Good Teachers: Beware The Ides of March

-By Larry Sand

Julius Caesar came to a bad end on March 15th, the same date many good teachers were warned that they may be unemployed in June.

“Nearly 20,000 Teacher Pink Slips Statewide Show Drastic Need for More Education Funding” screamed the headline on the California Teachers Association website.

First, let’s straighten out the union spin. Typically when a person receives a “pink slip,” it means that they are fired. What some teachers actually received is a Reduction in Force (RIF) notice, which according to state law, must be sent to teachers by March 15th if there is the slightest chance that they will be laid off in June. School districts really don’t know in March what their budget will be for the next school year so they plan for the worst case scenario. It’s unheard of for all teachers who get the notices to actually be laid off, but some will, and they must be notified if there is any chance they will lose their jobs.

As a young teacher in New York City in 1975, I lost my 6th grade teaching because the city was in the midst of a fiscal swoon. A few thousand of us were laid off because we were the newest hires, not because we were the worst teachers. The union contract did not make any provision for getting rid of the poorest performers, just the newly employed. Fast forward 37 years and we are still doing the same stupid thing.
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Good Teachers: Beware The Ides of March”


Good News for Union Members

-By Frank Hyland

While this message applies to virtually all labor union members, it is especially applicable to the younger members, those whose futures – and whose families’ futures — are being stolen by the older members of the unions, especially the leadership.

Thinking back to when you have voted in union-led, union-conducted elections, it didn’t take long for you to figure out that what was being called an “election” was, in fact, a sham. The results already had been decided by the union’s leaders long before the “voting” even began. What you’ve been going through is called “Majority Sign-Up” or “Card Check.” At least under the present White House, there won’t be any change in the way that your union elections are conducted. Your local leadership will continue to sit in front of you and watch as you fill out your ballot. Union leaders like Richard Trumka will continue to visit the White House, travel in first-class style, and receive their handsome salaries ($283,340 in 2010) plus expenses, of course.

You can be thankful, though, that not all elections are like those conducted by your union. I’m speaking of the upcoming general election on November 6th. You’ll be treated as a grownup with a mind of your own, not a tool for the union leadership to maintain their hold on you and your dues. As I hope you’ve done in the past, you’ll again walk into a private area/booth and mark your ballot in secrecy, not in front of watchful union leaders. You won’t even need to glance at the piece of paper that union leaders, in a blatant insult to their members, give to members as instructions on candidates and ballot issues for which to vote. Union leaders aren’t even allowed to remain in the polling place, much less sit at the table and watch how their members vote like they do during Card Check.
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Good News for Union Members”


Comparison: Politico Lauds ‘Forceful’ Gov’t Obamacare Argument, Fox Notes it was Laughed At

-By Warner Todd Huston

The first arguments by the government in support of the already wildly over budget Obamacare law were heard at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday and there is an interesting lesson in media bias that can be seen in the reporting of the day’s presentation. The difference between how the government’s opening arguments was reported by Politico and Fox News is an instructive case of media bias.

First let’s look at how Politico’s Josh Gerstein and Carrie Budoff Brown reported how the government’s arguments were received by the court.

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., representing the government, opened his argument Monday with a forceful and solemn plea to the court to grapple with the key questions in the case.

Well, “forceful,” and “solemn,” eh? That sure sounds like the government presented a serious and well-received argument, doesn’t it?

Now let’s see what Fox News had to say about those opening arguments.
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Comparison: Politico Lauds ‘Forceful’ Gov’t Obamacare Argument, Fox Notes it was Laughed At”


No April Fool’s Joke: America Highest Corporate Tax IN THE WORLD!

In exactly one week before the United States has the highest corporate tax rate globally, the RATE Coalition has released a new video calling for a reduction in the corporate tax rate before the April 1 deadline when the United States will have the highest corporate tax rate at 35 percent.

Even in Washington’s polarized environment, a reduction in the corporate tax rate has bipartisan support from President Obama and the House GOP budget, both calling for significant reduction in the rate.

On April 1, the joke is on us. Having the highest corporate tax rate in the world is not a joke, and Congress and the Administration must agree on a solution to lower the rate in order to restore American competitiveness and allow U.S. business to compete in the global market and create American jobs.

Video courtesy of RATE: Reforming America’s Tax Equitably.


