Somehow I Think He Has Misdiagnosed The Problem

CNS News posted an article today about a recent statement by Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

The article reports Secretary Foxx’s comments:

…“only 49% of low-income neighborhoods have sidewalks” while more affluent areas have near 90%. In order to have a society where “everyone has a shot at the American Dream, than it’s imperative that we acknowledge these challenges.”

Sir, with all due respect, I don’t think that is the problem.

The article goes on:

“So, if we want a society in which everyone has a shot at the American dream, than it is imperative that we acknowledge these challenges,” Foxx said.

Foxx hired the U.S. Transportation Department’s first “Chief Opportunities Officer” in 2015. The position aims to make sure “Ladders of Opportunity inatives are coordinated, advanced and implemented across all levels of DOT,” according to the U.S. Transportation website.

In 2014, Foxx prioritized the criteria for federal TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grants by adding “access to opportunities” as a criteria the government should take into account when awarding grants.

“Transportation is about more than getting from one point to another–it’s about getting from where you are to a better life,” said Secretary Foxx in a press release discussing ‘Ladders of Opportunity’ grants in 2014.

I would support making sure people in low-income neighborhoods have an inexpensive way to get to work, but that does not have to be a government program. Neighborhoods can easily form car pools to help each other find transportation to work. The streets in low-income neighborhoods do exist and generally are paved, so I think that the people in these neighborhoods can access ‘Ladders of Opportunity’ if they choose to.

A person much wiser than I once commented that the best thing a parent can do for a child is to set the example of going to work every day. That is the culture we need in all of our neighborhoods.

When Tolerance Is A One-Way Street

Steven Hayward posted an article at Power Line today about George Mason University. The University has announced that the University’s law school will be renamed the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University. Steven Hayward notes that this is surely going to cause a reaction among the students.

The update of the article includes the following reaction by a student:

Please Tell Me GMU Law School Is Playing a Really Sick April Fools Joke

It’s bad enough that GMU’s Mercatus Center is a Koch-sucking far-right-wing organization (e.g., see this New Yorker article, which discusses how “the Koch family foundations have contributed more than thirty million dollars to George Mason, much of which has gone to the Mercatus Center”).  But now….this??? Let me remind everyone that Antonin Scalia was a corruptbigoted extremist. Why would anyone in their (far) right mind want to name anything after that guy, let alone a law school? Has GMU gone completely off its rocker or what? Or, as ThinkProgress Justice Editor Ian Millhiser puts it, GMU can now “stop pretending to be anything other than a conservative policy shop with students.” Ugh. I mean, what’s GMU going to do next, the Trump School for Ethics and Tolerance?

I seem to remember that many of our university students were asking for ‘safe spaces’ where their ideas would not be questioned or challenged. How horrible that our students at higher learning institutes might be forced to think through or defend their ideas. At any rate, this reaction does not seem to be very tolerant. Does the student understand that the money donated by the Koch family is partially responsible for making his/her education possible? Has it occurred to the student who wrote the above to consider the political leanings of The New Yorker when reading their comments about the Koch family? How does this student feel about the money George Soros pours into American politics?

It is a shame that this particular student does not respect the role Antonin Scalia played in defending the U.S. Constitution at the Supreme Court. It seems that a major part of the student’s civic education is missing.

Follow The Money

This year’s presidential campaign reminds me of the old Spy vs. Spy cartoons in Mad Magazine. There are so many twists and turns and behind the scenes things going on that it is hard to keep up. I keep hearing that Hillary Clinton can beat Donald Trump in the general election, but then I read about the money the Clinton and Soros organizations are paying protesters to disrupt Donald Trump events. If Hillary Clinton can beat Donald Trump, why is she disrupting his events?

I am not a Trump supporter, but I don’t like to idea of shutting down the free speech of a candidate. I especially don’t like the idea of paying protesters to do that.

On March 21st, The Daily Caller reported:

This free speech-busting goon squad operation is directed by supporters of Hillary Clinton. It is paid for mostly by George Soros and MoveOn.org and pushed by David Brock at Media Matters for America. It’s also funded by reclusive billionaire Jonathan Lewis, who was identified by the Miami New Times as a “mystery man.” He inherited roughly a billion dollars from his father Peter Lewis (founder of Progressive Insurance Company).

A march and demonstration against Trump at Trump Tower essentially fizzled Saturday when only 500 “protesters” of the promised 5000 showed up. Infiltrating the crowd, I learned most were from MoveOn or the Occupy movement. Soap was definitely in short supply in this crowd. Several admitted answering a Craig’s list ad paying $16.00 an hour for protesters.

