is what he is supposed to do.

The article reports:

The hospital’s policy says: “Tubal ligation or other procedures that induce sterility for the purpose of contraception are not acceptable in Catholic moral teaching even when performed with the intent of avoiding further medical problems associated with a future pregnancy.”

The Catholic Church is entitled to practice its teaching.

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie…

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If You Give A Mouse A Cookie is a children’s book published in 2013. The basic story is that if you give a mouse a cookie he will expect milk and other things to go with it. Well, a company in Wisconsin recently saw this scenario acted out in real life.

The Independent Journal Review posted an article about Ariens Manufacturing.

The article reports:

Dozens of Muslim employees at a Wisconsin manufacturing company claim that they were forced to quit this week, after the company changed its prayer-on-the-job policy to one that prevents them from participating in their daily prayers to Mecca.

WBAY-TV reported that before Thursday, Somali Muslims employed by Ariens Manufacturing were allowed to leave the producing line twice a shift in order to participate in two of the five daily prayers required by the Islamic faith.

The company offered the employees the opportunity to pray during their break time in designated prayer rooms. Note that they were willing to establish designated prayer rooms. The employees stated that praying only during their breaks goes against their religion.

The accommodation these employees were asking for would not have been granted to any other religious group–they were not singled out.

The article concludes:

Per law established by the the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission on religious tolerance in the workplace, “an employer does not have to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs or practices if doing so would cause undue hardship to the employer.”

The Council for Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) is also calling on Ariens to reverse its policy, per a Tweet sent on Saturday.

The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The Islamic people who decide to come to America need to understand that the U.S. Constitution is the basis for American law. It is not subject to Sharia Law, which would demand that the company accommodate people leaving the manufacturing assembly line several times a day. Unfortunately, those who truly practice Islam believe that Sharia Law supersedes all other law. A Democracy or Representative Republic is not a valid form of government in Islam. CAIR has gotten involved to see if they can for Americans to accept Sharia Law in this instance rather than uphold the U.S. Constitution.

When Civilizations Are Not Compatible

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Hot Air posted a story today about a town in Germany that is attempting to deal with an influx of Islamic refugees who have brought their culture with them.

The article reports:

A town in Germany has banned male asylum seekers from public swimming pools after complaints from women that they were being harassed by migrants, AFP learnt Friday.

A spokesman for the local government of Bornheim said the ban on male asylum seekers above the age of 18 came after six people filed complaints “over the sexually offensive behaviour of some migrant men at the pool”.

The measure aimed at “making it clear to the men that the right of women in Germany is inviolable”, he added.

Officials have gone personally to three asylum seeker shelters near the pools to deliver news of the ban and emphasise how people should behave in swimming pools, said the spokesman.

Frontpage Magazine posted an article that includes a video that gives some insight to the behavior of these Muslim immigrants:

The video was translated by Memri. The professor is from Al-Azhar, which is as mainstream establishment as Islam gets in Egypt. She limits this to what she describes as “legitimate wars”, suggests that Jewish women in Israel should be a target, but then appears to sarcastically backtrack, this may be a backhanded attack on Egypt’s government.

But here’s how she describes the practice of Islamic sanctioned rape itself. “The female prisoners of wars are ‘those whom you own.’ In order to humiliate them, they become the property of the army commander, or of a Muslim, and he can have sex with them just like he has sex with his wives.”

If you still think Islam has anything in common with normative religion, think again. There’s no religious gloss over this. After having moderately isolated contexts in which rape is acceptable, the reason for it is bluntly nasty. Better Islamic apologists will claim that it was some favor to the women. But she is honest about that at least. The purpose of this Koranic rape, like all rape, is degradation.

Many of the Islamic refugees who are currently living in Europe are not refugees–they are invaders–they regard the European women as people they are entitled to rape. If we bring enough of these young men into America, they will do the same thing here.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

Critics may wish to claim that there’s no parallel between a cultural acceptance of child brides or pedophilia and sexual assaults on German women in public spaces, but I would argue otherwise. These simply aren’t western values and Europe is getting a big taste of it as turmoil continues to roil their nation. Merkel has now taken in well over one million immigrants from a very different culture an her citizens don’t seem to be terribly enamored of the results. Other countries in the EU are tightening their borders and turning people away, so where will they go? To Germany? This pot is close to boiling already and I still wonder if this won’t be the single issue which eventually brings down one of Europe’s most successful leaders in the modern era.

