Monthly Archives: February 2015

Something Good From Washington

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Senator Ted Cruz released the following statement today:

“On November 5, 2009, a brutal terror attack was carried out at Fort Hood. The lives of 14 people were taken, one of them an unborn child, and 32 were injured. Today, we are grateful that the U.S. Army has chosen to bestow the Purple Heart, and its civilian counterpart, the Medal for the Defense of Freedom, on these victims,” said Sen. Cruz.
 
“This attack was a clear act of radical Islamic terrorism, conducted on American soil – the original decision to designate it ‘workplace violence’ and deny these honors was a betrayal of the sacrifice of each of the victims.  It is well past time for them to receive these awards and I thank the Secretary of the Army for reaching this determination. We can never undo the events of that day, but we can properly honor the courageous patriots who protect our nation and remain forever grateful for them.”
 
Last year, Sen. Cruz introduced an amendment to the 2015 National Defense Reauthorization Act (NDAA), which was approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee and passed by Congress, to expand Purple Heart eligibility to victims of the Fort Hood terror attack.

Thank you, Senator Cruz, for working hard to make sure the victims of the attack were properly treated.

Recommended Reading For Fourth Grade

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Breitbart.com posted a story today about the Fourth Grade reading list for Wake County, North Carolina, recommended under Common Core Standards. I realize that today’s fourth grader is a little different from fourth graders back in the age of dinosaurs when I was in school (Just for the record, I attended fourth grade in Greensboro, North Carolina, schools.) However, this reading list is scary to me.

Some excerpts from the article about the books:

…One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia, in which three sisters are sent by their negligent mother to a camp run by the Black Panthers.

Eleven-year-old Delphine is like a mother to her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern. She’s had to be, ever since their mother, Cecile, left them seven years ago for a radical new life in California. When they arrive from Brooklyn to spend the summer with her, Cecile is nothing like they imagined. While the girls hope to go to Disneyland and meet Tinker Bell, their mother sends them to a day camp run by the Black Panthers. Unexpectedly, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern learn much about their family, their country, and themselves during one truly crazy summer.

The book is recommended for ages 8-12 years and grades 4-7.

The article mentions one of the goals of having the children read the book:

Delphine is a positive female African-American role model for girls. She displays tremendous responsibility and loyalty to her family. Her mother, however, is mean. At one point she tells Delphine that she should have gotten rid of her when she had the chance, but there is no indication that her true meaning is understood. The Black Panthers are portrayed in a positive light, and the reader is educated about some of the charitable community programs they set up.

Before the people supporting this book get too excited about the charitable community programs of the Black Panthers, they might want to take a look at a book called Radical Son by David Horowitz. David Horowitz was a ‘red diaper baby’ raised in New York City. His parents were avowed communists who taught in the New York City public schools. Throughout his younger years and college years, David supported such groups as the Black Panthers. He even got a friend of his a job as a bookkeeper working for the group. In the book he relates his belief that the Black Panthers killed that person when she started to ask questions about some of their activities and was no longer of use to them. There is also the matter of the New Black Panthers voter intimidation in Philadelphia in 2008. Are these the role models we want to hold up to our children?

Another book on the reading list is Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan.

The article summarizes that book as follows:

Told in a lyrical, fairy tale-like style, Ryan’s (riding Freedom) robust novel set in 1930 captures a Mexican girl’s fall from riches, her immigration to California and her growing awareness of class and ethnic tensions. Thirteen-year-old Esperanza Ortega and her family are part of Mexico’s wealthy, land-owning class in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Her father is a generous and well-loved man who gives his servants land and housing. Early in the novel, bandits kill Esperanza’s father, and her corrupt uncles threaten to usurp their home. Their servants help her and her mother flee to the United States, but they must leave Esperanza’s beloved Abuelita (grandmother) behind until they can send for her…

Ryan fluidly juxtaposes world events (Mexico’s post-revolution tensions, the arrival of Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl victims and the struggles between the U.S. government and Mexican workers trying to organize) with one family’s will to survive – while introducing readers to Spanish words and Mexican customs. Readers will be swept up by vivid descriptions of California dust storms or by the police crackdown on a labor strike (“The picket signs lay on the ground, discarded, and like a mass of marbles that had already been hit, the strikers scattered?”).

Where are the stories of George Washington, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin? Do the two books above really reflect an accurate picture of America? What are the ideas these children are going to have about America as they grow up? What kind of understanding of American history and the things that make America unique are these children going to have? It’s time to scrap the Common Core recommended reading list and go back to letting fourth graders be fourth graders and learn about the good things their country has accomplished.

Are You Free To Hold Biblical Views In America?

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America has a First Amendment, something which many other countries do not have. Theoretically the First Amendment protects freedom of speech–even if you express a viewpoint that is unpopular, you have the right to express that viewpoint. Theoretically.

Yesterday the National Review Online posted an article about some recent events at Gordon College. D. Michael Lindsay, president of Gordon College, signed a letter (as an individual) to President Obama requesting that a religious exemption be included in a recent executive order signed by President Obama.

