Lessons every student should know.
Daily Archives: September 17, 2011
NEWSWEEK gave 1,000 Americans the U.S. Citizenship Test–38% failed.
Ironically, the article blames not enough central control of schools pointing the finger at a, “decentralized education system” that relies on the states, and “market-driven programming.”
The truth, many Western European countries have school choice. What do you expect, this IS Newsweek after all.
They’re the sort of scores that drive high-school history teachers to drink. When NEWSWEEK recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar.
To appreciate the risks involved, it’s important to understand where American ignorance comes from. In March 2009, theEuropean Journal of Communication asked citizens of Britain, Denmark, Finland, and the U.S. to answer questions on international affairs. The Europeans clobbered us. Sixty-eight percent of Danes, 75 percent of Brits, and 76 percent of Finns could, for example, identify the Taliban, but only 58 percent of Americans managed to do the same—even though we’ve led the charge in Afghanistan. It was only the latest in a series of polls that have shown us lagging behind our First World peers.
Top 140 All Time Top Political Donors
Look at what party gets most of the fat cat money? Looking out for the little guy my foot.
So do these groups contribute massive funds so that the politicians will faithfully follow the Constitution? No, most of them want favors, and most favors have questionable ethics and constitutionality.
The only answer is to strip politicians of some power to do these favors.
To examine the list click HERE.
Related:
Top 20 Industry Money Recipients This Election Cycle – Who is in the back pocket of Wall Street?
Corruption You Can Believe In: Failed Sub Primes and Mortgage Fraud Lenders Funneled Money to Dodd & Obama the Most. Fannie & Freddie Gave $200 Million to Partisans-Most Went to Democrats! Dodd, Obama Among Top Recipients.
Democrat Leadership owned by Wall Street
Unreported Soros Event Aims to Remake Entire Global Economy
[Flashback to March 2011]
BMI:
Two years ago, George Soros said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start – and no one seems to have noticed.
On April 8, a group he’s funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros’s goal for such an event is to “establish new international rules” and “reform the currency system.” It’s all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for “a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.”
The event is bringing together “more than 200 academic, business and government policy thought leaders’ to repeat the famed 1944 Bretton Woods gathering that helped create the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Soros wants a new ‘multilateral system,” or an economic system where America isn’t so dominant.
More than two-thirds of the slated speakers have direct ties to Soros. The billionaire who thinks “the main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat” is taking no chances.
Thus far, this global gathering has generated less publicity than a spelling bee. And that’s with at least four journalists on the speakers list, including a managing editor for the Financial Times and editors for both Reuters and The Times. Given Soros’s warnings of what might happen without an agreement, this should be a big deal. But it’s not.
Wait till you see who else on on the attendee’s list. Find out HERE.
George Soros is the number one money man of the radical left and the Democratic Party.
Marxist group launches propaganda kids video against the First Amendment
This is the same Marxist group that made “The Story of Stuff“. A slick propaganda video that targets kids with a series of cliche’s the communists use against American freedom and market system – LINK.
Lee Doren takes their latest propaganda film apart.
Story of Citizens United v. FEC, The Critique
David Gregory at NBC is all upset by Michelle Bachmann’s description of White House behavior as ‘Gangster Government’
Video – Michelle Bachmann: GM care dealers who donated to Republicans were targeted for closure. Those who donated to Democrats in many cases were taken off – LINK.
Michael Barone: Gangster government stifles criticism of ObamaCare – LINK.
Car dealerships being closed that are profitable are owned by mostly GOP donors – LINK.
THUGOCRACY – OBAMA ADMINISTRATION THREATENS INSURANCE COMPANIES TO KEEP QUIET ABOUT RISING HEALTH CARE COSTS DUE TO LEGISLATION….OR ELSE – LINK.
CNN Analyst Advocates Obama Go “Chigaco-Style Al Capone Gangsta” on Political Opponents – LINK.
Bill Whittle: How the “Progressive Movement” became corrupt
A history lesson you may never forget.
FORMER OBAMA ADVISOR VAN JONES IN YOUTH RECRUITMENT: FORGET RESPECTING OLD PEOPLE — YOU ARE GODS, GENIUSES & WALKING SUPERPOWERS!
Via The Blaze.
Folks, this is Hitler Youtharian. That is not a term I use lightly as I oppose frivolous comparisons to WWII.
After you watch the Van Jones video, compare that with the message from “Der Morgige Tag Ist Mein” (Tomorrow Belongs to Me) – English version LINK.
Creeped out yet?
What Jones is doing goes beyond what far left groups were pushing in schools shortly after Obama was elected such as this:
It starts out with a Cuban indoctrination song but then something happens….
and this….