Unless the refugees coming to America are willing to assimilate, we would be wise not to accept them.

Been There, Done That, Can’t Afford The T-Shirt

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Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about a possible prelude to another mortgage crisis.

The article reports:

In an orchestrated assault on the credit standards underpinning mortgages, no fewer than four Obama agencies have gone to war against FICO. If politicians don’t want another bank crisis, they’ll stop the attack.

Home loan approvals hinge on FICO credit scores. But the Obama regime views FICO scoring as too strict, cutting off millions of low-income minorities and immigrants from mortgages. So it’s pressuring Fannie and Freddie, which control 90% of the mortgage market and set the underwriting standards for the entire mortgage industry, to abandon FICO for a softer standard in evaluating credit risk.

We  have been down this road before. It is unwise to lend money to people who are probably not able to pay it back.

The article further reports:

FHFA chief Mel Watt, the former Democrat congressman who before the crisis demanded Fannie and Freddie back loans for welfare recipients in his district, has instructed Fannie and Freddie, the failed mortgage giants now under his control, to come up with “alternative credit scoring models.” They’re expected to make the transition sometime this quarter.

The hope is that the new scoring regime will inflate scores by as much as 100 basis points, thereby qualifying millions of low-income African-Americans with subprime credit and Hispanic immigrants with thin credit for prime home loans.

This is coming at a time when Fannie is launching a subprime mortgage product called HomeReady that caters to immigrants with weak credit and limited income. The new loan lets borrowers for the first time bundle income from roommates and relatives to meet qualifications for income. They have to put only 3% down and can use gifts from nonprofit groups to subsidize their down payments.

Before the crisis, your income had to be your own.

Now, as a renter, you can get a conventional home loan backed by Fannie by claiming others’ income.

You don’t have to bring much financial wherewithal to the table. You can even live in government-subsidized housing. Just as long as you round up enough income earners and pool finances to help meet a minimum debt-to-income ratio of 45%-50%.

Could we please elect people who have the intelligence to learn from their previous mistakes?

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

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Pastor Saeed Abedini has been released by the Iranians along with three other Americans. This is wonderful news. CBN News has posted the the details of the prisoner swap.

The article reports:

A report by the semi-official ISNA news agency quoted a statement from the Tehran prosecutor’s office as saying the inmates were freed “within the framework of exchanging prisoners.”  

In return, the U.S. will either pardon or drop charges against seven Iranians – six of whom are dual citizens – accused or convicted of violating U.S. sanctions. The U.S. will also drop Interpol “red notices” – essentially arrest warrants – on a handful of Iranian fugitives it has sought.

U.S official indicated the prisoner deal would be separate from Saturday’s expected “implementation” of the landmark nuclear deal.

I am glad that the prisoners are coming home. I am really unhappy with the idea that the Interpol “red notices” will be dropped on Iranian fugitives. At some point we need to realize that we are not dealing with nice people, and we need to begin to act accordingly. Going forward with the Iranian nuclear deal is insanity–we should not give Iran one penny. All the money they gain from lifting the sanctions will be used to fund terrorism around the world and to kill Americans. Someone in the American government needs to stand up and fight this deal.

Everything You Need To Know About Islamic Laws

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The Daily Caller posted an article today about a law rejected in Pakistan.

The article reports:

A bid to ban child marriage in Pakistan utterly failed, after the Council of Islamic Ideology declared the legislation “anti-Islamic” and “blasphemous.”

The bill didn’t even move past the first stage in the legislative process, The Express Tribune reports. It was almost immediately pulled Thursday by Pakistan Muslim League party’s Marvi Menon following condemnation from CII, whose job it is to advise the legislature on whether bills are compliant with Sharia law. In this case, the bill clearly violated Islamic law as tradition holds marriage as acceptable when a girl hits puberty.

The law attempted to move the age of marriage from 16 to 18 and to impose penalties for breaking the law.

The article further reports:

According to the organization Girls Not Brides, over 21 percent of the girls in Pakistan enter into marriage before the age of 18.

CII Chairman Mohammad Khan Sheerani reiterated in 2014 that girls can be married at age nine, so long as puberty is apparent, adding that attempts to revisit the issue are pointless and unnecessary.