At least they are paying them more than minimum wage.

The article explains the reason for the protests:

This is why David Brock’s dirty trick solves two problems at once: it helps discredit Bernie because it appears that his followers are violent; and it also disqualifies Trump for a future vote, by portraying him as a racist or a bigot. The whole thing is a kabuki dance. Blaming Sanders for these riots is like blaming the Communists for the Reichstag fire.

And finally, from a friend on Facebook:

DonaldTrumpPaidProtesters

I Love Irony

President Obama seems to have an ability to mistreat our allies and attempt to make friends with people who have hated us and will continue to hate us. However, some of our allies understand that despite our President, the American people support them. Israel is one of those allies that stands with us regardless of who is President.

The U.K. Daily Mail reported yesterday that the FBI has managed to get into the Apple iPhone that belonged to the San Bernardino shooter. Technical people were very concerned about who actually managed to get into the phone–fearing that a criminal would now have a mechanism that could hack any Apple iPhone. However, the truth is very reassuring.

The article reports:

An Israeli company helped the FBI in unlocking the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, California shooters, according to reports. 

Israel’s Cellebrite, is a provider of mobile forensic software that says it does business with thousands of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, militaries and governments in more than 90 countries.

An official source told NBC News that the company had helped. Neither the FBI nor Cellebrite has confirmed the reports.

The FBI hacked into the iPhone used by gunman Syed Farook, who died with his wife in a gun battle with police after they killed 14 people in December in San Bernardino. 

The iPhone, issued to Farook by his employer, the county health department, was found in a vehicle the day after the shooting.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is rather technical, but very interesting.

Thank you, Israel, for helping America deal with terrorism.

From A Friend On Facebook

PolarBearsThe picture above was taken from an article posted at The Federalist Papers.

The article states:

The Journal of Ecology and Evolution published the study conducted by researchers from Canada’s Lakehead University, which concludes that, while evidence shows that there is “reason for concern”, polar bears are not suffering the “climate crisis” that environmental activists would have you believe.

Our perspectives on climate warming and Arctic sea ice decline are developed from an empirical examination of the open-source data on various indicators of these phenomena. We see reason for concern, but find no reliable evidence to support the contention that polar bears are currently experiencing a climate crisis. We suggest that the qualitative projections for dramatic reductions in population numbers and range are overly pessimistic given the response of polar bears, climate, and sea ice to the present.

We show that much of the scientific evidence indicating that some polar bear subpopulations are declining due to climate change-mediated sea ice reductions is likely flawed by poor mark–recapture (M-R) sampling and that the complex analysis models employed to overcome these capture issues apparently fail to provide accurate estimates of the demographic parameters used to determine subpopulation status.

The science of man-made climate change is not a science–it is a religion designed to set up the United Nations as the controller of the world. The goal is to redistribute the wealth of free, wealthy countries to tyrannies that are not economically successful so that tyrants can build magnificent palaces while their people starve. The earth’s climate has been changing since long before we got here, and it will continue to change in the future. I believe that we are obligated to keep the earth as clean as possible and to control pollution. We are also obligated to set up economic systems that allow people to prosper. Those screaming ‘global warming or climate change’ have no intention of actually helping the poor. Their plans are to use the climate as an excuse for wealth distribution.

Don’t Look For This In The Mainstream Media

Investor’s Business Daily posted an article yesterday about climate change scientists and the alarmism that seems to follow people who talk about climate change.

That article states:

If they were honest, the climate alarmists would admit that they are not working feverishly to hold down global temperatures — they would acknowledge that they are instead consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state.

Have doubts? Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:

“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.

So what is the goal of environmental policy?

“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.

For those who want to believe that maybe Edenhofer just misspoke and doesn’t really mean that, consider that a little more than five years ago he also said that “the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.”

Mad as they are, Edenhofer’s comments are nevertheless consistent with other alarmists who have spilled the movement’s dirty secret. Last year, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, made a similar statement.

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said in anticipation of last year’s Paris climate summit.

“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”

Please note that Cristiana Figueres, when talking about the Convention on Climate Change, was not talking about climate–she was talking about economic development. Naomi Klein has written a book, “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate.”

The article notes:

“What if global warming isn’t only a crisis?” Klein asks in a preview of a documentary inspired by her book. “What if it’s the best chance we’re ever going to get to build a better world?”

In her mind, the world has to “change, or be changed” because an “economic system” — meaning free-market capitalism — has caused environmental “wreckage.”