There has also been concern about school teachers doing things like taking songs about Jesus and replacing Jesus with Obama and teaching the kids to sing them in public schools and other outrageous acts of propaganda as has been done HERE, HERE,HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. [Note: YouTube has pulled most of the video’s down].
Donald Rumsfeld’s “Parade of Horribles”
I now have a better understanding of why the services of Donald Rumsfeld have always been in great demand.
It is well known that during the the early days of the Iraq War mistakes were made, what is less known is that Donald Rumsfeld predicted most of them. Other elements of the Bush Administration either did not take those warnings as seriously as they could have, or plan as effectively as possible in light of his warnings.
Rumsfeld’s “Parade of Horribles”
Parade of Horribles 10-15-2002 – LINK
Arrest Al Sadr or not 1-7-2004 – LINK
re: Security Update Situation in al-Anbar 2006-10-26 – LINK
re: National Security Council Meeting 10-27-2006 – LINK
Live Sex With a Powertool in Class at Northwestern University. Your Tax Dollars at Work…
Live Sex Demo at Northwestern University’s ‘Human Sexuality’ Class… complete with a power-tool. Your tax dollars at work.
They also used a power-tool with a sex-toy connected to the end to use on the female “subject”. The university paid them $500.00 an hour.
Here is a look at the “teachers”…
Evanston, Ill. – More than 100 Northwestern students watched as a naked woman was penetrated by a sex toy wielded by her boyfriend during an after-class session of the school’s popular “Human Sexuality” class.
The demo, which was optional, was part of the popular class taught by Prof. John Michael Bailey, the Sun-Times is reporting. More than 600 students take the class, which the course description says “will treat human sexuality as a subject for scientific inquiry.”
The woman involved in the demonstration was not a student, according to the Daily Northwestern, NU’s student newspaper.
“Her boyfriend did the penetration on her,” said Ken Melvoin-Berg, who narrated what was happening for the class. He operates the “Weird Chicago Red Light District Sex Tour.”
In an email, Northwestern defended the class and its professor.
“Northwestern University faculty members engage in teaching and research on a wide variety of topics, some of them controversial and at the leading edge of their respective disciplines,” said spokesman Alan Cubbage. “The University supports the efforts of its faculty to further the advancement of knowledge.”
Do Academics Hate Your Religious Parents?
Public School Teacher: We hate you. Now give us your kids so that we can turn them against you.
That is what it is like for many schools. Every few days I have to sit down with my child and undo the damage that is done in public school. I have to undo the union propaganda they push on my child in class, the one sided politicking, the slanted history education, and the eco-extremism.
David French via National Review:
Over at the Alliance Defense Fund’s Academic Freedom File, my colleague Jeff Shafer has written a fascinating blog post analyzing the intellectual roots of academic efforts to stigmatize Christianity and divorce kids from their religious upbringing. It begins:
The late American philosopher Richard Rorty (d. 2007) in describing his assessment of the role of university professor wrote: “When we American college teachers encounter religious fundamentalists, we do not consider the possibility of reformulating our own practices of justification so as to give more weight to the authority of the Christian scriptures. Instead, we do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization.” The re-education imperative is one that he, “like most Americans who teach humanities or social science in colleges and universities, invoke when we try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own.” Rorty explains to the “fundamentalist” parents of his students: “we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable.” He helpfully explains that “I think those students are lucky to find themselves under the benevolent Herrschaft [domination] of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents.”
In fact, some of our student clients have heard simplified versions of this very sentiment, and I can distinctly remember my own southern, religious upbringing being venomously caricatured during my law-school days. The fact that my father was a math professor who earned his doctorate (a real-life Good Will Hunting) in a mere ten months was irrelevant compared with his status as an elder in a very conservative evangelical church. I had to be “rescued” from my own heritage.
I stubbornly resisted rescue, but many students — eager for acceptance and feeling isolated — give up, surrendering to the dominant culture and feeding an academic beast that demands conformity, in speech and belief.
Senator Lautenberg at Planned Parenthood Rally: Republicans don’t deserve Constitutional Rights
Video: Here are your Planned Parenthood activists in action.
I appreciate their candor, even it if is a tad revolting.
Bottom line, they want to engage in all of the irresponsible behavior they want and they believe they have the RIGHT to make you pay for the consequences. Many of them also have some serious hate issues as you will see.
This is just something that has got to be seen to be believed.
By the way, Planned Parenthood engages in institutional violations of the law. This is merely one of these videos we could post:
Planned Parenthood “We can make sure that your donation aborts black babies only…” no joke folks:
Black community leaders speak out:
Planned Parenthood apologized for the phone calls, but there is one little problem. Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist who wanted to use abortion, segregation, sterilization, birth control both voluntary and involuntary, to create a master race. According to Sanger if we have to “clear the weeds” to “cultivate the garden” so be it and should be used to solve “the negro problem”:
“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” – Margaret Sanger’s December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255 Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon’s Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.