“Parliament cannot create legislation that is against the teachings of the Holy Quran or Sunnah,” Sheerani said in 2014, according to The Express Tribune.

The idea of child brides is quite compatible with Sharia Law. Most western countries would be appalled at the idea of a nine-year-old child marrying a 40 (or more) year-old man, but that is an acceptable practice under Sharia Law.

The article further reports:

With increasing immigration, the practice of child marriage has also spread to the West, raising alarm especially in the United Kingdom. According to data from the Home Office’s Forced Marriage Unit, there were 1,485 cases of child marriage in 2012. Another government report also foundchild marriage is increasing around the world, with the rate expected to climb to 14 million child marriages a year before 2020 hits.

It’s time to ban Sharia Law in America.

The North Carolina Establishment Republicans Are Not Behaving Well

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One of the best sources for information about the battle between the conservative and establishment Republicans in North Carolina is the Daily Haymaker. They have posted two stories recently about that battle (here and here). The latter story illustrates how the GOP establishment has carried its battle into South Carolina.

Rush Limbaugh explained this on his program today:

I have an incredible story here last night — and, by the way, just to give you a little bit of inside data, if you watched the debate last night, did you hear a lot of boos for Trump? (interruption) Did you wonder about that? (interruption) Well, you knew where it was coming? (interruption) Where was it coming from? (interruption) Where do you…? (interruption) No. (interruption) No. (interruption) It might have been the Bush camp, but I’ll tell you where the boo birds were coming from.  They were coming from North Carolina. 

The North Carolina GOP bused a bunch of people down there and their express purpose was to try to show that there is no massive support for Trump.  They wanted to do some damage.  They are grudgingly accepting Ted Cruz now.  But can you go back just maybe three, four weeks? How many of you remember the Republican establishment embracing Ted Cruz, promoting Ted Cruz, thinking Ted Cruz would be the solution? I mean, it didn’t happen, did it?  But it has worked out that way. 

The only way to stop this sort of garbage is for Americans to begin to do their own research about the candidates and get out and vote their consciences. As I have explained before, I am not a supporter of Donald Trump, but I hate the fact that the establishment Republicans want to run another moderate for President. The lessons of history show that moderate Republicans do not win presidential elections.

Re-education Training In America?????

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Today’s Washington Times posted an article about Cynthia and Robert Gifford. The Giffords own a 100-acre farm in Rensselaer County, New York. In August, a judge ruled that the Giffords were required by law to host a same-sex wedding despite the fact that same-sex marriage was against their religious views. The Giffords were fined $10,000 by the state Division of Human Rights and also ordered to pay the McCarthys $1,500 each in damages for “the emotional injuries they suffered as a result of the discrimination.” Unfortunately, a New York appellate court upheld that ruling yesterday.

I believe that the court’s decision is in conflict with the First Amendment–it is infringing upon the rights of the Giffords to practice their religion, but there is another more disturbing aspect to this case.

The article reports:

The couple was also ordered “to implement re-education training classes designed to contradict the couple’s religious beliefs about marriage,” according to the ADF (Alliance Defending Freedom).

Re-education? Designed to contradict the couple’s religious beliefs about marriage? What in the world is going on here? How is this not an infringement on their First Amendment rights when the government is going to re-educate them to attempt to remove their religious belief?

Our First and Second Amendments are under attack. If Americans do not quickly wake up and elect people who will uphold our laws rather than rewrite them, we will lose our republic. Judges in most states are appointed by elected officials. Pay attention to whom you elect.

Asking The Wolves To Help Shepherd The Sheep

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The Conservative Tribune posted a story today that includes the following:

Now comes the disturbing revelation, apparently delivered by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, that the Obama administration tipped off the Iranians that our soldiers were lost at sea and requested their aid.

The news came from Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, during an interview on TheBlaze’s Dana Loesch shortly after Iran’s arrest of the sailors had come to light.

“I understand that (Secretary of State) John Kerry has indicated, look, when he got word, he and Ash Carter called the Iranians to help take care of our Navy guys, because they had some mechanical problems,” Gohmert said.

Does this look like helping?

IranSalitorsI have no words.

Brainwashing A 17-Year Old

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Lady Liberty 1885 posted a story today about Tanner Glenn, who is running Richard Nixon’s campaign for the NC General Assembly in Johnston county. Richard Nixon is a history teacher at Corinth High School. Lady Liberty notes that one can view Nixon’s “Planet History” page at Corinth High School here, but Nixon has conveniently moved his lectures linked on that page to a “Google classroom” that only students can access. Tanner Glenn is one of his former students.

