Social Agendas in American schools

Following is my latest column in the Boyne City Gazette: American schools follow social agenda

Those who visit my “news service” at conservativecorner-karen.blogspot.com will read part of columns from around the world, with links provided to give access to the entire column.  They are not my words.  My statements are in italics and in brackets. We all read and hear liberal views on mainstream media every day.  I focus on balancing that information with conservative views.  On the basis of many articles posted in the past 2 ½ years, I recently made a statement about social agendas in schools in America, an undeniable fact for those who have followed my Corner.

 

I never condemned northern Michigan schools, for I have not found any reason to do so.  We may be blessed here in northern Michigan to have fine schools with wonderful teachers teaching good American values as well as reading, writing and arithmetic.  Wonderful!  Do we still recite the Pledge of Allegiance here?  I study the national scene.  Much of what is happening in our nation’s schools can only be discovered by research.  It is good for us all that Mr. Melvin presents his views on Michigan politics.   We can judge for ourselves on the issues.  I would never describe his ideas as something to be shoveled, however, as he did mine.  I agree that my reports are outrageous, uncomfortable, disturbing, and not appreciated by some. But they are legitimate news items written in legitimate newspapers and websites.  Here are some items of interest from former postings:

 

1)      A middle school in Massachusetts required children to complete a graphic sex survey without the knowledge of their parents.

2)      At an elementary school in Oakland, officials allowed Gender Spectrum to tell kindergartners that sexuality “is what they want it to be, not necessarily what nature endowed them to be”. This is none of a public school’s business – instructing on sex practices. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/25/gender-diversity-lesson-california-school-riles-critics/

3)      A downstate Michigan school which expects parents to teach their children the alphabet found the time to hold an information session telling even preschoolers that a kindergartner they had never met had died of swine flu.  Students were told that if they just hugged someone, they would be okay.  Isn’t death a subject which only parents should have the right to discuss with their children?

4)      Arizona passed a law banning classes (for primarily Latino students) in kindergarten thru 12^th grade that promoted the overthrow of the U.S. government.  Texts there referred to “White People” as “oppressors” who oppress Latino people. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/06/15/20110615arizona-ethnic-studies-violates-law-chief-says.html#ixzz1PRFJYV2N

5)      The Progressive Forum in Sacramento, with Frances Fox Piven of Cloward and Piven fame, in April held a national Fight Back Teach-In focused on austerity, debt, corporate greed and What You Can Do About It. Among others, students from Brown University ‘s Student Labor Alliance attended online.  Our future teachers are hereby being indoctrinated.  http://progressiveforum07.blogspot.com/2011/03/teach-in-april-5-national-effort.html

6)       The San Francisco Chronicle wrote about an elementary school lesson on gender diversity featuring all-girl geckos and transgender clownfish.  This is stealth indoctrination.

7)      Redwood Heights Elementary School students at every grade level were introduced to the topic of gender diversity. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/23/BAI51JJQ35.DTL#ixzz1NMeLdzEq

8)      The U.S. Department of Education, the EPA, and the Council for Environmental Quality is  developing  school criteria which will indoctrinate our children to the beliefs of our government concerning global warming and the environment.

9)      Van Jones’ “Speak Truth to Power” human rights curriculum was introduced to over 1000  middle and high school students in New York, focusing on corporate greed, Chinese labor camps and abolishing the death penalty.  http://biggovernment.com/kolson/2010/12/13/ny-schools-human-rights-curriculum-features-van-jones/#more-206369                           

10)  New York City special investigator for schools reported that in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007 spring break trips to Cuba were taken by public-school students, with permission from the school and the Department of Education.  “You know, Ms. Lacey, I’m a communist,” he told the reporter.  http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/communist-teacher-blamed-for-improper-trip-to-cuba/.

11)   America’s Safe School Czar, appointed by President Barack Obama, was Kevin Jennings,  known in Massachusetts for his GayLesbianStraightEducationNetwork  Conference in which teens were given information on hard-core, unorthodox, (unprintable here) sexual practices. That doesn’t make me feel our children are being protected at all. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/23/critics-assail-obamas-safe-schools-czar-say-hes-wrong-man-job#ixzz1Qt0cEEEq

  12) This was learned after the column was printed:  Illinois will no longer test for writing skills in schools, only reading and math.

We can keep our blinders on, or we can dare to learn what is happening elsewhere, preparing for the day when it might be attempted here.