Obama’s Preacher: Black Liberation Theology, socialism and Marxism sound the same. Capitalism is a demon. Beck, Palin, Tea Party, Christians, all racist for supporting Israel.
We told you this guy was radical and Obama sat in his church for 20 years, sent his kids to Sunday school with this man, and had his children baptized by him.
Via The Blaze:
Target suing “gay rights” group for harassing customers – A PR lesson.
This is a lesson that everyone should learn. You cannot placate or satisfy the radical left. If you give in to them just a little, they will move the goal post continually and as long as demonizing you yields results they will continue to do so.
The radical leftist group objects because Target gave a pro-business lobby a small donation, that lobby gives some money to Republicans, some of which oppose gay marriage. The homosexual angle is just that, an angle. These people are anti-capitalist and will keep up their harassment until forced to stop, Target closes, or they realize it is not in their interests to stay.
Target first started giving in by making new “pro-gay” policies etc etc. Look at what it has gotten them. This isn’t about gay policy, this is about money and anti-capitalism. So now Target has crossed its “Amy Grant” customer base that it had courted for many years and still the gay leftist group trashes them.
[Editor’s Note – Valuable Lesson: Once you are targeted in the culture war, or you participate in it as Target did with their Amy Grant ads, you had better stake out your territory, stick to it and not waffle or you WILL lose support with all sides. If Target had made it clear that this pressure group would receive no quarter they could appeal to its cultural advertising base for support and would have gotten it. Now Target has put off both sides. Target’s old cultural ad base now believes Target’s traditional cultural appeal was just an insincere gimmick.]
The best way to deal with groups like this is to make them talk to the hand, and if they use union thug tactics you have to go on the offense.
When Jesse Jackson, CAIR and other leftist shakedown artists targeted radio stations to try and silence talk radio, talk host Jim Quinn had a very effective strategy. No meetings, keep them off your property and don’t respond to them. Pretend that they do not exist other than occasionally saying on the air that you know what these groups are all about. Several groups and companies have used this tactic and it works. It works because Jesse Jackson, CAIR and other pressure groups do not want it known that they are ineffective. So in cases when they are ineffective they go away quietly after a time.
Target is getting no quarter because they showed signs of giving in and actually communicated with these people in an attempt to placate them. These pressure groups on the left are predatory. Once they get blood they will keep coming back for more.
I suggest that every PR director or information officer read the book SHAKEDOWN by Ken Timmerman (a man who I have had the pleasure of meeting).
Speaking of Jesse Jackson, Benton Harbor, Michigan had riot trouble a few years ago and Jackson was able to calm the situation down. Do you know why he calmed it instead of fanning the flames for the press? Jesse Jackson went to Whirlpool Corp and made it very clear that he would use those crowds and march against Whirlpool if they did not present his group “Rainbow Push” a nice fat six figure check. Jackson was aware that Whirlpool was outsourcing and flying in foreign workers to replace local Americans in a town that had the highest unemployment in Michigan. It would not have gone over well for Whirlpool if they had resisted. I know this because I worked at Whirlpool at the time and had regular access to many of the top people there (and for the record I thought their employment practices were offensive too).
Via AP/The Blaze:
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Target Corp. is suing a San Diego pro-gay marriage group to get it to stop canvassing outside its San Diego County stores, alleging its activists are driving away customers.
Rights advocates say the trial between Target and Canvass For A Cause that begins Friday could further strain relations with the gay and lesbian community after controversy over its $150,000 donation to a business group backing a Minnesota Republican candidate opposed to gay marriage.
Minnesota-based Target insists it remains committed to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and its lawsuit has nothing to do with the political agenda of the organization.
“Our legal action was in no way related to the cause of the organization and was done so to be consistent with our long-standing policy of providing a by not permitting solicitors at our stores,” the company said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.
Target says it has taken similar action against a number of organizations representing a variety of causes. It alleges in the lawsuit that the San Diego group‘s activists harass customers by cornering them near its stores’ front entrances and debating with them about their views on gay marriage.
The group says it canvasses at shopping malls, college campus and stores like Target to collect signatures and donations in support of gay marriage.
The corporation says at least eight Target stores in the area have reported receiving more than a dozen complaints daily since canvassers started working outside their stores in October 2010. Target says the activists have refused to leave when asked politely and shown the company’s policy prohibiting “expressive activity” on its property.
How the EU Makes a Law – Stalin Would Be Proud
Do you think that politicians who brutally critique the EU are over the top? If you do you are about to change your mind.