With the Individual Mandate it’s Obama v. Obama

Obama was right on the individual mandate…before he was wrong.

Americans agree that the mandate is unconstitutional. A recent Gallup poll found that “Americans overwhelmingly believe the ‘individual mandate,’ as it is often called, is unconstitutional, by a margin of 72% to 20%.” And even a majority of Democrats in the poll agrees with this position.


President Barack Obama’s Complete List of Historic Firsts

Doug Ross has a great list (with links for further reading) of the destructive “firsts” that Obama has perpetrated in his first term. It’s well worth taking a look.

Yes, he’s historic, alright.

  • First President to Preside Over a Cut to the Credit Rating of the United States Government
  • First President to Violate the War Powers Act
  • First President to Orchestrate the Sale of Murder Weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels
  • First President to issue an unlawful “recess-appointment” while the U.S. Senate remained in session (against the advice of his own Justice Department).
  • First President to be Held in Contempt of Court for Illegally Obstructing Oil Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
  • First President to Defy a Federal Judge’s Court Order to Cease Implementing the ‘Health Care Reform’ Law

There are dozens more at Ross’ page, so go check it out at http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/06/president-barack-obamas-complete-list.html.


OWS Scummery in a Rockin’ Tune: I Don’t (AKA The Occupier)

I Don’t, a new song by Glen Shulfer, is a sharp critique of the scummery that IS the Occupy Wall Street “movement.”

Lyrics

I Don’t (AKA The Occupier) © 2012 Glen Shulfer

Well, I don’t have to pay for my food and rent
cause I get everything from the government.
No I don’t. Honey, I don’t. Don’t you know, no, no, no I don’t.
All I want is to get my share from every stingy millionaire. Cause baby I don’t.
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OWS Scummery in a Rockin’ Tune: I Don’t (AKA The Occupier)”


Obamacare Versus the U.S. Constitution

-By Alan Caruba

In a nation where Congress has already determined how much water your toilet tank can hold and whether you can purchase a 100-watt incandescent light bulb, the assertion of federal power is now so great and so unbounded that a case concerning the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), brought by 26 states will decide whether, in fact, there are any rights or powers left to the states.

What many Americans do not know is that the United States of America is composed of separate and sovereign republics, each with its own constitution. What has occurred, however, has been the erosion of states’ rights and with that, the gradual distortion of the nation’s central instrument of governance, the Constitution, to mean anything Congress wants it to say.

At the very heart of the Obamacare case the Supreme Court will hear Monday through Wednesday, March 26 through March 28, is the question of whether the federal government can coerce the states under the threat of withholding funds—in this case for Medicaid.
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Obamacare Versus the U.S. Constitution”


Does Any Reporter Have the Courage to Ask Obama These Questions?

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

I have not tried to disguise my disagreement, distrust, disgust, and dissatisfaction with President Obama. While McCain would have taken America over the cliff, he would have done so at 65 miles per hour while Obama has done it at 100 miles per hour. Whatever the speed, we have gone over the cliff and are about to smack the bottom. This administration is the most incompetent, inefficient, irresponsible, immoral, and inept in U.S. history.

The only positive thing I saw in Obama’s election was that it was obvious proof that we are not a racist nation–except for the 93% of Blacks who voted for him because he was black (well, half black). Additionally, the pathetic insecure whites who voted for him for the same reason–color, not convictions or character is absolute proof of racism.

I thought that his election would remove the race card and we could all discuss, debate, and disagree in a civil, educated, and even gracious way. But that was not in the cards, but what is always in the cards is the race card that bigots pull out at every opportunity, especially when they can’t answer Conservatives. And frankly, even if his election were sufficient proof that we are not bigots, the results were not worth it. I would rather be thought of as a bigot than live in a totalitarian, socialist (Communist) state.
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Does Any Reporter Have the Courage to Ask Obama These Questions?”


Growing Opposition, Conservatives Call for Prop. 29’s Defeat

-By Warner Todd Huston

Two new voices have joined the growing chorus calling for the defeat of next June’s ballot initiative Proposition 29, a nearly $1 billion annual spending binge that threatens to cast California deeper into insolvency.

David Spady of Americans for Prosperity, a non-profit conservative political advocacy group, and Nick Johnson, of conservative website Red County, penned columns last week calling for the defeat of Proposition 29, the so-called California Cancer Research Act.