 

 

Raising debt ceiling w/o vote of Congress would be impeachable act, says Representative; Congress must declare war, not President; Marco Rubio on taxes and taxpayers; Illinois drops writing exams; Obama commands mortgage companies with edict; No accounting for lack of warming is a travesty; NY may lift ban on hydraulic fracturing; The costs of wind turbines in the UK

Expose Obama writes: Not all Republicans are rolling over in the face of President Obama’s unconstitutional usurpation of power. Rep. Tim Scott, R-SC, said if the president moves forward with a plan to raise the debt ceiling without Congressional authority, he would consider it “an impeachable act.” Scott told the Tea Party group LowCountry 9.12 on Tuesday:

This president is looking to usurp congressional oversight to find a way to get it done without us. My position is that is an impeachable act, from my perspective. There are a lot of things people say, “Are you going to impeach the president over that?” — No. But this? This is catastrophic. This jeopardizes the credibility of our nation if one man can usurp the entire system set up by our Founding Fathers over something this significant…There will be a revolt among the American people, and that’s what it takes. http://www.exposeobama.com/2011/07/07/congressman-calls-obamas-debt-ceiling-proposal-an-impeachable-act-video/?utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=0804b2d902-EO_07_07_20117_7_2011&utm_medium=email

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From the Daily Kos, [of all places - as left wing as it gets] !: Via fellow blogger WIIIAI, I was alerted to an Obama press conference I somehow missed on Wednesday. One could use up a lot of electrons on picking apart what he had to say on lots of subjects, but let's concentrate on the most egregious statements - the ones on Libya (a subject which, curiously enough, was apparently not important enough to be addressed by Obama in his introduction, and only came up in the Q&A session).

Q: There have been a lot of questions about the constitutionality -- constitutional interpretations of a few decisions you’ve made, so I’ll just simply ask:  Do you believe the War Powers Act is constitutional?... A: I’m not a Supreme Court justice so I’m not going to -- putting my constitutional law professor hat on here.  Let me focus on, initially, the issue of Libya.  I want to talk about the substance of Libya because there’s been all kinds of noise about process and congressional consultation and so forth.

Absolutely remarkable. To a man who was a Constitutional law professor, discussions of the Constitution and laws passed by Congress are just "noise." The Constitutional mandate for Congress to declare war is just a "process." Are we sure this man actually was a "Constitutional law professor"? I have my doubts. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/01/990603/-Obama:-Constitution-and-laws-are-just-noise-and-other-lies-about-Libya

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Real Clear Politics writes: "We don't need new taxes. We need new taxpayers, people that are gainfully employed, making money and paying into the tax system. Then we need a government that has the discipline to take that additional revenue and use it to pay down the debt and never grow it again," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said on the Senate floor. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/07/sen_rubio_we_dont_need_new_taxes_we_need_new_taxpayers.html
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WLS AM reports: Illinois will assess only reading and arithmetic now that high school juniors will no longer be tested on their writing skills during standardized exams every spring, according to a published report.
Cutting the writing exams will save about $2.4 million amid the state's budgetary shortfalls. Writing tests for elementary and middle school students were dropped last year. http://www.wlsam.com/Article.asp?id=2230405
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The Wall ST. Journal writes: The Obama administration will require mortgage companies to extend more generous mortgage relief to help certain unemployed borrowers from losing their homes to foreclosure.
Under policy changes announced Thursday, mortgage companies that collect payments on loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration will be required to offer 12 months of forbearance for qualified unemployed borrowers. Currently, out-of-work borrowers with these loans can receive a minimum of four months without mortgage payments. http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2011/07/07/mortgage-aid-for-unemployed-expanded/
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The LA Times writes: An Obama administration official who was the principal architect behind the federal government's bailout of General Motors Corp. in 2008 may have lied to Congress, lawmakers charged on Thursday.

Ron Bloom, former senior advisor to the Treasury secretary and now assistant to the president for Manufacturing Policy, reportedly told a journalist and an author that he "did this all for the unions." http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-bloom-testimony-congress-20110707,0,2630822.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fpolitics+%28L.A.+Times+-+Politics%29
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The UK Telegraph reports: The headline of this post really shouldn’t be controversial. It chimes perfectly with what Kevin “null hypothesis” Trenberth wrote in that notorious 2009 Climategate email to Michael Mann:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

And it’s what Phil Jones admitted in a BBC interview when he said that there had been no “statistically significant” warming since 1995.
it turns out all that pollution that Chinese are pumping into the air thanks to their unhealthy obsession with economic growth and giving better lives to their children is actually counteracting the effects of Man Made Global Warming.