The problem here is something called APUSH (Advanced Placement U. S. History), a revised American history course that paints Americans as oppressors, racists, and all sorts of other negative things. Mr. Nixon is a member of the NEA, the NCAE and OAH — one of the groups who heavily influenced the controversial re-write of APUSH.

The Washington Post did a piece on Richard Nixon’s political campaign and his campaign manager on January 11 and stated the following:

Glenn grew up in a Republican family and considered himself a Republican for most of his life; he interned for the North Carolina GOP when he was 16.

Then he took Nixon’s class, he said, and though Glenn never knew his teacher’s political leanings, the experience pushed him to think more deeply about his own political beliefs.

…And in that way, the teacher turned history into a series of stories about real people to whom Glenn could relate. He particularly admired Theodore Roosevelt for his efforts to establish national parks and bust monopolies to force fair competition among businesses.

The summer after taking Nixon’s class, Glenn volunteered for the state Democratic Party, and he found he agreed with the view that government can and should play a significant role in addressing social problems.

He went on to found a Teen Democrats chapter in Johnston County, where he impressed local party leaders, and he has remained involved in party politics as a college student.

It is interesting to note that Glenn learned that “the government can and should play a significant role in addressing social problems.” Did he learn about enumerated powers in his history class? Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution limits the powers of Congress. Amendment 10 states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

This is a very sad example of a student being brainwashed by a charismatic teacher. It is a shame that the teacher did not bother to include the concept of limited government in his lesson plans.

Taking Care Of Their Own????

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The Daily Caller posted an article today about the Master Agreement between the Veteran’s Administration (VA) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). It is a truly amazing agreement.

The article reports:

The Master Agreement between the VA and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) states, “Prior to considering candidates from outside the bargaining unit, the department agrees to first consider internal candidates for selection … in all cases … first and full consideration shall be given to any best qualified candidates within the facility.”

Veterans are supposed to get “preference points” against other applicants under federal civil service hiring rules. At the VA, such points are apparently negated by a hard-and-fast rule that a job can’t go to anyone unless no qualified union member wants it.

The Veterans Employment Opportunities Act (VEOA) also allows vets to apply for jobs that are otherwise only open to current employees. Thanks to the union contract, it is futile for them to apply — at least for plum positions — because the VA must consider union members first.

This is an example of another government agency that has lost its purpose.

The article goes on to explain that many of the good jobs in the VA are not open to veterans.

The article reports the comments of a whistleblower:

Ryan Honl, a veteran who worked at the VA hospital in Tomah, Wisc. before becoming a whistleblower by telling Congress about the mistreatment he witnessed in the facility, told TheDNCF that “VA’s first objective was to originally ‘care for those who have borne the battle.’ Today, the VA’s original mission has become secondary. Its primary mission is now to serve bureaucrats and those in power” by sustaining high-paying administrative jobs for civilians.

Since Honl voiced his concerns, VA employees have threatened to sue and discredit him. They even by made his personal medical information public.

It’s time to clean up our government.

In an article posted in July 2014, The New York Times posted the following:

“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”

That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany — the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O — in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once thought the idea absurd.

The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”

Cleaning up our government is going to involve getting unions out of the public sector.

A President Who Does Not Follow The Constitution Impacts Other Countries–Not Only America

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Today’s Wall Street Journal featured a very good article entitled, “Why We’re Suing Obama Over Keystone.” The article was written by Kristine Kelkus, an executive vice president and general counsel at TransCanada. I strongly suggest you follow the link above and read the entire article, but I am including a few excerpts from the article that illustrate how damaging an out-of-control President has been to our country and our neighbors.

The article reports:

For 65 years, TransCanada has built oil and gas pipelines in North America. It’s a job the company is good at, and one we much prefer to building lengthy legal filings that could take several years to resolve. Still, when TransCanada in 2008 walked its application for a presidential permit into the U.S. State Department, the company was prepared for an extensive evidentiary process—albeit one that has traditionally been straightforward.