“Stop me if you’ve heard this joke before,” writes Spady in Flash Report. “Liberal politician with pet cause and bureaucracy-building desire packages up his or her idea, tells voters they can achieve some laudable goal ‘for free’ and takes it to the ballot. First Five Commission. Stem-cell research. High-speed rail. And now the latest in this sad line of ballot-box boondoggles: Proposition 29.”
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Growing Opposition, Conservatives Call for Prop. 29’s Defeat”


Dear Conservatives: Romney Isn’t One of Us But We Still Hold The Power If…

-By Warner Todd Huston

Romney is not conservative. Anyone that says he’s conservative is only trying to convince themselves and is willfully ignoring not only Romney’s entire executive record when he was governor of Massachusetts, but ignoring all the tell-tale signs that his current conservative-tinged campaign rhetoric is just a show to get the nomination. Romney doesn’t mean a word of what he says. But we still hold the power to force him to stay on a more or less conservative path if he wins the White House.

How can I say Romney is basically lying to us?

Well, his executive record aside — which is clearly center left, not conservative — let’s not take my word for it all. Let’s take the word of his advisers.

On CNN on March 21, for instance, senior Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom was asked about Romney’s strategy in the general should he get that far. Fehrnstrom was asked if there is a concern that the other GOP candidates have made made Romney “tack so far to the right that it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election.”

“Well, I think you hit a reset button for the Fall campaign everything changes,” Fehrnstrom replied. “It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch, you can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

That’s right. Fehrnstrom is directly saying that all Romney’s conservative rhetoric today will be quickly jettisoned and he’ll be back to his moderate, center left ideals when he’s comfortably set up as the GOP nominee. This should surprise no one. There have been a lot of other things that shows Romney isn’t a conservative. His staunch support for Romenycare and his constant lies about how he never advocated it for a national model is another example.
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Dear Conservatives: Romney Isn’t One of Us But We Still Hold The Power If…”


Will Media Apologize for Airing Anti-Apple Computer Activist’s False Claims?

-By Warner Todd Huston

When it broke, the Old Media was all over Mike Daisey’s story of the horrid working conditions at Apple Computer’s foreign manufacturing plants. The story had oppressed workers, pathos, and best of all, eeevil corporate greed. Daisey was well on the road to making Apple the liberal’s newest bete noire and was being hailed as the next Upton Sinclair. Until, that is, it became clear that he made it all up.

One of the first major media outlets to push Daisey’s anti-Apple claims was the program This American Life aired on the venerable Public Radio station WBEZ. The program featured Daisey’s claims in a January episode, but has now been faced with the “difficult news,” as representatives of the show have said, of Daisey’s fabrication.
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Will Media Apologize for Airing Anti-Apple Computer Activist’s False Claims?”


Fox Business Network Special Report: Gas Price Shock!

-By Warner Todd Huston

The price of gasoline getting you down, bunkie? I don’t blame you because it is hitting us all hard in the wallet. Oh, there’s lots of finger pointing, to be sure. The left wants to blame the Republicans sold out to the oil industry, the right blames Obama for refusing to allow us to explore for and go after our own sources of energy because he is sold out to the disastrously failed “green energy” sector.

But there are more than American politics at work in the wildly rising costs of gasoline. China, Europe, the Mid East, they all have a hand in this situation, not to mention the commodities market and the buyers, sellers, and speculators there.

It is definitely not as simple as just blaming either of our political parties.

So, just what the heck is going on here? Tune in to the Fox Business Network tonight and find out.

On Thursday at 7 PM Central Time, FBN’s Gerri Willis presents her special report, The Willis Report: Gas Price Shock. Willis explores the rising cost of gas and oil in the United States and will examine the key influences causing the spike in gas prices enlisting a panel of experts to offer solutions along the way.

Guests will include: Gulf Oil CEO Joe Petrowski; AAA Expert Robert Sinclair; Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Robert Bryce; Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R-ND); Dr. Michael Burgess (R-TX), among others.

Tune in to Fox Business Network on Thursday March 22nd, 7:00 PM/CT and find out what is going on.
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Fox Business Network Special Report: Gas Price Shock!”