“Results indicate that net anthropogenic forcing rises slower than previous decades because the cooling effects of sulfur emissions grow in tandem with the warming effects greenhouse gas concentrations. This slow-down, along with declining solar insolation and a change from El Nino to La Nina conditions, enables the model to simulate the lack of warming after 1998,” the team explains.

In other words Man Made Global Cooling is cancelling out Man Made Global Warming. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100095506/there-has-been-no-global-warming-since-1998/
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CNN writes: In a surprise move, New York state is likely to lift its ban on hydraulic fracturing, the controversial process used to extract natural gas.
The state's Department of Environmental Conservation released a draft Thursday of proposed regulations governing what's known as "fracking," in which drilling companies inject thousands of gallons of water, sand and some chemicals deep into the ground to crack shale rock and release gas. http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/01/news/economy/fracking_new_york/index.htm
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The UK Telegraph reported: In the week when it was reported that 20 per cent of the EU's fast-soaring, trillion-euro budget may soon be spent on "fighting climate change", it was timely that Britain's energy companies should have met with the Department of Energy and Climate Change to raise one of the best-hidden secrets of our Government's obsession with wind power.

Centrica and other energy companies last week told DECC that, if Britain is to spend £100 billion on building thousands of wind turbines, it will require the building of 17 new gas-fired power stations simply to provide back-up for all those times when the wind drops and the windmills produce even less power than usual.

We will thus be landed in the ludicrous position of having to spend an additional £10 billion on those 17 dedicated power stations, which will be kept running on "spinning reserve", 24 hours a day, just to make up for the fundamental problem of wind turbines. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8612716/Proof-that-the-Government-is-tilting-at-windmills.html
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Obama Administration stonewalls Congress on Fast and Furious; Obama's pledges gun control "under the radar"; How to skirt U.S. immigration laws; Daily Caller explains UN's Agenda 21 - coming to a community near you; No strong evidence that salt reduction helps prevent heart disease; CA spending $1.25 billion annually for health care for illegals; Atlanta cheats to get testing successes for schools; Obama has discussion with China which are against newly signed law; Obama statement means jobs lost in aviation industry;

Floyd Reports opines: The chief congressional investigators of Operation Fast and Furious released explosive testimony from the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that they say indicates the Obama administration tried to stonewall Congress, deny witnesses the ability to testify freely, and fire employees who refused to conceal damning information. According to acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson not only did the Justice Department play fast-and-loose with Fast and Furious, but other government agencies may have known – and funded – the straw purchasers the ATF program was designed to catch. The agency’s investigation, which has resulted in at least two deaths, may have been entirely unnecessary.
Scorn on the Fourth of July
Congressman Darrell Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley sent a joint letter to Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday, revealing that Melson gave a transcribed interview on the Fourth of July, with only his personal lawyer present. The news must have come as a shock to Holder. Melson’s testimony had been scheduled to take place July 13, with Melson’s counsel and Obama administration lawyers from the DoJ and ATF taking part.
According to the letter, Melson testified that the administration had not informed him of his legal right “to attend a voluntary interview with [his] own lawyer… rather than participate with counsel representing the Department’s interests.”
Justice Department officials directed them not to respond and took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress. The result is that Congress only got the parts of the story that the Department wanted us to hear.
Catherine Papoi of the Department of Homeland Security. Papoi testified that Obama officials are “breaking the law by knowingly and intentionally delaying and obstructing the release of agency records” after Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. http://floydreports.com/whistleblower-testifies-obama-obstructed-fast-and-furious-investigation/
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The New York Post quotes more from the letter to Obama from Congress: "It is one thing to argue that the ends justify the means in an attempt to defend a policy that puts building a big case ahead of stopping known criminals from getting guns. Yet it is a much more serious matter to conceal from Congress the possible involvement of other agencies in identifying and maybe even working with the same criminals that Operation Fast and Furious was trying to identify."
Law-abiding gun owners and dealers think they already know [what the purpose might be of having this failed program]. With the Obama administration wedded to the fiction that 90 percent of the guns Mexican cartels use originate here -- they don't -- many suspect that "Fast and Furious" was a backdoor attempt to smear domestic gun aficionados as part of its stealth efforts on gun control by executive fiat.
"I just want you to know that we're working on it," Obama was quoted as saying to gun-control advocate Sarah Brady in March. "We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar."
Unfortunately for the administration, this one's out in the open now.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/fast_furious_gets_hotter_for_holder_wDCoBUrOxYF8r1GobKS89M#ixzz1RQ4ib4wK