Until the Keystone XL pipeline, no U.S. administration had prohibited the cross-border construction of a major oil pipeline. And within the past decade, U.S. regulators approved two very similar, large cross-border pipelines that transport exactly the same type of oil that the Keystone XL pipeline would have carried from the same region in Alberta, Canada, to the U.S.

TransCanada already operates the initial Keystone pipeline, which was approved in 2008. And in 2009 the State Department under Secretary Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama permitted Enbridge, a direct competitor to TransCanada, to build another. Each of these permit reviews took about two years.

…But environmental activists made rejection of the project a litmus test of the president’s climate-change credentials. The State Department’s official Record of Decision reasoned that permitting the pipeline to proceed would “undermine U.S. climate leadership” because “the understanding of the international community”—contrary to the administration’s own findings—was that the pipeline would increase greenhouse-gas emissions. Permitting construction would “undercut the credibility and influence of the United States” in negotiating with other countries, including at the coming Paris climate conference.

In other words, the pipeline and its benefits were sacrificed to increase the president’s negotiating leverage with other countries.

My first reaction to this article was to wonder who runs Enbridge, if campaign contributions were involved, and if Berkshire Hathaway owns the railway that was carrying the oil before the Enbridge pipeline was built (see here).

The article further concludes:

The administration’s actions harm business and public interests that extend far beyond a particular pipeline. The decision calls into question the entire process for cross-border facility approvals. It strongly suggests that investing in the U.S. is subject to a level of “sovereign risk” usually associated with far less developed economies.

Unless they are remedied in court or arbitration, the Keystone decision and the political expediency underlying it will also encourage future administrations to conclude that they, too, can disregard the most basic legal requirements.

We need a President who puts the interests of all Americans above the interests of special interest groups and major contributors.

Does President Obama Have A Relationship With The Concept Of Truth?

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Last night Breitbart.com posted a list of the top ten lies told during the State of the Union speech. I watched the speech last night and wondered what world President Obama was living in. I am thoroughly disgusted with the President and with Congress for not shutting down executive orders. I fear for an America whose politicians ignore the U.S. Constitution. The guilt is on the part of both the Democrats and the establishment Republicans.

Breitbart lists the lies. Please follow the link above to read the entire article. The lack of truth in the speech is amazing:

1. “[W]e’ve done all this while cutting our deficits by almost three-quarters.”

2. “Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction.”

3. “That’s what the Affordable Care Act is all about. It’s about filling the gaps in employer-based care so that when we lose a job, or go back to school, or start that new business, we’ll still have coverage.”

4. “Food Stamp recipients didn’t cause the financial crisis; recklessness on Wall Street did.”

5. “We’ve protected an open internet…”

6. “Seven years ago, we made the single biggest investment in clean energy in our history. Here are the results.”

7. “No nation dares to attack us or our allies because they know that’s the path to ruin.”

8. “As someone who begins every day with an intelligence briefing, I know this is a dangerous time.”

9. “We are training, arming, and supporting forces who are steadily reclaiming territory in Iraq and Syria [from Islamic State].”

10. “Fifty years of isolating Cuba had failed to promote democracy, setting us back in Latin America.”

Now let’s look at a few facts.

President Obama did slow down the growth of government spending, but not until the Republicans took the House of Representatives in 2010. Generally, President Obama has had higher deficits than the Presidents before him.

The American economy is not currently healthy–the labor participation rate is down and wages are stagnant. The economic recovery has been very slow and is not yet complete.

There is at least one article every day about people forced to give up their health insurance because of huge increases in premiums due to ObamaCare. ObamaCare has not been a successful healthcare solution.

Wall Street did not cause the economic crisis. The roots are fully and correctly explained here.

President Obama’s Net Neutrality policy has limited freedom on the Internet–not opened it up.

President Obama’s policy on clean energy has wasted millions of dollars on companies that have gone bankrupt, killed the coal industry, and blocked the Keystone Pipeline that would have brought jobs and brought America closer to energy independence.

I am not sure our allies feel safe. Ukraine never received the help it needed, and certainly Iran had no second thoughts about capturing our sailors. A more accurate statement would be that our allies don’t trust us and our enemies don’t fear us.

We are making a show effort to stop the Islamic state in the Middle East. We have been on the wrong side of history since the revolution in Egypt. We have supported the Muslim Brotherhood to the point of having their members in the American government.

Opening relations with Cuba has not helped anyone. The government of Cuba is still aligned with Russia and Iran and is still imprisoning political dissidents. All we have done is provide them with more money with which to do their mischief.