VIDEO: Jeff Semon, For Mass. 7th Congressional District

-By Warner Todd Huston

In the last of my Challenger Series of videos made at CPAC this year, we have Jeff Semon. He is an impressive and serious young candidate for U.S. Congress from the Bay State, Massachusetts. He’s running to take the seat held by big-time lib Ed Markey.

Semon has been campaigning hard and says that in his opinion the voters in the 5th CD aren’t nearly as liberal as Markey is.

Incidentally, Semon is the fellow that created www.krugmaniswrong.com/ to nail extremist, left-wing NY Times columnist Paul Krugman to the wall.

See if you agree that Semon is an impressive candidate…

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VIDEO: Jeff Semon, For Mass. 7th Congressional District”


Welfare, Not Work: Obama Shuts Down Minority Business Agency

-By Warner Todd Huston

Hosannas. Obama has finally cut some federal spending. But noting which agency he shut down is sort of emblematic of his whole welfare/big government-pushing presidency.

On Friday, the Department of Commerce announced that it would be shutting down all five regional offices of the Minority Business Development Agency, an agency that was created by Richard Nixon to help develop minority businesses.

The administration claims that it will be saving around $30 million per year by eliminating the offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush is not too happy about the decision.
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Welfare, Not Work: Obama Shuts Down Minority Business Agency”


Fox Business Network Covering Illinois Primary Tonight at 7PM

-By Warner Todd Huston

If you’re looking for some expert commentary on the Illinois primaries, Fox Business Network will be providing up-to-the-minute coverage tonight anchored by the inimitable Neil Cavuto. The coverage will kick off at 7PM and will feature Jeff Flock here on the ground in Chicago.

FBN’s Neil Cavuto has been covering the primaries quite extensively. Cavuto has even chided his rival cablers for practically ignoring the primaries, saying that he has been surprised at how “competitors drop the ball” on their coverage. He feels viewers deserve more.

I see rival networks giving a perfunctory, ‘So and so won this primary,’ and then they’re back to a Teflon commercial, or they’re running a seven-year-old special, and I think I owe my viewers more. I think that they deserve more. People are into this. And we as a financial network owe it to (our viewers to) be into this ourselves.

For his part, reporter Jeff Flock provided some of his analysis on the GOP filed from which Illinois will choose this primary election day.

“If you are a deficit hawk there is not much difference between the three front runners. Romney, Santorum and Gingrich all push lower taxes, spending cuts and changes to the Social Security and Medicare programs,” Flock said. “All would, by most economist’s measures, add trillions to the deficit over the next decade. Only Ron Paul’s plan would cut the deficit over time.”

Flock says that Romney will appeal quite a lot to the business class.
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Fox Business Network Covering Illinois Primary Tonight at 7PM”


American Cancer Society Attacks Me by Name Over California Tax Grab?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Oddly enough, a coalition of big tax hikers in California, including the American Cancer Society, has attacked me by name for daring to write about Proposition 29, a California ballot measure that will appear on this year’s ballot. Prop 29 will force Californians to foot the costs of nearly a billion dollars in new and unnecessary spending on the airy claim that the funding will somehow cure cancer and stop kids from smoking. Sounds a bit like Obama’s claims that his election would lower sea levels, stop global warming, make the U.S. beloved again, and put a unicorn in every garage, doesn’t it?

The accusation leveled against me is that I am “in bed with Big Tobacco.” Naturally, these left-wingers don’t bother with any proof. They just hang the claim out there and leave it at that. If I am working with Big Tobacco, I have to say that their checks are late. I didn’t even get a cool Joe Camel T-Shirt, the ingrates! (In case they pull down the page, I have a screen shot saved here)

But imagine. This coalition of deep-pocketed, big government-loving entities is coming after me by name. Seriously. Have you ever heard of billion dollar groups like these attacking a single blogger like this? It truly is a new world.

I certainly have written about Prop 29 many times over the last year, that I admit. But another hilarious line used against me in essence calls me a carpetbagger for doing so:
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American Cancer Society Attacks Me by Name Over California Tax Grab?”


Wash. Post: Obama the Failed and Hard-Edged Partisan President

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Washington Post did an amazing thing over the weekend. It published a story that highlights the critical failure of the President to achieve what could have been a signature success in his first term, that of achieving a budget compromise with the GOP.