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American Thinker opines: By now, the word is probably spreading like wildfire on the country's Spanish language radio stations that cater to illegal immigrants.  Get pregnant, or conceive a child with your spouse or significant other, and you likely won't be deported.
Already have a child?  Bring them here to America illegally.  If you can prove you are the guardian of a minor, the government will likely take deportation off the table.
It's all part of what appears to be a new Obama Administration plan to incentivize illegal immigrants not just to come to America, but to stay, have and expand families, and put down roots that will hold them here. 


It was widely reported last week that the Obama Administration used executive fiat to pass the DREAM ACT, which allows illegal immigrants brought here as children to stay. But the administration actually went much further than that.  An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo virtually decreed that it is now immigration enforcement policy in this country not to deport anyone except those with violent criminal histories.  And even those with criminal histories may be eligible for a pass on deportation because their histories will be considered on a case by case basis, according to the memo. [Who needs Congress any more?]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/ice_memo_reveals_new_obama_administration_plan_to_incentivize_illegal_immigrants.html
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Daily Caller writes: Agenda 21 is a UN initiative that 178 governments at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of saving the environment. It bills itself as a coordinated plan of action to help nations and local government ensure “sustainability.”
“Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment,” the U.N. website explains.
While the aim sounds innocent enough, Tea Partiers argue that it is just a means to an end. The end, they say, is the usurpation of American sovereignty, a planned economy and redistribution of the wealth.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/06/un-environmental-initiative-is-the-tea-partys-new-nightmare/#ixzz1RLUszlu2

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American Thinker writes: Sophie Borland in the UK Daily Mail: "Research involving nearly 6,500 people concluded that there was 'no strong evidence' that lowering levels in the diet reduced the risk of heart disease or premature death." (snip) Frankly, I never believed that a substance my mind, body, and palate craved, a substance it needs for life itself, could be all that bad. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/07/new_study_shows_lowering_salt_intake_doesnt_help.html

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Judicial Watch reports: While the Obama Administration halts deportations to work on its secret amnesty plan, hospitals across the U.S. are getting stuck with the exorbitant tab of medically treating illegal immigrants and some are finally demanding compensation from the federal government.

The group that represents most of the nation’s hospitals and medical providers recently urged President Obama to work with Congress to reimburse them for the monstrous cost of treating illegal immigrants. Federal law requires facilities to “treat and stabilize individuals” regardless of their immigration status, but federal support for the services remains “virtually nonexistent,” according to a letter submitted by the American Hospital Association to the president.

This week officials in California, the state with the largest concentration of illegal immigrants, joined the call for federal compensation after revealing that hospitals there spend about $1.25 billion annually to care for illegal aliens. The figure skyrocketed from $1.05 billion in 2007, according to California Hospital Association figures quoted in a local news report. http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2011/jul/calif-hospitals-spend-1-25-bil-illegal-immigrants

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports: Across Atlanta Public Schools, staff worked feverishly in secret to transform testing failures into successes.

Teachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets.
Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.
Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.
For years — as long as a decade — this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests.  http://www.ajc.com/news/investigation-into-aps-cheating-1001375.html

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The Washington Times reports: It was an awkward moment, to say the least. Testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee, President Obama’s science adviser, John P. Holdren, was describing the Obama administration’s ongoing discussions with China to develop joint space projects.
Problem is, a law Mr. Obama had signed just weeks before prohibits NASA or Mr. Holdren's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) from engaging in any bilateral activities with China.
When challenged (“Do you understand the meaning of the word ‘prohibits’?”) Mr. Holdren asserted on advice of counsel that the president was construing the law as consistent with his inherent constitutional authority to conduct negotiations (lawyer-speak for “You can’t tell us what is off limits”).
here are two schools of thought about space cooperation with China, each with its own self-fulfilling prophecy:
c The Chinese are determined to steal our technology and get ahead militarily at our expense, so any cooperative space projects are a lose-lose for us. (The national security realists.)
c Chinese espionage will succeed no matter what we do, so we might as well get what we can out of cooperative projects. (The science and technology “realists.”) http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/6/working-with-china-opens-door-to-espionage/?page=all#pagebreak
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Daily Caller writes: Much has been made of President Barack Obama’s repeated demonizing of corporate jets and the people who fly on them in his June 29th press conference.