Any resemblance to the world as it is and the world painted by President Obama is purely coincidental. The speech was a waste of airtime. I would have been better off watching reruns of the Weather Channel.

We Need Sanctions–NOW!!!!!

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The Washington Free Beacon today posted pictures of the sailors captured by Iran yesterday. The pictures below were released by Iranian state television. If these pictures don’t make your blood boil, check to see if you are still breathing. We need to put sanctions on Iran immediately. They are not acting like our friends.

These are the pictures:

IranSailors2IranSalitorsThis is not the way you people from a country that is about to give you billions of dollars. I think we need to forget about funding Iran. Also keep in mind that the sailors were held captive until after the State of the Union speech. Friendly countries don’t do things like that.

Two Posts About The State Of The Union Speech From Facebook Friends

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I will post an analysis of the State of the Union speech later today, but this is a start:

MiliitaryAt SOTUThis screen shot is from bizpacreview. THIS was the exact response of our TOP military leaders at the EXACT moment Obama said that terrorists were not a threat to our nation’s existence. Houston, we have a problem.

The graphic below was posted by another friend:

StateOfTheUnion

Breitbart.com posted the following about President Obama’s claim that he has cut deficits:

“[W]e’ve done all this while cutting our deficits by almost three-quarters.” This is pure fiction. Obama has doubled the national debt, and it’s not because he cut the deficit. Rather, he spent staggering amounts of money in his first months in office–which he assigns, dishonestly, to the previous fiscal year, under George W. Bush. He “cut” (i.e. spent more gradually) from that spending, but only under protest, after Republicans took the House in 2010.

(Update: It is true that Obama’s 2015 budget deficit was about 25% of his 2010 deficit. But he referred to “deficits,” plural. Until last year, all of Obama’s deficits were worse than all of Bush’s deficits except for the last two.)

More to follow.

The Cost Of Over Regulation

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The Wall Street Journal posted a story today about Arch Coal. The company has filed for bankruptcy.

The article reports:

As President Obama prepares to deliver his final State of the Union address Tuesday, we wonder if he’ll take pride in the damage his policies have done to the coal industry. According to the National Mining Association, 40,000 coal jobs have been lost in the U.S. since 2008.

The wealth destruction has been equally dramatic. Peabody Energy is a going concern, but its shares have declined by roughly 95% in the last year. Investor Paul Tice recently wrote in these pages that since 2012 “27 coal-mining companies with core operations in Central Appalachia, a region roughly centered in southern West Virginia, have filed for bankruptcy protection.” We told you in November that coal production nationwide has declined by about 15% since 2008. Reasons include slowing global demand and competition from natural gas in electricity generation. But commodity prices are cyclical, while regulation is forever.

Unfortunately the coal companies are not the only casualties of President Obama’s energy policies. Future casualties include utility customers.

The article further reports:

Even after recent declines in market share, coal-fired plants still provide roughly a third or more of American electricity. So utility customers will notice the coal carnage when they see their monthly bills—or perhaps when the lights don’t go on. But for now the pain is concentrated among those who used to work in the coal fields. They are still waiting for all those new green jobs Mr. Obama has been promising since he arrived in Washington.

Elections have consequences. Eight years of an administration strongly influenced by radical environmentalists have created joblessness, higher energy prices, and no real alternative forms of energy. We can use carbon-based fuel in ways that do not harm the environment. Since our economy is based on carbon-based fuel, it would be a good idea to elect a President who understands the impact over regulation can have on the economy. Our current President obviously does not.

Numbers Don’t Lie

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Last year in North Carolina the Academic Standards Review Commission (ASRC) was charged with replacing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The North Carolina General Assembly voted to replace Common Core, and the ASRC was expected to come up with alternatives to Common Core. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Although the findings in the ASRC draft report of the commission (located  here) clearly indicated that the standards needed to be replaced– such issues as age-appropriate materials, lack of teaching materials, and excessive testing were mentioned–the ASRC simply ignored their own experts and did not replace CCSS. So what are the results of Common Core in North Carolina, and what are the alternatives? The results are awful, and there is one vetted and time-tested alternative.