The problem with the thinking that free-market capitalism is the cause of poverty is that it ignores some very obvious things and also ignores history. Because of the Charters they carried with them when they settled America, both the Pilgrims and the Jamestown settlers were committed to a communal economy. The land was held and farmed in common–there was not individual ownership and farming of land. That lasted until the first harvest, when the leaders realized that no one was working very hard and, particularly in New England, there was not enough food. When the Pilgrims instituted land ownership and individual farming where farmers sold and bartered crops, the harvest increased noticeably. Free-market capitalism understands some very basic facts about human nature–people work harder when they are rewarded for their work and if people receive benefits for not working hard, they don’t work hard. If people receive benefits for not working at all, they tend not to work.

Global warming or climate change is nothing more than a scheme to redistribute wealth and to bring the governments of the world under the control of the United Nations. Since the United Nations has lost its way and no longer supports freedom, I am not convinced that is a good idea.

I Wonder If This Will Improve The Vetting Process

Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that the South Carolina Senate had passed a bill that would make the sponsors of foreign refugees liable for damages caused by crimes or terrorism committed by these refugees.

The article reports:

South Carolina’s The State reported that state Sen. Kevin Bryan (R-Anderson) who co-sponsored the bill in South Carolina, said the legislation should slow or halt the resettlement of refugees. “With the danger today of a terrorist infiltrating the refugee program, we have no other option than to enroll this information,” Bryant told the newspaper. “We’ve got to choose our own citizens over those who are not citizens of our country.”

The publication reported that if passed, the legislation would require:

  • Sponsors to enroll refugees with the S.C. Department of Social Services within 30 days of their entering the state.
  • Social Services to forward refugee information to the State Law Enforcement Division.
  • State Law Enforcement Division and local law enforcement agencies to check whether refugees pose a safety risk.

“It’s the first time the Legislature in the state of South Carolina and the Legislature in the state of New York are on the same page,” Bryant said. “New York has seen attacks. They have experienced it first hand. Hopefully, this legislation will prevent an attack here in South Carolina.” The AP has reported that New York is the only other state considering a refugee registry.

..According to The State, the vote in the state senate was 39-6. If passed by the House and signed into law by Governor Nikki Haley, the bill would also provide for keeping a registry of refugees in the state.

 

Unfortunately, this approach is required because of the history of the refugees in Europe and the United Kingdom. The main responsibility of our government is to keep its citizens safe. I do not understand the reason that terrorism seems to be built into the Middle Eastern culture, but I would like some safeguards to prevent it from coming here. The first step might be making the sponsors of refugees liable for any negative behavior. That won’t solve the problem entirely, but it will make us more aware of who we bring in.

 

Beam Me Up, Scotty. There’s No Intelligent Life Down Here.

Posted on YouTube:

This is the height of political correctness, and it is dangerous. Immigrants need to understand that some cultural practices that were acceptable in their former countries are regarded as totally unacceptable in their new countries. I am sorry if an immigrant is offended by the idea that killing their children or wives for questionable behavior is barbaric. If they choose to live in a western culture, they need to know what is acceptable behavior and what is not.

Thank You To The Police Who Protect Us

This is not a hard news story, but I stumbled across this picture on Fox News and think it is adorable:

policemanandLittleGirlThis is the story:

On Sunday March 27, 2016, just after 4:00 PM Traffic Officer Erik Castillo was patrolling Roeding Park in Southwest Fresno as part of the Easter Sunday Safe Park Operation. He noticed a young princess driving her convertible sports car on the grass. Officer Castillo conducted a pretend traffic stop and contacted the princess, later identified as one year old Avery of Fresno. Officer Castillo decided to issue Avery a Junior Motor Officer Sticky Badge instead of a citation and wished her a Happy Easter.

 

Lied To Again

The Daily Signal is reporting that thanks to more government regulations (courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency) a new car will cost you at least $3.800 more (even after fuel economy is considered).

The article reports:

When Congress and the Obama administration passed and implemented extremely strict fuel economy regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claimed that it would save consumers a few thousand dollars on gas and only add $948 to the price of a new car.

Three teams of independent economists and engineers went up against the EPA’s analysts—finding much larger costs and smaller benefits. The most modest of the independent estimates works out to $3,800 per vehicle, even after the fuel savings are taken into account.

The chart below is included in the article:

CarPricesBig government and government regulations impact all of us.

The article concludes:

In a recently released Heritage Foundation research paper, we’ve compared the recent price trends to the scholarly predictions, and found that if U.S. vehicle prices had followed one of the comparable trends, cars would be between $3,975 and $7,140 cheaper today than they are. This massive expense buys very little change in global warming: less than two hundredths of a degree according to the Obama administration’s own estimate.