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPO) President Craig Fuller told The Daily Caller that Obama’s comments have cast a pall over the industry, causing many who were considering buying a plane to back away from making a purchase.
“The industry has suffered terribly in the last two and a half years and it has just started to recover. Most of the signs were starting to look good,” said Fuller. “We are so angry as an industry and we have all come together to try to bring a more fair and balanced description to the debate.”  [Contrary to what our President repeatedly says, he is most effective when killing jobs, not creating them.]

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/06/jet-industry-furious-at-obama/#ixzz1RQ6cZmom

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Some unions workers support MI right-to-work law; Biden warns unions who vote Republican are "on their own, Jack!"; Atlanta educators falsified standardized tests; New South Wales police can now demand removal of burqas;Alabama requires use of E-Verify as illegal immigration is up 325%; Obama administration holds first secret detainee; CA to require social studies curriculum to include contributions of gays; Israel to disallow pro-Palestinian via airports; The Audacity of Hope ship

Michigan Tech News wrote:  LANSING - A group of current and former Michigan union workers announced Thursday an effort to push the Legislature to enact a right-to-work law in the state, saying it would help unions as well as business. And even though Governor Rick Snyder has said repeatedly that he was not pushing for a right-to-work law, saying it would be too divisive, backers of the proposal said they trusted he would sign such a bill if it came to him. While union workers held a press conference calling for a right-to-work law, dozens of union members stood outside the room in protest of the effort. Bowman described himself, as did all the participants at the news conference, as a longtime union worker and supporter. But a requirement that persons join unions whether they choose to or not is antithetical to traditional American values, he said. Also, states with right-to-work laws have seen their economies grow even at a time when Michigan's economy collapsed, he said. http://www.mitechnews.com/articles.asp?id=13369&sec=117
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ABC News blogged: At the Paris Las Vegas Hotel on Friday, Vice President Biden addressed a convention of the International Teamsters, telling the union members to vote Democratic next year.
"And don't any of you, by the way, any of you guys vote Republican,” the garrulous Vice President started to say, after which he caught himself. “I'm not supposed to say, this isn't political, I'm not supposed to say this.”
The crowd cheered him on.
“Guys!” Biden continued. “Let me put it this way! Don't come to me if you do! You're on your own, Jack!" [This proves that the VP as well as our President support only SOME Americans.  No surprise there - just more of the same.] http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/07/vp-biden-to-teamsters-if-you-vote-republican-dont-come-to-meyoure-on-your-own-jack.html
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CNN writes: Dozens of Atlanta public school educators falsified standardized tests or failed to address such misconduct in their schools, Gov. Nathan Deal said Tuesday in unveiling the results of a state investigation that confirmed widespread cheating in the city schools dating as far back as 2001.
Some of the cheating could result in criminal charges, Deal said.
"I think the overall conclusion was that testing and results and targets being reached became more important than actual learning for children," Deal said. "And when reaching targets became the goal, it was a goal that was pursued with no excuses." http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/05/georgia.school.cheating/
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News 24 reports: Police in the Australian state of New South Wales are to be allowed to demand the removal of burqas and other face veils so they can identify people.

The state government approved the move late on Monday after the high-profile recent case of a Muslim woman being acquitted when a judge ruled she could not be positively identified because was wearing a burqa.

"I don't care whether a person is wearing a motorcycle helmet, a burqa, niqab, face veil or anything else, the police should be allowed to require those people to make their identification clear," Premier Barry O'Farrell said. http://www.news24.com/World/News/Cops-able-to-demand-removal-of-burqas-20110705
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Floyd Reports: Last month, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signed legislation (HB 56) that requires the use of E-Verify by all state employers. The law also gives Alabama some of the country’s strongest illegal-immigration enforcement tools.
Over the last decade, illegal immigration has increased in Alabama by 325 percent.
In a statement that underlines how over-immigration hurts American workers State Senator Scott Beason, a HB 56 cosponsor, said, “This is a jobs bill. We have a problem with an illegal workforce that displaces Alabama workers. We need to put those people back to work. That’s the No.1 priority.”