The test data from the ACT tells the story of Common Core in North Carolina:

     Beginning in 2011, graduating seniors across the nation averaged a 20.6 in English, 21.1 in math, 21.3 in reading, 20.9 in science, and 21.1 composite. By comparison, North Carolina students averaged a 21.2 in English, 22.4 in math, 22.2 in reading, 21.4 in science, and 21.9 composite. Obviously, North Carolina scored well among the states and things were looking up.

     However, since 2011, things have gone downhill. 2015 graduating classes looked like this: (NC/National) 17.6/20.4 for English, 19.5/20.8 for math, 19.2/21.4 for reading, 19.0/20.9 for science, and 19.0/21.0 composite. Moreover, this is not just a dip in the scores. They have been steadily declining during the five-year period. Obviously, something is amiss or, at least, not what is being claimed. While National scores have remained fairly flat, North Carolina’s have tanked.

     Since the focus is on readiness for careers and college, other data is included in the ACT report for who is ready for what. Some of the key pieces of data in the report are the “benchmarks” which depict the level at which a student should perform in order to succeed at a specific career or a given college. The benchmarks are listed for each of the subject fields tested, i.e. English, math, reading, science, and composite. Benchmarks are useful for selecting a particular college, getting scholarships, determining career fields, etc.

     For the graduating classes of 2015, a full twenty-five percent of North Carolina students scored a benchmark in English of 0 to 12 (range of 1-36). Another seventeen percent scored 13 to 15, and twenty percent scored 16-19. This means that a total of sixty-two percent of our students in 2015 scored benchmarks that might, repeat might, get them into a community college. Only nine percent scored in the top two brackets, 28 to 32 and 33 to 36. For the math benchmark, the figure was sixty percent in the lower three brackets, reading was fifty-five percent, and science was fifty-four percent. In order to succeed at any of the major North Carolina Universities and colleges, current ACT benchmarks are NC State 24 to 29, UNC 21 to 26, Wake Forest 29 to 31, Campbell 17 to 27, East Carolina University 20 to 24, and UNC-Charlotte 20 to 25. If a student with an ACT of 19 were to apply to UNC-Charlotte, it is estimated that they have a fifty-five percent chance of success while the same score would only have a twenty-three percent chance at Campbell University.

     Along with the falling scores, there has been little to no progress in closing the learning and achievement gaps for minority students. Students of color are worse off with the CCSS standards, not better. Their parents ought to be outraged at the lack of appropriate content.

     As for “career ready” there is a “World of Work” map for careers that supposedly matches ACT scores with various occupations. Given the narrow aperture that the rest of the ACT/CRS process uses, one can only imagine how well the map works in determining a career for students not planning to attend college. What ever happened to guidance counselors working with parents to help choose a career?

     In conclusion, our public education system imposes a set of standards on its students and their parents, has designed a testing apparatus totally aligned with the standards and developed to supposedly reveal what career students should consider or what college to attend, and touts this as an improvement. However, data gathered and reported by its own testing shows the results to be dismal and failing. How can the Chamber of Commerce and other interested parties believe that they will be getting better employees for their members? How can colleges believe that their incoming classes of students will not require more remedial classes?

So why in the world are we stuck with Common Core? There is a lot of serious money behind Common Core. Bill Gates is one of the primary forces behind Common Core. As I have previously reported:  On September 21, 2013, (according to The Washington Post), Bill Gates stated, “It would be great if our education stuff worked, but that we won’t know for probably a decade.” It is becoming very obvious that it doesn’t work! Just for the record,The Daily Caller reported in March 2014 that the children of Bill Gates attend a private school that does not use Common Core standards. Common Core for thee, but not for me.

So what is the alternative? The North Carolina Education Coalition has created the North Carolina Education Plan. It is based on two vetted and very successful standards in two different states–Mathematics based on the Minnesota Standards (which the draft resolution of the ASRC recommended) and English Language Arts (ELA) is based on the Massachusetts standards as developed by Sandra Stotsy, credited with developing one of the country’s strongest K-12 ELA programs in Massachusetts.

Common sense would dictate replacing something that has failed with something that has been successful. Unfortunately, in the North Carolina academic hierarchy, money has become more important than educating our children. Many of the people in charge of education in North Carolina have a vested monetary interest in Common Core. We will not get rid of Common Core unless parents stand up and demand that public education in this state be controlled by common sense rather than money. We also need to replace any people involved in education in North Carolina who will make a profit through the implementation of Common Core.