Congress should scrap Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards entirely—they cost consumers dearly while having a negligible impact on carbon emissions. Failing that, a new administration can freeze the standards at 2016 levels to prevent the Corporate Average Fuel Economy tax from doubling by 2025, as the Obama administration has planned.

It is time to get back to the concept of laws made by Congress outlined in our Constitution, so that we can hold our lawmakers accountable. The EPA and similar organizations have become the fourth branch of government, and they need to be put out of business.

A Wake-Up Call From Northern Virginia

Channel 5 in Northern Virginia reported last Tuesday that five arrests related to ISIS have been made in Northern Virginia in recent months.

The article reports:

ISISArrests2ISISArrests

The article also mentions Reza Niknejad of Prince William County. He was dropped off at Dulles International Airport last year with plans to join ISIS. No one has seen him since. I think it is time to start paying attention to what is being taught in the mosques of America. Terrorists in America are not materializing out of thin air. I realize that they have the internet, but I am inclined to think that they also have inspiration closer to home.

Most of the large mosques in America are built and funded by the Islamic Society of North America. This organization is named as a friend of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Exhibits in the Holy Land Foundation Trial. The exhibit which names the group is the Muslim Brotherhood document entitled, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.” If you have never read this document, please google the exhibits and read it. It is chilling.

We Need A Reality Check Here

The Hill is reporting today that after his recent primary victories in Washington, Alaska and Hawaii, Bernie Sanders has stated that he believes that the super delegates will switch from supporting Hillary to supporting him.

The article reports:

The latest delegate counts still put Sanders behind Clinton, however, with 1,004 pledged delegates to her 1,712.

Of those, 469 are superdelegates who have pledged to Clinton and only 29 have pledged to Sanders.

Sanders on Sunday said those superdelegates may begin to see the “reality” that he’s the best candidate to beat GOP front runner Donald Trump.

“I think when they begin to look at reality, and that is that we are beating Donald Trump by much larger margins than Secretary Clinton” Sanders said. “And then you’ve got superdelegates in states where we win by 40 or 50 points. I think their own constituents are going to say to them, ‘Hey, why don’t you support the people of our state and vote for Sanders?'”

There is absolutely nothing I can add to this article.

Does This Qualify As A Conflict Of Interest?

Roy Cooper is the North Carolina Democratic Attorney General who is running for governor in November. However, it appears that some of his campaign donations are in direct conflict with his current job as Attorney General.

The Beaufort County Now posted the following graphic on Thursday:

RoyCooperThis might be something to pay attention to.

Who Does This Man Represent?

America is a Representative Republic. Americans vote for people to go to Washington, D.C., to represent them. Lately it seems as if we might not be doing a really good job of that. Generally speaking, I am not sure who most of the people in Washington represent. However, a recent speech by President Obama really makes me wonder.

Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line today about President Obama’s speech in Argentina to a Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative meeting.  During the speech, President Obama explained the choice between communism and capitalism.

The article reports:

Obama instructed his young listeners that the question isn’t this system vs. that system, but rather “what works.” In Cuba, he claimed (falsely), communism is working great when it comes to health care. On the other hand, he acknowledged, the country looks like it’s stuck in the 1950s.

The lesson, said Obama, is that markets tend to generate wealth. Thus, they meet his “does it work” test, though they must be heavily regulated. Such is the wisdom imparted by this (once-thought-by many-to-be) towering intellect.

Scandalously, the only argument Obama was willing to make in favor of freedom is its tendency to generate wealth. If communism produced just as much, apparently it would be just as good or better, given the more even distribution of the wealth it purports to produce.

To argue in favor of freedom as a good in itself would, in Obama’s thinking, mean succumbing to ideology. He is much too cool for that.

I infer that during the heyday of the Soviet Union, Obama might well have been a communist. Then it was thought, based on successful propaganda of the kind some now accept when it comes to health care in Cuba, that communism was working fine.

I also infer that Obama may well be a fan of the current Chinese regime. Until recently, many thought it was working quite well.

Below is the video of the speech, as posted on YouTube:

The article at Power Line points out:

Obama’s entire speech is below. His remarks regarding capitalism vs. communism begin at around the 41:00 minute mark.

The difference between communism and capitalism is important to America. We need a President who understands that.