Other features of HB 56 will create misdemeanors for hiring day-laborers when Americans are available, failing to carry an alien registration card, producing fake ID and aiding and abetting illegal immigrants. It also will ban illegal aliens from attending state universities and colleges as well as prohibit sanctuary city policies.
In an effort to determine what the exact costs are of education for illegal alien children, HB 56 requires elementary and secondary schools to request a birth certificate for all enrolling students. That provision will enable Alabama to determine whether such minors were born outside of the U.S. or are children of illegal aliens requiring English-as-a-Second-language classes. http://floydreports.com/another-republican-governor-does-something-about-illegals/

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The LA Times reports: Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a Somali, is the first detainee known to have been secretly held by the Obama administration outside the criminal justice system. A Somali militant linked to Al Qaeda was held and interrogated for two months on a U.S. Navy ship — the first publicly known example of the Obama administration secretly detaining a new terrorism suspect outside the criminal justice system.  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-somali-detainee-20110706,0,5686806.story

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The Washington Examiner reports: California lawmakers on Tuesday sent the governor a bill that would make the state the first requiring public schools to include the contributions of gays and lesbians in social studies curriculum. http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/2011/07/landmark-gay-history-bill-goes-calif-governor

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Haaretz.com reports: The hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists who plan to try to enter Israel by air as a counterpart to the planned flotilla to the Gaza Strip won't be allowed into the country, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said Tuesday. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/hundreds-of-pro-palestinian-activists-planning-to-fly-to-israel-as-counterpart-to-gaza-flotilla-1.371641 

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The NYT reports: When an international flotilla sails for Gaza this month to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of the Palestinian territory, among the boats will be an American ship with 34 passengers, including the writer Alice Walker and an 86-year-old whose parents died in the Holocaust.
The Americans have named their boat “The Audacity of Hope,” lifting the title of a book by President Obama to make a point, said Leslie Cagan, a political organizer who is the coordinator of the American boat. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/world/middleeast/02flotilla.html 
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Progressive educators and their agendae; 1/4 of us unaware of from whom we are now "Independent"; MI judges legislate from the bench; NEA votes $32 million for Obama re-elect crisis fund; CAIR lost tax-exempt status for filing noncompliance; Plot to attack military recruitment center in Seattle; Homegrown terrorists radicalized in U.S. mosques

DailyInterLake wrote: As Miss Hilda Orr told a meeting of Altoona English teachers back in 1930, “Progressive educators seek to develop in children the social and cooperative spirit  rather than aggressive, competitive and exploiting qualities.... The leaders seek to abolish the evils of the competitive marking system which is so apt to produce in brilliant children self-consciousness, conceit and selfishness and in the slow-minded child a sense of failure, inferiority and injustice.”
Of course, what the breathless Miss Orr failed to notice as she rushed giddily into her brave new world was that the new system she touted would teach smart students that there was no value in excellence, and encourage slow students to conclude that bad was good enough.  http://dailyinterlake.com/opinion/columns/frank/article_c39e7eb8-a51b-11e0-b08e-001cc4c03286.html
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NBC reports: A Marist poll finds that 26 percent of Americans don’t know whom the United States declared its independence from.

The 26 percent includes 6 percent that are unsure that the United States fought any war of independence at all. Other respondents gave a range of countries that included France, China, Mexico, Spain and Japan, according to the pollsters at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

For the record, it was Great Britain we broke away from. http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Mari-97694414.html

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American Thinker opines: On Friday, a panel from the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Michigan's ban on affirmative action.  In a split decision (Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action vs Regents of the University of Michigan), Judges R. Guy Cole, Jr. and Martha Craig Daughtrey had the presumption to overturn the wishes of a solid majority of Michigan voters who had approved the ban in a 2006 referendum ("Proposal 2").  The idea that two individuals could presume to annul the actions of a democratic majority is troubling.  Far more troubling is the fact that, rather than interpret the law as established by the referendum, a federal court has decided once again to legislate from the bench.


In striking down the affirmation action ban, Cole wrote that "[t]he majority may not manipulate the channels of change in a manner that places unique burdens on issues of importance to racial minorities."  Whatever does Judge Cole mean by "manipulating the channels of change"?  Or by "places unique burdens on issues of importance to racial minorities"?  Rather than plain dealing based squarely on the Constitution, Cole has resorted to language so abstruse as to be mystifying.
This is not merely legal obfuscation -- it is obfuscation that seems a brazen effort to subvert the Constitution.  What Judge Cole appears to be saying is that no "issue of importance" to minorities can be questioned or even discussed by the majority since any such discussion could be construed as "manipulating the channels of change." http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/a_horrible_racial_preference_ruling_in_michigan.html