The article reports:

In July 2014, President Obama, carrying out yet another threat to act by executive fiat where the federal legislature would not, signed an order prohibiting the federal government and federal contractors from discriminating in hiring based on “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” However, unlike the Senate-approved Employment Non-Discrimination Act, after which it was modeled, the president’s order offered no exemption to religious organizations, raising the possibility that organizations with faith-based objections to same-sex marriage might no longer be able to qualify as federal contractors.

The letter signed by D. Michael Lindsay was also signed by thirteen other religious leaders, including Rick Warren, pastor of California’s Saddleback Church, who delivered the invocation at President Obama’s first inauguration, and Michael Wear, national faith vote director for President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

Unfortunately, standing up for your faith in America has consequences.

The article reports:

Eight days after Lindsay’s letter, Kimberley Driscoll, mayor of nearby Salem, Mass., prohibited the school from any longer using Salem’s historic Old Town Hall, “despite a long and positive relationship.” Driscoll wrote to Lindsay that she was “disappointed” with the school’s “hurtful and offensive” stance.

In August, the nearby Lynn Public Schools board declared that it would no longer accept Gordon College students into its student-teacher program — in express violation of students’ constitutional rights to free speech, religious practice, and association.

And the next month, in the most alarming episode yet, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), Gordon’s accrediting body, announced that it would have to evaluate whether “Gordon College’s traditional inclusion of ‘homosexual practice’ as a forbidden activity” violates the organization’s accreditation standards. Then, as if to imply its conclusion foregone, the NEASC offered Gordon one year “to ensure that the College’s policies and procedures are non-discriminatory.” The NEASC is a private organization and can establish whatever accreditation criteria it likes — but it has never before considered a college’s religious identity, and an accreditation agency cannot if it wishes to receive “recognition” from the Department of Education (a de facto necessity). But surely Arne Duncan can make an exemption.

Again, the letter was signed as an individual–not as the college president.

Are we at a place where the president of a Christian college is no longer permitted to stand up for Christian values? The political left has many places it can attend college–there is no reason at all to tear down a school that supports the values that Christianity teaches. Gordon College is the victim of a bullying campaign by those who claim to want to end bullying. Ironic, isn’t it?

Some Quotes From The National Prayer Breakfast

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I really do not want to talk about President Obama’s remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. The remarks speak for themselves. The following quotes are posted at the Washington Examiner:

“We’ve seen violence and terror perpetuated” by those who distort their faith, he said Thursday morning to a group of 3,500 gathered in the Washington Hilton’s ballroom for the morning event.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, he said, is a “vicious death cult that in the name of religion carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism.”

In seeking to reconcile these two realities, Obama urged humility for all people of faith, recalling that in the past people “have committed terrible misdeeds in the name of Christ,” including justifying slavery and Jim Crow laws.

“There is a tendency in us — a sinful tendency — that can pervert and distort our faith,” he said.

He urged every member of faith to speak up against those who would misuse their religions to justify murder and terror.

“No God condones terror, no grievance justifies the taking of innocent lives,” he said. “So as people of faith we are summoned to push back at people who will misuse our religion.”

If Islam is being distorted by those who persecute Christians and Jews, force people to convert to Islam, and murder innocent people in the Middle East and in Africa, why is Israel the only country in the region where Jews, Christians, and Muslims are free to practice their religion without persecution? There is a pattern here.

This Might Be A Good Place To Cut The Federal Budget

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Fox News reported yesterday that the illegal immigrants that President Obama has granted amnesty will be eligible for retroactive tax refunds.

The article reports:

Byron York explained on “America’s Newsroom” that illegal immigrants will be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is actually a government grant of up to $5,000 to working families.

“Illegal immigrants affected by the president’s edict will not only be eligible for those tax credits going forward, but three years retroactively,” York said. “So they’ll be able to collect quite a bit of money from the treasury.”

York explained that the IRS has issued taxpayer identification numbers to people who are in the U.S. illegally, but working, so that they can pay taxes.

Illegal immigrants who filed taxes that way over the past three years can now go back and amend those previous tax forms to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Unbelievable.

The Children Are Misbehaving Again

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John Hinderaker posted a article at Power Line yesterday about the Democrats latest antics in the Senate.

The article explains:

In a shocking move, Senate Democrats today filibustered all funding for the Department of Homeland Security. They refused to allow the DHS funding bill, which has already passed the House, to be brought up for a vote. This means that funding for DHS, including its many vital national security functions, will soon run out.

Why would Democrats vote unanimously to shut down DHS? Because the funding bill excludes the implementation of President Obama’s patently illegal and unconstitutional subversion of the nation’s immigration laws. The Democrats’ position is: either you go approve of and pay for the president’s illegal acts, or we will shut DHS down.

The Republicans need to develop some backbone and deal with this. I am sure (I hope) there are some Democrats who put national security over politics. Essentially the Democrats have shut down one part of the government.

Is This Really What We Had In Mind?