There is sometimes a gulf of a difference between the law and the law as applied. Having heard lectures from Members of the European Parliament (MEP’s) and a lecture from England’s Lord Monckton this outline is how they describe how an EU law is made in actual practice.
Before we get into the details, think on these preliminary facts for a moment, 5/6th of all laws in member countries such as England are directives from the EU and EU courts can overrule member nation courts.
When member states had referendums on the EU there were commercials lying to the people saying that the vote was just about a trade agreement creating a European Common Market. This was a lie as it was so much more as you are about to see. Ever since that time the governments of those who voted no (France etc) went ahead with it anyway. In Ireland where the referendum lost the EU said that Ireland will vote over and over again until it passes and that after it does pass there will be no more referendums. So Ireland did just that. The EU outspent the UKIP and the EU Democracy Group 10 to 1 and yet the state sponsored media accused UKIP of nosing into the votes of other countries and of trying to buy the vote. Ireland even broke its own laws when it comes to equal time when it came to the vote. Now the EU takes very careful steps to see to it that it does nothing that could trigger a referendum in other member states.
The problem is that in many EU member states such as England, until recently they did not have political parties that were interested in limiting the power of the state. The conservative party in England moved far to the left after Margaret Thatcher retired. We often here how the Democrats here in the United States are a socialist/corporatist leviathan state party and how the Republicans are socialist/corporatist light party and while these claims are slightly exaggerated for political effect, in Europe these claims are a genuine understatement.
The EU is in essence rule by bureaucracy and like government bureaucrats seeks to rule in secret to avoid public accountability or scrutiny.
So how does it work.
Step 1:
27 unelected commissars are appointed and each member state gets a member to represent them. They are not elected and most people have no idea who they are. When they decide that they want to pass a law they meet in secret and make a rough outline for what they want the law (called a directive) to be.
Step 2:
The rough outline for the directive is sent to the Committee of Permanent Representatives which meets in secret (less chance of people rising up against it you see). They are not elected and no one outside of the bureaucratic elite knows who all of them are. Until recently they were not even mentioned on the EU web site. The only reason the group even gets a slight mention is because UKIP and the EU Democracy Group in the EU Parliament had a fit about it.
The Committee of Permanent Representatives does the markup session on the bill (directive) and makes it sound legally neat and tidy, but they hold no hearings, after all what is the point of hearings when you meet in secret? If this committee decided the proposed directive is dumb they can just ignore it and stop it right there.
Step 3:
The marked up and formatted bill is send to the Conference of Ministers, who is also not elected, and who also meets in secret, decides if they will accept the it or not (sensing a pattern yet)? With all of this secrecy and all of this bureaucracy how can anyone be held accountable? If something goes bad who is a finger pointed at? Finger pointing is next to impossible which is by design. By the way some of the known members of these various super committees are former Soviet era apparatchiks.
Step 4:
The directive is sent to the EU Parliament to a vote. The EU is elected and has meetings out in the open. They can vote yes or no, but if they vote no it becomes a law anyways. The EU Parliament is powerless to stop these directives nor can it amend or change them in anyway. This is like a school board when it wants to adopt “Outcome Based Education” to get the federal grant even though it has proven to lower test scored and be a failure in general; it has parental input meetings which mean nothing and will not change anything, but are made to provide the illusion of public input.
Step 5:
The directive (law) is sent to the member nations to have the local parliaments rubber stamp them which the larger parties in England usually do as there has been very little difference between them since Lady Thatcher retired. If the member nation’s parliament votes no, too bad, they enforce it anyways. If the member nation moves to actively resist such enforcement they are fined. The member nation can refuse to pay them, for now, but they have regulatory ways to suck money out of a member state anyways.
All is not lost. The Freedom & Democracy Caucus in the EU Parliament has been steadily growing and according to pills the UK Independence Party (UKIP) according to polls will leap to the second most powerful party in England in the upcoming elections. The best way to describe UKIP is the Tea Party of England accept their leadership is a bit more centralized and incredibly brilliant (I am not saying the Tea Party people are dumb, but rather that the UKIP leadership is a group of people who have incredible political savvy and candle power. UKIP Ideologically would closest resemble economic freedom wing of the Republican Party, but with more tolerance for collective action than many Republicans, the Tea Party’s zeal for popular sovereignty and process, and a Chris Christie like attitude. UKIP is devoutly anti-communist.
UKIP started out as a one man protest. That man is Nigel Farage a small businessman from London. When he realized what was going on he stood up and started giving speeches. He got in the reporters faces. he challenged his opponents to debates, and quite foolishly those opponents accepted that challenge and in debate after debate were rhetorically dismantled by Farage. His movement has grown and is now the UKIP which will be taking the UK Parliament by storm in the upcoming elections. Nigel Farage is Europe’s Sam Adams.