Welcome To The Silly Season

Usually, the last three or four weeks before an election becomes the silly season. It is a time when you really can’t believe anything you read. There are more lies told in those three to four weeks than in the preceding six months and the following six months. Usually this occurs three to four weeks before a national election, but the current presidential campaign has not followed any of the rules that applied in the past, so I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the silly season started months ago.

The current story that reflects the silly season is the National Inquirer story about Ted Cruz having had multiple affairs. Although that is something that Donald Trump seems to admit doing himself (and voters ignore it), evidently this is an important issue for Ted Cruz. Sometimes the double standard amazes me–remember when what Bill Clinton did in his spare time was off limits?

Hot Air posted some information on the supposed scandal that may shed some light on the truth (or lack thereof) of the charge.

The article reports:

For months and months, anti-Cruz operatives have pitched a variety of #CruzSexScandal stories to a host of prominent national publications, according to Republican operatives and media figures. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, Politico, and ABC News—reporters at all those outlets heard some version of the Cruz-is-cheating story. None of them decided to run with rumors. Those publications’ representatives all declined to provide on-the-record comments when The Daily Beast reached out for this article.

Breitbart News, the notoriously Trump-friendly conservative outlet, was also pitched the story of Cruz’s extramarital affairs, according to a source close to the publication. That source said an operative allied with Marco Rubio—but not associated with his official campaign—showed the publication a compilation video of Cruz and a woman other than his wife coming out of the Capitol Grille restaurant and a hotel on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But the outlet opted not to report on the video, which demonstrated no direct evidence of an affair.

“We got it from a Rubio ally,” said the source. “It was too thin, so [Breitbart’s Washington political editor Matt Boyle] decided not to run it. There was no way to verify the claims.”

I have no way of proving or disproving this story. Neither does Ted Cruz. That is the reason the opposition makes charges like this. One of the women named has come forward and said that the story is not true. Ted Cruz has, of course, denied it. Unfortunately, this story is simply a further example of how nasty this presidential campaign is. This campaign is anything but presidential. It is my hope that whoever is the actual source for this story, if they are currently holding public office, will be removed from that office in disgrace. This story, unproven, is simply not appropriate in any political campaign.

A Very Simple Explanation

Investor’s Business Daily posted an article on Thursday about the futility of appeasing terrorists. The reason behind opposing terrorists is very succinctly explained by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The article reports:

Speaking via satellite to AIPAC’s annual conference in Washington last week, Bibi Netanyahu used the Brussels bloodbath, which Islamic State has taken responsibility for, to explain succinctly why there is no appeasing this barbaric new enemy.

The Israeli leader identified “the chain of attacks from Paris to San Bernardino to Istanbul to the Ivory Coast and now to Brussels, and the daily attacks in Israel” as “one continuous assault on all of us.” And he reminded Americans that, “in all these cases, the terrorists have no resolvable grievances.”

Those five words, “terrorists have no resolvable grievances,” should be the equivalent of “in hoc signo vinces” for the global war on terror. Those were the Latin words Constantine saw in a vision, accompanying a cross of light — “In this sign you will conquer.”

Western countries would do well to remember that the ultimate goal of ISIS is the establishment of a worldwide caliphate. This has been the dream of the Muslim Brotherhood since the Ottoman Empire fell. The caliphate that was the Ottoman Empire ended in 1924. That was less than one hundred years ago. In 1928, after it was clear that Turkey, the heart of the former Ottoman Empire, was going to be a secular state, the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt. The purpose of the Muslim Brotherhood was to implement Sharia Law worldwide and to re-establish the caliphate worldwide. Right now, both ISIS and Iran share those goals. The disagreement between them is over who will rule that worldwide caliphate.

I listened to an interview this morning of an expert on terrorism. In the interview he pointed out some facts about the terrorist attack in Belgium that I have not heard widely reported in the media. The main part of the attack took place near the American Airlines terminal. It was timed to occur when passengers for a flight to Philadelphia were checking in for their flight (thus most of the victims would be American). The attack was also near a Starbucks Coffee Shop, where many of the Americans would go after they checked in. The suicide bombers were on a watch list in America, and it is doubtful that they would have been able to enter American legally to carry out attacks. However, the attack they did carry out does seem to have targeted Americans.

The article at Investor’s Business Daily concludes:

President Obama’s repeated assurance that ISIS is “not an existential threat to us,” last week pairing it during his Latin American trip with the crack that “I’ve got a lot of things on my plate,” telegraphs not moral clarity but politically expedient complacency, as he plans the exhibits in his presidential library.

Obama ought to be reminded that when it comes to the lives of the four or more Americans missing in Brussels, ISIS may very well have been an existential threat.