The Post, usually a paper with a center left perspective, really took Obama to task for creeping up to a compromise with GOP House Leader John Boehner but then abruptly pulling away, jettisoning the nearly accepted compromise, and slamming the GOP with his left-wing ideology instead of reaching the agreement that was just within his grasp.

Many Republicans are likely glad that Boehner’s reaching out to the president was slapped away by a hard-core, left wing hand, but the facts on the ground are — at least according to the WaPo — that it was Obama that torpedoed the compromise, quite despite his lies that it is the partisan GOP what done the dirty deed.

the Post describes the situation back in July of 2011. John Boehner the establishment Republican and leader of the House had crept into the White House through a side door that the media could not see. He brought with him the Tea Party-linked Eric Cantor, a “good sign” that the GOP was ready to compromise, says the Post.
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Wash. Post: Obama the Failed and Hard-Edged Partisan President”


A Failing Grade for America’s Educational System

-By Alan Caruba

Back in 2001 I wrote a four-part series on “The Subversion of Education in America” and more than a decade later not much has improved. The causes are easily identified. One is federal control and the other is the National Education Association (NEA) which, despite its name, is a union.

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey became a nationally known figure when he took on the teacher’s union for the way contracts with generous pension and health benefits were bankrupting the State. Other civil service contracts also came under review for the same reason.

A recent headline in The Wall Street Journal caught my eye. “No-Child Law Faces Wave of Opt-Outs” reported that “Twenty-six more states asked to be excused from key requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, an exemption that would curb the education law’s impact considerably.” If the Obama administration grants waivers to all the new applicants, three quarters of the statesContinue reading


A Failing Grade for America’s Educational System”


Rick Santorum’s Illinois Rally

-By Warner Todd Huston

Rick Santorum visited Illinois last night stopping at Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, a Chicago suburb, for a 7PM rally that drew over 2,000 people who came to hear the presidential primary candidate speak.

The place was packed with all the gym bleachers filled and most of the balcony seating also filled, not to mention standing room only on the gym floor. The capacity seating of the place was 2,500, but one is tempted to think that they allowed a bit more than capacity to rally for Rick.

An array of elected officials and long-time activists appeared to support the candidate. The crowd was energetic and Santorum signs were waved enthusiastically at many moments during Rick’s address.

On the dais before Sen. Santorum took the podium were such notables as Al Salvi and his wife Kathy, former Illinois politician Penny Pullen, State Rep. Tom Morrison, and New York Times writer Brad Thor.

Senator Santorum took the stage to raucous applause and gave a speech laden with allusions to the founding fathers, the economy, and religious freedom. He also bashed President Obama over Obamacare and his abject failure to fix this economy.
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Rick Santorum’s Illinois Rally”


Mayor Emanuel Puts Himself in GOP Primary Race, Joins ‘Republican War on Women’ Lie

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mayor Emanuel has not left Barack Obama. This is clear with his latest foray into national political issues by joining Obama’s orchestrated “Republican war on women” lie that has been drummed up to take America’s attention away from Obama’s monumental failures as president. To help his old boss, Emanuel decided to pipe up about Rush Limbaugh’s slut-gate comments, absurdly attempting to lay the controversy at Mitt Romney’s feet.

You’ll recall the White House-orchestrated contraceptives campaign led by 30-year-old Sandra Fluke, a long time left-wing activist, that prompted Limbaugh to call the gay-rights activist a “slut” for wanting the American people to pay for her thousands of dollars a year in sex aides. Consequently Emanuel decided to add his voice to the fake “war on women” meme.

Here is what he said about the issue:
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Mayor Emanuel Puts Himself in GOP Primary Race, Joins ‘Republican War on Women’ Lie”


EXCLUSIVE VIDEO — Newt Responds to President: Let Obama Be the Saudi Oil and Algae Guy, I’ll be the American Jobs Guy

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Newt Responds to President: Let Obama Be the Saudi Oil and Algae Guy, I’ll be the American Jobs Guy
-By Warner Todd Huston

Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich appeared at Otto Engineering in Carpentersville, Illinois this afternoon and had a few choice words for Barack Obama. Newt told the president than he can be the fantasy algae guy and he, Newt, will be the science candidate.


Newt Slams the President as a member of the “Flat Earth, Sierra Club Society.”

Earlier today Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland, President Obama claimed that anyone attacking his absurd reliance on wind power and algae to solve our massive energy problems are members of the “Flat Earth Society.”