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It really is time to take a good look at America’s immigration policies. We need to allow people to come to America, but we also need to protect American workers.

Yesterday Computer World posted an article entitled, “Southern California Edison IT workers ‘beyond furious’ over H-1B replacements.” What is this about?

The article reports:

Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India. Some employees are training their H-1B visa holding replacements, and many have already lost their jobs.

…The IT organization’s “transition effort” is expected to result in about 400 layoffs, with “another 100 or so employees leaving voluntarily,” SCE said in a statement. The “transition,” which began in August, will be completed by the end of March, the company said.

“They are bringing in people with a couple of years’ experience to replace us and then we have to train them,” said one longtime IT worker. “It’s demoralizing and in a way I kind of felt betrayed by the company.”

The article also illustrates one of the problems with crony capitalism:

Displaced IT workers have long protested and complained about the use of H-1B workers, but they are overshadowed by large tech companies that lead H-1B lobbying efforts in Washington. IT workers are also effectively silenced through severance agreements that include non-disparagement clauses and confidentiality provisions, as well as fears that public complaining may hurt re-employment prospects.

Replacing U.S. workers with H-1B workers violates the spirit if not the letter of the law. Hira (Ron Hira, a public policy professor at Howard University, and a researcher on offshore outsourcing) pointed out that as a part of the application process to obtain H-1B approval from the Labor Department, an employer is required to attest to the following: “Working Conditions: The employer attests that H-1B, H-1B1 or E-3 foreign workers in the named occupation will not adversely affect the working conditions of workers similarly employed.” This statement is in Form 9035CP of the LCA.

Further, Hira noted that the Labor Department states, “The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires that the hiring of a foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers comparably employed.

This is just wrong. I also wonder if the company has to provide health insurance for the foreign workers it hires. Is this another result of ObamaCare?

 

We Seem To Have Become Wimps

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Sorry if that statement offends anyone, but indications are that it may be true. Dr. Roy Spencer, formerly a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites, posted a story on his website today about the “Historic Blizzard of 2015”–it actually ranked #41, or a weak “Category 2″. The article includes a chart showing the Blizzard of 2015 in comparison to the storm ranked Number 1, which occurred in March of 1993.

The article states:

The ranking is based upon societal impacts, so if the worst storm on Earth in the last 10,000 years hit where no one lived, it would not even rank.

So, the NESIS scale for Northeast snowstorms isn’t well suited for talking about climate change. It’s not clear that more snowstorms in recent decades aren’t just from a slight shift in the storm track bringing Northwest Atlantic winter storms (of which there are many…Greenland routinely gets clobbered) closer to New England.

As someone who lived in New England from 1967 to 2013, I was glad not to be there during snowstorm Juno. I would like to point out that this is the first year I remember naming snow storms. I was in Rhode Island for the Blizzard of ’78, and we never named it. There were 48 inches of snow in about a day and a half, and no one thought about naming the storm. We have become wimps.

My warmest thoughts go out to my friends in Massachusetts as they endure the weather expected over the next week. I think you should name the first sunny day “Fred.”

Smile, You Have Been Manipulated

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Last Sunday KRAE News 13 posted an article with the following headline, “Measles outbreak casts spotlight on anti-vaccine movement.” We all heard about the supposedly scientific report that showed a link between vaccines and autism. We also heard later that the research was fraudulent and there was no link. Generally speaking, I think I would vaccinate my children, which is what I did, but not everyone makes that choice. Because of the outbreak of measles that began in Disney World, there has been a focus on those parents who have not vaccinated their children–as if they were responsible for the outbreak of measles. Admittedly, they may not be helping the situation, but before we attack those parents who have refused vaccinations for their children, let’s look at some facts.

A website called stason.org posted statistics on the number of children worldwide who receive vaccinations. These are statistics from the early 1990’s, but they are interesting. In America, parents opt out of vaccines because they fear the consequences of the vaccine more than they fear their child contracting the disease in question. In many other countries, the vaccines are simply not available or not affordable.

According to stason.org (1992 figures):

 About 80% of the world’s children aged less than 1 were
reported to have received measles vaccine

The CDC Website cites a measles vaccination rate for Americans of about 91 percent.

So what am I getting out here? Most American children are protected against measles.

The article at KRAE News 13 reports:

Health authorities believe the outbreak was triggered by a measles-stricken visitor to one of the Disney parks who brought the virus from abroad last month.

As one of the world’s biggest tourist destinations, Disney was a perfect spot for the virus to spread, with large numbers of babies too young to be vaccinated and lots of visitors from countries that do not require measles shots. The disease has since spread beyond Disneyland.

Last summer there were a number of children from South American countries who crossed the Mexican border into America. What percentage of those children was vaccinated? It seems to me that rather than focus anger on parents in America who have refused the measles vaccine, we should be looking to the number of illegal aliens in this country (both children and adults) who because of poverty have never been vaccinated. One of the unintended consequences of President Obama’s policy of not enforcing our southern border may be a much more serious measles epidemic than might have otherwise occurred.