Would YOU buy a used car from this European Commission? –
Reminder: The “popular” and “hip” RT is actually Russia Today; anti-Western, anti-democratic & anti-Semitic.
You hear about reporters who are killed, tortured, or just vanish in Russia by Putin’s goons. RT will never have that problem. RT is perhaps the best and most effective anti-western propaganda on the net.
My research specialty in college was attitude change propaganda and no one does it better than Russia Today.
RT often isn’t news, it is entertainment propaganda. It looks great, the women are hot, it has a slick presentation with top notch production value. Notice how the screen changes every few seconds (MTV style) to keep young peoples eyes peeled. The content is designed to deliver an attitude with only a few facts that create a propaganda narrative. The piece not so subtlety pushes the entire “Jewish Conspiracy” angle pushed by supremacists, skinheads, and militant Islamists.
Cynthia McKinney is shown as a credible legislator and presidential candidate. The very young and those around the world have no idea that she is a full blown anti-Semite who is considered too nutty to be taken seriously even by her own party. The events form the last few days about Palestinians dancing in the streets over a young family being murdered by terrorists, rockets being fired from Gaza at Israeli civilians, a bombing in Israel and yet none of that is in this report. The report makes it seem that Israel is the big mean aggressor and those “wascally wepublicans” are in league with them.
Sarah Palin: Why Is It That the US Often Tells Israel That She Needs to Back Off?
Indeed.
Terrorists go into Israel and cut the throats of an entire family and the people in Gaza are dancing in the streets.
Hamas is launching rockets against Israeli civilians again.
Hamas set off another bomb in Israel.
Check out the video’s on the web site and at MEMRI.org and you will see Hamas state run TV using kids cartoon dubs and such to teach hate, genocide, killing Jews etc. There is no way to negotiate with people like that.
If Cuba launched rockets at us for 20 minutes, we would make it into the 51st state. They have been launching them at Israel for 20 years and still Israel shows so much restraint that its enemies are not deterred.
The entire interview is here. Sarah goes in-depth into several policy areas here so if that is something you care about be sure to watch:
UPDATE – Israel boarded a ship headed for Gaza with 50 tons of weapons, including six Iranian made anti-ship missiles of Chinese design.
Chuck DeVore advises Israel on how to use social media to fight the Hamas propaganda offensive.
Just how stupid are Columbia University professors???
They are so stupid… and in this case stupid is the best word….that their latest rant against the military is that it is discriminatory against the aged and the physically disabled.
Wow.
We have reported just how stupid the nonsense that comes out of Columbia Journalism Review and to be honest I was virtually certain that stupidity in such a degree could not be surpassed. I now stand corrected.
Columbia Professors against ROTC:
Equally important is the fact that ROTC will remain a discriminatory institution even after DADT has become a relic of history. There are many reasons–from physical disability to age–for which people are disqualified from admission.
Lee Doren from “How The World Works” posted a brilliant rant about academic stupidity and of course, the latest abject stupidity form Michael Moore.
Mary Katharine Ham vs. Michael Moore: http://goo.gl/LBP4v
Global Warming Caused Earthquake: http://goo.gl/20scw
Discriminates Against the Disabled: http://goo.gl/19QBD
ROTC: http://goo.gl/RwwM3
Columbia Journalism Review is a Smear Outfit. MSNBC Lefty Talker Admits Hiring Actors as Callers.
[Flashback of a piece I wrote in March 2011 – Editor]
Too many journalists like to smear, too may far left activists like to smear, too may far left academics like to smear. Put it all together and you get Columbia Journalism Review (CJR).
An example is this story that came out accusing Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck of secretly hiring actors to call in.
FM “Morning Zoo” shows often use a service to have an actor call in with a crazy story everyone can laugh at. Anyone who has worked in radio knows this. FM “zoo” shows have to because those people who they call up for those great laughs have to be actors due to FCC rules. You see it is illegal to put someone on the air unless you can be reasonably sure they know who they are talking to.
So a CJR “reporter” decided to take such a known service and accuse them of calling political news/talk shows with no evidence whatsoever. Said reporter never even called the company who has the service for comment, nor did the reporter call Limbaugh or Hannity to even ask the question. Instead the reporter just made the allegation.
The story gets worse, the story is from Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), allegedly from the finest teaching journalism professors in the country. Journalism teachers who cannot follow the basic ethics rules found in any j-school textbook. CJR is partially funded by George Soros.