Netanyahu’s words, meanwhile, should be carved in stone for the ages and spur total commitment to the destruction of today’s terrorists — everywhere and ASAP.

That’s good advice.

 

Common Core In Massachusetts

Below is a press release from End Common Core Massachusetts:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, March 24, 2015
CONTACT:  Donna Colorio, 508-450-0104 and dcolorio2014@gmail.com
END COMMON CORE MA
End Common Core MA’s message to the big money special interests: #RKidsRnot4Sale

End Common Core Massachusetts has a very simple message to the big money special interest groups organizing resistance to the popular End Common Core ballot measure: Our kids are not for sale (#RKidsRnot4Sale).

“Last month, a poll proved that a huge majority of voters support the end of Common Core.  It clearly verifies hard-working Massachusetts voters reject giving control of our public education system to the wealthy special interests.  They are desperately trying to defeat this measure by pouring in millions to fund phony lawsuits and more phony front groups for Pearson Education and the Gates Foundation.  They will soon find out that Our Kids Are Not for Sale and the voters will reject their efforts”, said End Common Core Chairperson Donna Colorio.

Sandra Stotsky, former Senior Associate Commissioner in the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) notes that “the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE) filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Maura Healey in January claiming she didn’t know what she was doing when she approved the language of the ballot question. It looks like they are desperate to stop the voters from voting on this critical issue.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is on record donating a lot of money to the MBAE in 2014 to pay for studies that support the continued use of Common Core.  The Gates Foundation has also poured millions of dollars to fund grants for DESE and other Massachusetts special interest groups who support Common Core. Pearson Education is the corporation contracted to create standardized tests like PARCC and MCAS designed to test in English Language Arts and Mathematics.  Pearson also publishes textbooks and educational materials aligned to the Common Core Standards, and keeping the standards will mean billions of dollars in profits.

“Right now, the special interests are lining up millions of dollars to fund a campaign where every word, study, report, and so-called statistic is made up and paid for by groups funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  In contrast, End Common Core MA is a grassroot effort led by concerned citizens giving their time and hard earned money to speak truth to power. The super wealthy special interests are using our kids to make billions of dollars every year in testing fees, textbooks, and other classroom materials.  The special interests have a lot of money on their side and their goal is to destroy our public education system. But the hard working citizens of Massachusetts will have the truth on their side,” said Colorio.

End Common Core MA is a ballot question committee of citizen activists, teachers, parents, concerned citizens, and elected officials opposed to Common Core’s standards.  Go to EndCommonCoreMA.com for more information.

We Need To Shut Down 90 Percent Of Our Colleges And Replace Them With Places Where Students Actually Learn Useful Things

On Wednesday, National Review reported that the student senate at the University of California at Berkeley has passed a resolution to make abortion on demand available on the campus.

The article reports:

The Berkeley student senate has passed a resolution demanding that abortion, referred to as “medication abortion,” be made available on-campus so that female undergraduate and graduate students could “continue their education with little disruption.”The resolution explains that the university’s Tang Center used to perform abortions in the 1980s, but now there are no longer trained abortionists at the center.

Abortion is a right, their logic goes, and so abortion access is a right, too.

The resolution does not suggest how to fund its demand. But Aanchal Chugh, primary sponsor of the bill, told Campus Reform that school administrators should be willing to take pay cuts in order to fund on-campus abortion services. Students, she says, should not bear any financial burden.

This is the kind of logic that amoral, feeling entitled, uneducated in the value of life students come up with. Their parents are paying good money for this. It is so sad.

The article also notes:

There are five abortion providers within 15 miles of the Berkeley campus, all of which accept MediCal health insurance. FPA Women’s Health, four miles from the campus, performs free abortions for women who lack health coverage for the procedure.

 

Necessary Information That I Don’t Like To Post

Information on what to do in case of a terrorist attack:

SurvivalTips1 SurvivalTips2The source of this information is Act for America. The email I received from them also stated:

To stay informed about the radical Islamic threat to our way of life and what you can do as a citizen to protect our country, yourself, and your loved ones, please join us. Go to actforamerica.org and get involved today. Be the change. Make a difference. Help us keep America safe!

Some Nonprofits Are Very Profitable

The Daily Caller posted an article today about the Rev. Kenneth Fairley, pastor of Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The article reports that the Reverend allegedly profited after the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development gave $47,000 to the local government, which gave it, in turn, to a nonprofit called Pinebelt Community Services to renovate houses.

The article reports:

HUD has relationships with many such nonprofits that often function as expensive middlemen between government aid programs and those in need of help.