Obama even went so far as to attack “one of my predecessors,” Rutherford B. Hayes who Obama quotes as saying that telephones are great but “who would want to use them”? “This is why he isn’t on Mount Rushmore,” Obama quipped. But Hayes was hardly a Luddite in the White House. For instance, on May 10th 1877 Hayes was the first president to install a telephone in the White House, so who knows what Obama is rambling about?

For his part, Newt is ridiculing Obama’s failures on energy.
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EXCLUSIVE VIDEO — Newt Responds to President: Let Obama Be the Saudi Oil and Algae Guy, I’ll be the American Jobs Guy”


Video: Glenn Morton for Maryland’s 5th CD

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the last in my Challenger Series of interviews with congressional candidates is Glenn Morton who is running for the 5th CD in Maryland.

Mr. Morton is passionate, especially about how bad Obamacare is. In fact, Morton says he wasn’t all that political until Obamacare came about. Being an insurance man he came to realize just how bad this law was. The more he looked into it the worse it got.

In any case, here was our conversation at CPAC this year…

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Video: Glenn Morton for Maryland’s 5th CD”


Seattle Teachers Union Seeks to Ban Teach For America

-By Larry Sand

Teachers unions, known for fighting to keep pedophiles in the classroom, try to get rid of good teachers in Seattle.

Last week, I wrote about the particularly egregious case of a teacher in Rochester, NY who sent sexually charged emails to her principal and was subsequently jailed for ignoring a restraining order. Upon her release, she returned to the classroom, and in short order was accused of fondling her middle school students. But due to her union’s pressure tactics, the school board cannot get rid of this tenured teacher.

Across the country in Seattle, we now have a situation where it would appear that the local teachers union may have success in getting six teachers removed from the district.

Pedophiles? Of course not. They are talented Teach For America teachers who have received good reviews from their principals. In what could be a new low for teachers unions – and that’s really saying something – it would appear that through heavy pressure from the Seattle Education Association, the Seattle School Board may terminate the contracts of the six teachers for absolutely no good reason.
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Seattle Teachers Union Seeks to Ban Teach For America”


Religion and the 2012 Elections

-By Alan Caruba

The one thing that Presidents from Washington through to modern times have held in common was the belief that religion was a central component of the life of the republic.

Calvin Coolidge, President from 1923 to 1929, said “Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverence for truth and justice, for equality and liberality, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government. There are only two main theories of government in our world. One rests on righteousness and the other on force. One appeals to reason, and the other appeals to the sword. One is exemplified in the republic; the other is represented by despotism.”

Ronald Reagan echoed this view saying, “Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.”
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Religion and the 2012 Elections”


This Ship Needs a Captain not just a Businessman

-By Rev Michael Bresciani

In this day of the history challenged it may not be safe to assume that everyone knows that it was Captain John Paul Jones who in the fall of 1779 said the famous words, “I have not yet begun to fight.” Even fewer may know that his ship the Bonhomme Richard had its upper decks nearly blown off and with what may have looked like a tattered raft the fight continued. Two hands assuming that both captain and first officer had been slain went about to lower the ship’s pendant from the mainmast, but were interrupted by Jones who flew toward them with pistols in hand.

The captain threw his unloaded pistols at the mates missing one and striking the other on the head leaving him unconscious. The master of the powerful British warship Serapis called out to Jones and asked if he was about to quarter. (Give up and surrender) Jones’ famous reply has been the example of every great naval officer since, but it doesn’t stop there. The best fighting men, statesmen and ordinary Americans, ever since, have been heard to say the same.
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This Ship Needs a Captain not just a Businessman”


Defense Vs. Dependency: ‘Safety Net’ Isn’t so Safe

-By Daniel Clark

During the 1990s, when liberal politicians raided our military budget in order to fund their favored domestic initiatives, they referred to it as reaping the “peace dividend.” Their argument was that with the Cold War over, much of the money being used to maintain the world’s most powerful military could better be used elsewhere.

When war was thrust upon us a decade later, we were woefully under-equipped to handle it, and it’s no wonder why. The Pentagon budget, rather than being increased or cut based on its own merit, had been forced to directly compete for dollars with the pet projects of those politicians who get to determine the winners and losers. Once budget debates were framed in that way, any new military spending could be demagogued as the taking of food from the mouths of the poor.