UPDATE – MSNBC lefty talker Ed Schultz admits he used hired actors coached by Congressional Democrats as callers. (H/T The Blaze)
His excuse is lame. When my radio show started we had nothing and I built it up with hard work and talent to beat the competition. I never used staged ringers as callers. A good host should be ready to go an entire show filled with great content and never have to take a call. The most obvious reason why is that at times technical difficulties will prevent you form taking calls. People do not listen to a show to hear callers so quite frankly callers are not that important. That is why I never took very many calls on my show.
What will CJR have to say now?
I will have more on CJR in my upcoming book.
NewsReal: Seven Child Molesters Protected by Teacher’s Unions
How many times have you heard that public school teachers are sorely underpaid, under-appreciated public servants with hearts of gold who love your kids more than you do? There is a myth out there that every person who enters into the sacred field of education has the heart of a servant, a love of children and no desire for personal gain or satisfaction. And certainly, there are teachers that fit that description (I’ve had a few myself.)
But I’ve also had teachers who should never have been allowed within fifty feet of children. A 2004 study by Hofstra University scholar Charol Shakeshaft on the sexual misconduct of public school teachers is a shocking wake-up call that was widely ignored by the public union-friendly press. And even worse, the public teachers unions protected many of the offending teachers and allowed them to quietly transfer to other schools where they victimized more children. “Examples include touching breasts or genitals of students; oral, anal, and vaginal penetration; showing students pictures of a sexual nature; and sexually-related conversations, jokes, or questions directed at students.”
Everyone agrees that the sex scandal in the Catholic Church is a tragedy of immense proportions and the media has done a good job at uncovering the network of cover-ups and lies that harmed children irreparably. But what would you say if I told you that the public school system, which is about the same size as the Catholic Church in America with a school in every parish, has more sexual abuse cases in ten years than the Catholic Church has had in fifty? The mishandling of sex offenders in the public school system has cost hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees to the taxpayers and unmeasurable damage to the victims. The following are among the worst offenders in the public school system.
Follow this LINK for the details.
Glenn Beck Reacts to Wisconsin Student Who Wants to “Take Control” of Workplace to Be “Free”
Watch what this student has to say. Where did he learn such anti-common sense Marxist drivel? How did he become, quite frankly, so dumb? I would bet $1000 that he was indoctrinated by unionized public school teachers and some Marxist professors. Some of you might not be aware of this, but at many universities, if you are not far left you will not get tenure and other academics will try and suppress you. There are countless of examples of this.
Parents, you need to watch this and you need to teach your children to resist Indoctrinate U.
Oh what ever you do don’t stop watching now, it gets even better:
Lee Doren: Why I changed from a leftist to a conservative after college.
Lee worked for a leftist environmental lobby. He realized that he was helping to prevent poor people in Africa and other places from getting inexpensive energy. As a result people had to burn what the could find to cook. The result was lung cancers, deaths, bad medical treatment and mass suffering. How would your grandmother live with no electricity or electric heat?
Watch the rest here.
Charles Koch Speaks Out
WSJ:
Crony capitalism and bloated government prevent entrepreneurs from producing the products and services that make people’s lives better.
By CHARLES G. KOCH
Years of tremendous overspending by federal, state and local governments have brought us face-to-face with an economic crisis. Federal spending will total at least $3.8 trillion this year—double what it was 10 years ago. And unlike in 2001, when there was a small federal surplus, this year’s projected budget deficit is more than $1.6 trillion.
Several trillions more in debt have been accumulated by state and local governments. States are looking at a combined total of more than $130 billion in budget shortfalls this year. Next year, they will be in even worse shape as most so-called stimulus payments end.
For many years, I, my family and our company have contributed to a variety of intellectual and political causes working to solve these problems. Because of our activism, we’ve been vilified by various groups. Despite this criticism, we’re determined to keep contributing and standing up for those politicians, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who are taking these challenges seriously.
Both Democrats and Republicans have done a poor job of managing our finances. They’ve raised debt ceilings, floated bond issues, and delayed tough decisions.
In spite of looming bankruptcy, President Obama and many in Congress have tiptoed around the issue of overspending by suggesting relatively minor cuts in mostly discretionary items. There have been few serious proposals for necessary cuts in military and entitlement programs, even though these account for about three-fourths of all federal spending.
Yes, some House leaders have suggested cutting spending to 2008 levels. But getting back to a balanced budget would mean a return to at least 2003 spending levels—and would still leave us with the problem of paying off our enormous debts.
Federal data indicate how urgently we need reform: The unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid already exceed $106 trillion. That’s well over $300,000 for every man, woman and child in America (and exceeds the combined value of every U.S. bank account, stock certificate, building and piece of personal or public property).
The Congressional Budget Office has warned that the interest on our federal debt is “poised to skyrocket.” Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is sounding alarms. Yet the White House insists that substantial spending cuts would hurt the economy and increase unemployment.