In Fairley’s case, Pinebelt had no capacity to do construction and told the city it had handed off the money yet again via a contract with a New Orleans company called Interurban Development. But Fairley had arranged with Interurban’s owner to make the hand-off an on-paper-only arrangement at an inflated price.

The article explains that the work that HUD paid for was done locally for less money than the grant, and Reverend Fairley kept the difference.

The article further explains:

HUD does little vetting of the middleman nonprofits to which it awards millions of tax dollars annually.

In Baltimore, for example, it has funneled millions through a nonprofit called Enterprise Community Partners to pass it on to neighborhoods. But instead, its CEO makes $577,000 and it has 48 officers who were paid $267,000 on overage.

Only half of its money actually made it to neighborhoods that needed it and no positive results have been demonstrated.

The idea of revitalizing our inner cities is good. However, when the money for these efforts comes from the federal government, there is no way that the projects can be watched carefully for fraud and misuse of funds. Unless local people are directly involved in improving their section of any given city, it is quite likely that the efforts to improve the area will not be successful. If you truly want to revitalize America’s inner cities, we need to change the culture there. The inner cities will not improve until the people living there develop pride in their surroundings. Non-profit groups can be very helpful in this effort, but obviously a vetting process is needed to find the appropriate group.

 

 

When Did Our Government Begin Bullying Nuns?

Yesterday CBN News posted a story about the Supreme Court case involving the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The article reports:

The Catholic charity was founded nearly 180 years ago to “offer the neediest elderly of every race and religion a home where they will be welcomed as Christ.”

In the hearing, the justices appeared to be deeply divided over the Obama administration’s plan to exempt The Little Sisters of the Poor and other faith-based groups from being required to pay for birth control for women insured under their health plans.

The conservative justices on the high court sounded in favor of the complaint by the groups that the administration’s exemption plan goes against their religious rights.

Where does the government get the right to force a religious organization to purchase something that goes against their religious convictions?

The American Declaration of Independence states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

This is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:

Amendment I

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.

What the Obama Administration is attempting to do is limit the ability of the Little Sisters of the Poor to freely exercise their religious beliefs in the public square.

The article at CBN News concludes:

If the court’s ruling is a 4-4 tie, that would mean four appeals court rulings in favor of the administration would be upheld. However, in parts of the country where another appeals court agreed with the faith-based groups, different rules would apply.

Another outcome of a tie could be shelving the case until after Scalia’s replacement is seated on the bench. That scenario emphasizes the importance of the judicial leanings of any nominee to the court, an issue currently hotly contested in Washington.

Although President Barack Obama nominated his pick to replace Scalia, Republican senators are trying to stall the process until a new president is in office. Republicans hope a conservative president will then nominate someone more conservative, with leanings similar to Scalia’s.

The court is expected to rule by the end of June.

If the government can limit the religious freedom of a charity organization of nuns that has helped the elderly for 180 years, they can limit anyone’s religious freedom. Regardless of how this case is decided, the religious rights of Americans are under attack and need to be protected.


Good News From The House Of Representatives

Stripes reported yesterday that the House of Representatives passed a bill that will allow a group of female World War II military pilots to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The bill now goes to the Senate.

The article reports:

The Army sparked a growing controversy last year when it reinterpreted a law from the 1970’s to exclude the female veterans who trained pilots and ferried combat aircraft from 1942-1944 from the national cemetery, where space is increasingly limited.

The WASPs were not considered active-duty troops at the time but have since received the Congressional Gold Medal, veteran benefits and renown as role models for female troops serving today.

McSally (Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz), an A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot who flew combat mission over Iraq, has said they “opened the door for people like me being able to serve.”

A military pilot is a military pilot. Hopefully the Senate will pass this law quickly.

The article concludes:

The acting secretary of the Army said earlier this month that not even President Barack Obama has the executive power to change the rule excluding WASPs and that only Congress can make a fix by passing a new law.

The service reversed a national cemetery policy in place since 2002 that allowed internment.

I am old-fashioned enough to believe that women do not belong in combat, but I do feel that if they take the risks that men take, they should also be eligible for the honors and rewards.

The Republican Ability To Form A Circular Firing Squad Is Present At All Levels Of The Party

This article is based on an article posted at The Charlotte Observer yesterday and an article posted at The Daily Haymaker today. Both articles have to do with the power struggle currently going on within the North Carolina Republican Party. The power struggle began last year when Hasan Harnett was elected to chair the North Carolina Republican Party. He was the choice of the grass roots, but not of the establishment. Since his election, the establishment has attempted to strip him of power and now they are attempting to unseat him.