Today, President Obama is proposing a return to the “peace dividend” model, despite the fact that we are far from being at peace. Even with commitments remaining in Iraq and Afghanistan, a crisis roiling in Iran, chaos reigning throughout the Middle East, and the deployment of a small number of American soldiers to Uganda, the president plans to decimate our nuclear arsenal, and dramatically reduce our numbers of ships, planes, and active military personnel. Meanwhile, he has proposed another $3.8 trillion budget for 2013, whose deficit will surely top the trillion-dollar mark yet again, his highly optimistic GDP projections notwithstanding.
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Defense Vs. Dependency: ‘Safety Net’ Isn’t so Safe”


School Choice: Time to Move Forward

-By Larry Sand

As evidence mounts that the government/union education monopoly is failing our children, 2012 should see ramped up efforts to advance school choice.

Last week, Education Week published “What Research Says About School Choice,” in which nine scholars analyze the results of various studies concerning “school choice” – the quaint notion that parents should be able to choose where to send their kids to school. The report boasts no ecstatic claims, nothing about lions and lambs, no Hallelujah moments – just a sober look at the 20 year-old movement to end mandatory zip code school assignments. Some of the findings:

Among voucher programs, random-assignment studies generally find modest improvements in reading or math scores, or both. Achievement gains are typically small in each year, but cumulative over time. Graduation rates have been studied less often, but the available evidence indicates a substantial positive impact.

Among voucher programs, these studies consistently find that vouchers are associated with improved test scores in the affected public schools. The size of the effect in these studies varies from modest to large. No study has found a negative impact.

A third area of study has been the fiscal impact of school choice. Even under conservative assumptions about such questions as state and local budget sensitivity to enrollment changes, the net impact of school choice on public finances is usually positive and has never been found to be negative.

Also last week, the California Charter School Association released its second annual “Portrait of the Movement: How Charters are Transforming California Education.” Not a sales pitch or compilation of cherry-picked data data, the CCSA report is an honest look at California’s 900 plus charter schools which educate about 400,000 students. A few of its many findings:
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School Choice: Time to Move Forward”


Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Secret New York Trip, Transparency OFF The Agenda

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, looks like the RahmFather isn’t going to be one of those mayors that gets all excited by that silly old transparency stuff. Fox Business Network revealed that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was in New York on a secret visit on Tuesday and this is the second secret trip that Mayor Emanuel has made on Chicago tax payers’s dime.

Emanuel ended up in Manhattan at a high-end restaurant named Sistina where he was seen hobnobbing with a retinue of his old buddies in the banking industry along with his chief economic adviser.

FBN’s Charlie Gasparino wonders if Rahm was in the Big Apple to raise cash for team Obama. After all, Rahm is still an active fund raiser for his former White House boss so it’s a good bet that he was wringing wallets dry for Barack “One Billion Dollar Campaign Fund” Obama.

Emanuel’s office, though claims the Mayor was in New York in order to bring new business back home. Yeah. He’s meeting with old friends established heavily in New York to convince them to drop the financial center of the country in order to come to the state with the worst business climate of all fifty? (Not to mention most corrupt city and worst in nearly every other category, too.)
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Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Secret New York Trip, Transparency OFF The Agenda”


Please Contact Advertisers That Dumped Limbaugh, Tell Them How YOU Feel — Here’s their Info

-By Warner Todd Huston

So far, 22 companies have pulled their advertising from the Rush Limbaugh radio show. They have done this, some because they are big dollar Obama supporters (like Carbonite), many more because they were pressured by a concerted campaign to intimidate them launched by various left-wing groups.

Those of you that support Rush Limbaugh really need to contact these advertisers and let them know how upset you are with them for dropping his show. You need to speak up just as the extremist left-wing websites and Obama operatives have done.

Squeaky wheel, you know? After all, we have just as much right to tell these advertisers that we oppose their attack on Rush Limbaugh as the left-wingers do in telling them to drop Limbaugh as a client.

Below are links to the contact pages of each company’s website. Please call them all… and like a good Chicago election campaign, do so more than once!

On another note, Carbonite may be finding its actions are not helping its own bottom line. Apparently Carbonite’s stock has fallen through the floor.
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Please Contact Advertisers That Dumped Limbaugh, Tell Them How YOU Feel — Here’s their Info”