Plenty of compelling examples indicate just the opposite. When Canada recently reduced its federal spending to 11.3% of GDP from 17.5% eight years earlier, the economy rebounded and unemployment dropped. By comparison, our federal spending is 25% of GDP.
Government spending on business only aggravates the problem. Too many businesses have successfully lobbied for special favors and treatment by seeking mandates for their products, subsidies (in the form of cash payments from the government), and regulations or tariffs to keep more efficient competitors at bay.
Crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market. But it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.
The purpose of business is to efficiently convert resources into products and services that make people’s lives better. Businesses that fail to do so should be allowed to go bankrupt rather than be bailed out.
But what about jobs that are lost when businesses go under? It’s important to remember that not all jobs are the same. In business, real jobs profitably produce goods and services that people value more highly than their alternatives. Subsidizing inefficient jobs is costly, wastes resources, and weakens our economy.
Because every other company in a given industry is accepting market-distorting programs, Koch companies have had little option but to do so as well, simply to remain competitive and help sustain our 50,000 U.S.-based jobs. However, even when such policies benefit us, we only support the policies that enhance true economic freedom.
For example, because of government mandates, our refining business is essentially obligated to be in the ethanol business. We believe that ethanol—and every other product in the marketplace—should be required to compete on its own merits, without mandates, subsidies or protective tariffs. Such policies only increase the prices of those products, taxes and the cost of many other goods and services.
Our elected officials would do well to remember that the most prosperous countries are those that allow consumers—not governments—to direct the use of resources. Allowing the government to pick winners and losers hurts almost everyone, especially our poorest citizens.
Recent studies show that the poorest 10% of the population living in countries with the greatest economic freedom have 10 times the per capita income of the poorest citizens in countries with the least economic freedom. In other words, society as a whole benefits from greater economic freedom.
Even though it affects our business, as a matter of principle our company has been outspoken in defense of economic freedom. This country would be much better off if every company would do the same. Instead, we see far too many businesses that paint their tails white and run with the antelope.
I am confident that businesses like ours will hire more people and invest in more equipment when our country’s financial future looks more promising. Laying the groundwork for smaller, smarter government, especially at the federal level, is going to be tough. But it is essential for getting us back on the path to long-term prosperity.
Mr. Koch is chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, Inc. He’s the author of “The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World’s Largest Private Company” (Wiley, 2007).
Video: Liberal Universities Explained
Dr. Clare Spark: Inflaming minorities in the universities with demoralizing curriculum
We can’t talk about schools and teachers unions without inspecting the current curriculum, which is negative about America NOW, as opposed to a straightforward account of achievements and failures.
I have written extensively about the master narrative that dominates the teaching of U.S. History in post-civil rights America throughout this website. The mobilizing of pro-government workers unions has put this issue front and center. The purpose of this blog is to remind our visitors that the humanities curriculum as it was adjusted after the assassinations of MLK Jr. and Malcolm X could have done nothing else but to intensify already existent divisions in our country, thence to under-educate the students most in need of high quality education that would prepare them to compete in the job market in fields where there is high demand for skilled labor.
I refer of course to the focus on Native Americans as victims of westward expansion; the Mexican War; slavery, the slave trade, the Civil War and Reconstruction; the Chinese Exclusion Act; the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII; and the exclusionary policies of labor unions until the establishment of the CIO. Not only these events were and are deployed by leftists and liberals to insure the hatred of “the dominant culture” (including the “racist” white working class), but these events that did of course happen, are said to linger in the present, despite a congeries of government programs at all levels, including preferential treatment in the race for college admissions, hiring in government employment, separatist ethnic studies programs in universities and colleges, and in corporations.
1960s activists against the Viet Nam war and “the system” have taken over the command posts of education and media, always in the name of a higher law than those “bourgeois” rules that constitute the basis for our democratic republic. Such high dudgeon is then used to justify lawless actions against “the system” that has tortured and dispossessed the minorities who comprise so much of the base of the Democratic Party. So although we see mostly white faces in the Wisconsin protesters, I suggest that their “civil disobedience” is experienced by them as a link to abolitionists and others who argued for “the higher law” that abrogated the Constitution, seen as a slaveholders’ document. OTOH, recall that Charles Sumner, the antislavery Senator from Massachusetts and a founder of the Republican Party, did not appeal to a higher law, but rather argued that the case for antislavery lay in the Declaration of Independence and in the Preamble to the Constitution; that the individual States were akin to Republics that should insure the promised equality in our founding documents, hence could not use “state’s rights” to justify slavery and its expansion. After the Civil War, he pleaded that the hatred must stop. For this, along with his “radical” proposal for compensating the freedmen with land and full civil rights, I have inferred that he has been diminished by some key academic authorities as harsh and extreme.