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Townhall writes: The Representative Assembly recommended that NEA members vote to re-elect President Barack Obama in the 2012 election” wrote Will Potter of the National Education Association. “They also voted for a $10 annual dues increase that will be dedicated to funding NEA's Crisis Fund, a program designed to put money back into the states for pro-public education outreach.” 3.2 million teachers will pay the tax – out of your tax dollars- which is expected to double the amount of money normally put into the “crisis fund.” http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2011/07/05/obamas_price_$10_tax_for_union_teachers-_you_pay/page/full/
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Human events writes: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has lost its tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service for failing to file legally required annual reports for three consecutive years, the federal agency said.  CAIR is one of 275,000 groups targeted by the IRS for being out of compliance with filing requirements.  “The IRS believes the vast majority of these organizations are defunct, but it also announced special steps to help any existing organizations to apply for reinstatement of their tax-exempt status,” the agency said in announcing the action. http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44411
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Fox News reports: Authorities say Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, right, and Walli Mujahidh were planning to attack a military recruitment center in Seattle.

Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif harbored grandiose plans for an attack on a military recruitment station in Seattle and said if a single gunman at Fort Hood could kill 13 people, three gunmen could kill many more, according to the criminal complaint against Abdul-Latif.

He and Walli Mujahidh were arrested in the alleged plot after a nearly month-long investigation, the Justice Department announced Thursday. They are accused of planning an attack on the Seattle site with machine guns and grenades but were foiled when a prospective accomplice contacted authorities
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/23/2-men-arrested-in-plot-to-attack-seattle-military-recruiting-station/#ixzz1QAjTPEKq
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Investors.com writes: An alarming new study shows homegrown terrorists are not just radicalized in prisons or chat rooms but in mainstream U.S. mosques. Now if someone would just tell the White House.
A survey of 100 randomly selected mosques in America finds 81% of them feature Islamic literature — not including the Quran and Sunnah — that advocates violence. And 85% of the imams running the mosques actively recommend these tracts.http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=575869&p=1
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13 S. California counties consider seceding; Supreme Court Justice Kagan may have perjured herself in testimony; Ohio kills death tax; Maine puts benchmarks on welfare; Alinsky-style group speaks at 2911 State Battles Summit; Obama Administration recruites homosexuals to adopt children; Michigan gives power to "emergency financial managers"; CIA enhanced interrogations were not criminal after all; Employers losing rights to inform on unions; Judge steps in to prayer at VA funerals problem; Obama Stimulus jobs cost us $278,000 per job

Happy Birthday, America!

CBS Los Angeles reports: Is the state of California about to go “South”?  Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone apparently thinks so, after proposing that the county lead a campaign for as many as 13 Southern California counties to secede from the state.
Stone said in a statement late Thursday that Riverside, Imperial, San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino, Kings, Kern, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo, Madera, Mariposa and Mono counties should form the new state of South California.
The creation of the new state would allow officials to focus on securing borders, balancing budgets, improving schools and creating a vibrant economy, he said. http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/07/01/official-calls-for-riverside-12-other-counties-to-secede-from-california/
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(CNSNews.com) - Forty-nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives--including the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee and two presidential candidates--are pointing to evidence they say is "contradictory" to Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan's confirmation testimony and calling for the House Judiciary Committee to investigate the matter.

The lawmakers also say they believe that evidence already made public shows that Kagan must recuse herself from any court cases involving the health care bill signed into law by President Barack Obama while she was serving as Obama's solicitor general. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/breaking-49-house-members-call-investiga

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By BILL BATCHELDER, JACK BOYLE AND DICK PATTEN, The Wall Street Journal: Ohio Gov. John Kasich made good on a major campaign promise Thursday, killing the state’s estate tax in the process of enacting the 2012-13 budget. He also managed to kill off an $8 billion deficit without raising taxes—a model for fiscally squeezed states nationwide.
The end of the death tax, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2013, will help stop the hemorrhaging of small businesses and jobs from the Buckeye State. Ohioans had suffered long enough with the levy on inheritances, with a 6% tax on personal and business assets above the $338,333 exemption, up to $500,000, and a 7% tax on assets above $500,000. The death tax was a major reason that business, jobs and capital have fled the state.
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Maine.gov.com writes: From Welfare to Opportunity - Governor Paul LePage of Maine:

Welfare should be a temporary helping hand to get Mainers back on their feet – not a lifestyle and ticket to permanent dependence on government. Governor LePage’s Welfare reforms value productivity and the need to get Maine working. Governor LePage’s plan will make sure Mainers who need help most will be taken care of, while creating a series of benchmarks and incentives so a job becomes a better choice than welfare.
http://www.maine.gov/governor/lepage/
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The founders of a radical group that teaches tactics of direct action, confrontation and intimidation were among the main speakers at a union convention at which one leader called for opposing "right-wing threats to dismantle the Middle Class."
Heather Booth, director of a Saul Alinsky-style community organizing group, the Midwest Academy, was among the main speakers at the "2011 State Battles Summit," held this week at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill Hotel in Washington, D.C
Read more: Forecast for U.S. cities: Confrontation, chaos? http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=309345#ixzz1OuBWxKE6
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Freedom Torch writes: The Obama administration tried to recruit homosexuals to adopt children, at the Federal Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Youth Summit in Washington.  http://freedomtorch.com/videos/11206/6440/obama-administration-recruits-ho
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The Blaze reports: Benton Harbor is one of approximately 100 towns in Michigan on the verge of fiscal collapse. Now economic desperation is bringing with it a sort of financial martial law. In light of Benton Harbor’s predicament Michigan lawmakers have opted for an extreme measure which gives unilateral authority to “emergency financial managers”. EMFs have complete authority to fire elected officials, close schools, void union contracts and even sell public property. [A lawsuit has been filed against this action.]  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/the-heartlands-financial-distress-dictatorship-decaying-michigan-town-on-verge-of-democratic-collapse/
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The NY Daily News reports: A special prosecutor has dashed the fondest hopes of opponents of the war on terror by concluding that the CIA's program of so-called enhanced interrogations of Al Qaeda operatives after 9/11 was not shot through with criminality after all.

Justice Department prosecutors had already found no grounds for proceeding against anyone, but that was not good enough for Holder, who came into office bearing few good thoughts about Bush administration policies.
Indeed, at the same time that he assigned Durham, a previously confidential CIA inspector general's report indicated that agents had engaged in no instances of torture in any ordinary sense of that word.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/07/03/2011-07-03_holders_tortured_probe.html#ixzz1R2gNCayM

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CNN Money writes:  Card-check has never been able to pass the Senate -- not even when Democrats took over Congress in 2006. Instead, presidential appointees friendly to labor are deploying agency muscle. "They voted under new rules that the unions asked for," Delta CEO Richard Anderson told Fortune via email. "They've done everything asked of them. And because they said no to union representation, their decisions aren't being respected; they're being held hostage."

Last week, NLRB proposed sweeping new rules cutting the amount of time available to employers to make their case prior to a union vote -- an action the Chamber of Commerce rightly denounced as a "another not so cleverly disguised effort to restrict the ability of employers to express their views" during a union campaign.  http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/30/news/economy/obama_labor_unions.fortune/index.htm

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The Chronicle reports: U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes ruled May 26 that the government couldn't stop Rainey from using the words "Jesus Christ" in his invocation. Hughes issued a temporary restraining order to prevent VA from censoring Rainey's prayer.

Discrimination alleged

Attorneys with the nonprofit Liberty Institute, which represented Rainey, filed an amended complaint this week after allegedly finding other instances of religious discrimination by cemetery officials against members of The American Legion Post 586, Veterans of Foreign Wars District 4 and the National Memorial Ladies, a volunteer group that attends funerals of fallen service members.

The complaint accuses VA of "a widespread and consistent practice of discriminating against private religious speech" at the cemetery.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7630537.html#ixzz1R4Io5ZUr

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I am deeply troubled by the allegations that were brought to my attention when I met with members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in Houston. The director of the Houston National Cemetery, Arleen Ocasio, allegedly has engaged in aggressive hostile censorship of religion at the second largest cemetery for veterans in the United States.

The First Amendment is a sacred right of all Americans, especially those who have honorably served--and given their lives--in the name of protecting the United States. Denying their families their constitutional right to the free exercise of religious freedom is disgraceful and shows blatant disrespect for America’s veterans. If these allegations are true,I formally call for the termination of Arleen Ocasio as the director the Houston National Cemetery. This display of authoritarian behavior and religious discrimination should not be tolerated.  http://poe.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=249413
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The Weekly Standard reveals: When the Obama administration releases a report on the Friday before a long weekend, it’s clearly not trying to draw attention to the report’s contents. Sure enough, the “Seventh Quarterly Report” on the economic impact of the “stimulus,” released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that President Obama’s economic “stimulus” did very little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, and a whole lot to stimulate the debt.

The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.   

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.  http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-s-economists-stimulus-has-cost-278000-job_576014.html

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