In September, I reported on the efforts of the establishment Republicans to set up a separate fundraising entity–essentially a shadow party. The grass roots effort to fight back were stopped by the Central Committee postponing any negative consequences until they could gather the legislators who supported them to cast votes in support of the shadow party.

The Charlotte Observer reports:

Harnett has been under fire since the state party’s Central Committee voted Sunday to censure him. Its resolution of no confidence included a litany of eight offenses “deemed harmful to the North Carolina Republican Party.”

Among other things, they included a dispute over the cost of attending the state convention.

Now, less than a year after Harnett was elected the state party’s first African-American chairman with support from grass-roots activists, some party leaders are trying to oust him before the convention.

But Harnett plans to stay.

The Daily Haymaker reports:

The content of the text screenshots we received indicate that executive director Dallas Woodhouse is much more than an innocent bystander in the whole effort to fire party chairman Hasan Harnett:

…The legislators are WHO saved the necks of David Lewis and Dallas the last go-around.  Will our electeds once AGAIN ride to the rescue of cronyism, pettiness, and corruption?  We’ll see. 

As you read this stuff, remember that this organization is completely controlled by the McCrory for Governor campaign organization.  The governor COULD step in and calm this down IF he wanted to.  His silence speaks volumes.

It is time for the Republican Party Central Committee to listen to the people who generally vote Republican. These are the people who elected Hasan Harnett. I am sorry that the Central Committee’s little noses are out of joint because they do not control the chairmanship, but it is time for them to work with the elected leader. If they choose not to work with Hasan Harnett, many North Carolina Republicans will leave the party, and ultimately, the Republicans may lose the general election in November. The childish moves on the part of the Central Committee benefit no one.

A Religion Of Peace?

The February issue of Imprimis (a publication of Hillsdale College) features an article by Andrew C. McCarthy. Mr. McCarthy was Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, and from 1993-95. He led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Following the 9/11 attacks, he supervised the Justice Department’s command post near Ground Zero.

These are a few highlights from the article:

…when I was assigned to lead the prosecution of a terrorist cell that had bombed the World Trade Center and was plotting an even more devastating strike—simultaneous attacks on the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the United Nations complex on the East River, and the FBI’s lower Manhattan headquarters—I had no trouble believing what our government was saying: that we should read nothing into the fact that all the men in this terrorist cell were Muslims; that their actions were not representative of any religion or belief system; and that to the extent they were explaining their atrocities by citing Islamic scripture, they were twisting and perverting one of the world’s great religions, a religion that encourages peace.

Unlike commentators and government press secretaries, I had to examine these claims. Prosecutors don’t get to base their cases on assertions. They have to prove things to commonsense Americans who must be satisfied about not only what happened but why it happened before they will convict people of serious crimes. And in examining the claims, I found them false.

Mr. McCarthy goes on to explain that although Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman was severely physically handicapped, he was the unquestioned leader of the terror cell that bombed the World Trade Center and was planning a number of attacks in the New York City area. The Blind Sheik (as he was known) freely quoted Islamic scripture to justify his actions. When peaceful Muslims were asked about these scriptures, they replied that they were not competent to interpret them. In other words, the Blind Sheik, whose goal was the killing infidels, was considered the standard for Islamic interpretation.

The article concludes:

The dangerous flipside to our government’s insistence on making up its own version of Islam is that anyone who is publicly associated with Islam must be deemed peaceful. This is how we fall into the trap of allowing the Muslim Brotherhood, the world’s most influential Islamic supremacist organization, to infiltrate policy-making organs of the U.S. government, not to mention our schools, our prisons, and other institutions. The federal government, particularly under the Obama administration, acknowledges the Brotherhood as an Islamic organization—notwithstanding the ham-handed attempt by the intelligence community a few years back to rebrand it as “largely secular”—thereby giving it a clean bill of health. This despite the fact that Hamas is the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, that the Brotherhood has a long history of terrorist violence, and that major Brotherhood figures have gone on to play leading roles in terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda.

To quote Churchill again:  “Facts are better than dreams.” In the real world, we must deal with the facts of Islamic supremacism, because its jihadist legions have every intention of dealing with us. But we can only defeat them if we resolve to see them for what they are.

Our government has chosen to ignore the threat of radical Islam.  In doing this, the government risks the safety of all Americans. It is time to tell the truth about a group of people who want to kill us. They do not belong in our government, and we need to admit who they are and what their goals are. To do otherwise is to commit national suicide.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is very enlightening.