Already, government and other unions are mobilizing across the nation to strengthen their collective hands against an insurgent Republican Party. It is to be hoped that the public will use this opportunity to examine every phase of our educational system, including the demoralizing curriculum that is hurting everyone, indeed, that in tandem with much of the mass media, is inspiring cynicism on a massive scale, threatening to bring down the Republic, a Republic that is our “last best hope” for the future of our species.
Dr. Spark received her Bachelor of Science from Cornell, Masters in Teaching from Harvard, and her doctorate in U.S. & European Intellectual History form UCLA.
Video: Nigel Farage vs Sarkozy
Sarkozy is smooth. Of that there is little doubt. So smooth he can say something with an attitude that makes you feel one way, while the substance of it actually means the opposite. Politicians by their nature are great at this sort of thing. Unfortunately for Mr. Sarkozy, Nigel Farage has a B.S. detector that is always at the top of its game.
If you respect things like procedure and popular sovereignty you will enjoy this smack-down.
Journalism Students: It is easy to smear someone just by being careless.
This video is a great teaching aid for journalism students.
The South Bend Tribune once snapped a picture of a strip joint just to have a file picture. In the picture were two people walking on the sidewalk innocently. The picture implied, not with intent, but with carelessness, that the two ladies were going to the strip club. The ladies got upset and the Tribune, to their credit, made it right with them.
In this case, Fox News did a similar thing. Watch the video and before you read below see if you can spot what their producer who put this clip together did wrong.
At the 45 second mark Fox shows several clips of people on YouTube asking people to donate. Notice the word “scam” is under the clips. One of the clips belonged to the man below. His full clip can be seen HERE. His link went to the United Nations World Food Program at http://www.wfp.org/ which is legit.
One can honestly say that Fox News painted him in the light of a scam artist, a criminal. It is doubtful that they had intent and the language they used in talking about it does mitigate any claim of intent. What likely happened here is that a producer or an intern just did a search on YouTube for “donate Haiti” and pasted in the first three clips he could find.
As a result this man was made to suffer. Needless to say he was very upset and he is right to be upset.
Now before the campus crazies go all nuts trashing Fox News it is important to remember that unintentional smears like this are not uncommon. In fact every news organization who has been in business for a while can likely point to such a gaffe they have made. This is why journalism text books usually point this kind of mistake out. If you do make this kind of mistake apologize and run a visible retraction ASAP.
As a journalist, you are going to screw up sometimes. When you do just apologize and make it right. No one expects you to be a saint, they just expect you to make a best effort to be fair.
Too many journalists like to smear. An example is this story that came out accusing Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh of secretly hiring actors to call in. FM “Morning Zoo” shows often use a service to have an actor call in with a crazy story everyone can laugh at. Anyone who has worked in radio knows this. So a reporter decided to take this known service and accuse them of calling political news/talk shows with no evidence whatsoever. Said reporter never even called the company who has the service for comment, nor did the reporter call Limbaugh or Hannity to even ask the question. Instead the reporter just made the allegation.
The story gets worse, the story is from Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), allegedly from the finest teaching journalism professors in the country; journalism teachers who cannot follow the basic ethics rules found in any j-school textbook. CJR is partially funded by George Soros.
While this may make your editor’s day in a highly ideological news room, as most are, be careful. If a reporter ever pulled a stunt like that on one of my clients I would have that reporters face on 100 blogs, make them the butt of jokes and make their dishonesty a viral blog story. Many publicists and press secretaries make a list of what reporters are honest and who is not. If you aren’t you will find that people will stop talking to you.
Politico.com is finding this out the hard way. Lately the quality of the journalism there has been going down and it has become more tabloid/smear like Slate. People on the inside have told us that Politico is aware of this problem. Now it seems that Politico’s planned first presidential debate on May 2, 2011 is not going to happen as Palin and Bachmann have both made it clear that they have no interest in helping Politico’s business model or in helping them regain their credibility. Now that Hotair.com seems to be taking a similar editorial view it appears that the debate is not going to happen, or will have so few candidates there that it will be irrelevant. You brought it on yourselves guys.
UPDATE – MSNBC lefty talker admits he used hired actors coached by Congressional Democrats as callers.
His excuse is lame. When my radio show started we had nothing and I built it up with hard work and talent to beat the competition. I never used staged ringers as callers. A good host should be ready to go an entire show filled with great content and never have to take a call. The most obvious reason why is that at times technical difficulties will prevent you from taking calls. People do not listen to a show to hear callers, so callers are not that important. That is why I never took very many calls on my show.
What will CJR say now?
Political Arena 