Is This Progress In The Era Of Obama?

The following juxtaposition comes from a friend who asks that his name not be used. Such is the state of discourse in America today that people fear retaliation for criticizing Obama:

Obama's Willful Blindness?

In America justice is supposed to be blind not our commander-in-chief. In Obama’s topsy-turvy America justice is not blind but our President is-and willfully so-when it comes to threats facing Americans. Will he remove his blinders?  Only if he is forced to and by then it may be too late.
Charles Krauthammer, one of America’s smartest columnists, said it best regarding President Obama and the threats to America coming from ISIS:

“I don’t think the issue is the president was unaware or taken by surprise. I think this was willful blindness to the nature of the threat.”

“I don’t think the issue is the president was unaware or taken by surprise. I think this was willful blindness to the nature of the threat.”


“For the 5 and a half years he’s been in office, he’s tried to minimize the whole idea of the War on Terror,” the columnist explained. “He abolished the term. He gave a speech six months ago saying the War on Terror must end, it’s damaging our country — as if he can unilaterally declare an end to a war when the other guy hasn’t declared an end on his side.”


He has said the tide of war is receding,” Krauthammer continued. “But he did that by defining the threat and the enemy as al-Qaida central, as if the enemy is a club that lives in Pakistan or parts of Afghanistan and that’s it. So whenever you had an explosion of Islamic radicalism in Mali or Libya or elsewhere, it was considered something else, as he said, a jayvee team.”


“This is a willful attempt to actually will away the war that we were looking at.”


Even before Barack Obama became president he whitewashed threats from abroad -- especially those emerging from the Islamic world.






He said back in 2008 that Iran did not pose a serious threat to America and that we do not need to worry about “tiny” countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and Iran. He especially dismissed any threat from Iran since that nation spent 1/100^th of what America does on defense.  Of course, Iran is not tiny at all -- but it has long been known that Barack Obama is geographically challenged (Hawaii, his home state(!), is not in Asia; they don’t speak Austrian in Austria); there are 50, not 57 states. Did Senator Obama not know that Iran had long been designated as the number one state sponsor of terror in the world (so designated by Bill Clinton via one of those executive orders Obama is so addicted to using) and has the blood of many Americans on its hands (its proxies are responsible for the murders of our Marines in Lebanon, our soldiers in Iraq and Saudi Arabia).


As Obama spoke in 2008, Iran had been developing its nuclear weapons program and has throughout the years boasted of goal to destroy America and bring about an apocalypse that would give rise to the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam.  As recently as two years ago, his mouthpiece, White House spokesman Jay Carney, said Obama was in “no rush” to deal with Iran’s nuclear program and the result of this willful blindness may very well be an Islamist theocracy with a nuclear bomb arsenal.


He has continued to deny reality as President.  During his annual pre-Super Bowl interview (please cancel these) he was asked about the prospects of Iran attacking America and responded, “We don’t see any evidence that they have those intentions or capabilities right now”. This was a mere two months after Iran was implicated by his own intelligence and Department of Justice officials as being behind assassination plots in Washington, D.C.
 Hey, facts don’t matter to Barack Obama.


How do we know facts don’t matter to Barack Obama? Because he avoids them like a plague (or their equivalent in his eyes -- meeting with Republicans, and Democrats for that matter). Facts are his greatest enemy. Washington  Post columnist Marc Thiessen noted something very revealing in this most transparently un-transparent administration: Obama skips more than half of his daily intelligence briefings.  Imagine a general just ordering his radar turned off, or a captain switching off  his sonar -- or a commander-in-chief resting up for a high-dollar campaign event instead of acting to prevent a (Benghazi) massacre of Americans.  All deliberate actions of willful blindness.


 If Obama won’t care about facts, why not cut the budget for our intelligence agencies?
How else has he blithely dismissed threats from America?


There are myriad ways, but idly I can recall a sampler platter of them.


Terrorism is magically transformed into an act of workplace violence (Ft. Hood) or called man-made disasters.  The words “Islam” or “Muslim” are never to be used in the context of violence, since that would be racist or xenophobic -- it is the hate that dare not speak its name.  Instead, his fiction-filled Cairo speech was a paean to the wondrous history of Islam written by Ben Rhodes, a failed short-story writer promoted to Deputy National Security Deputy Adviser.


Obama’s proxies and flacks have followed the company line. Islam is the religion of peace -- a mantra among liberal politicians (Nancy Pelosi called Hamas a “humanitarian organization” for example). The Muslim Brotherhood is mostly secular attests James Clapper-our Director of National Intelligence.  He has turned much of our Middle East foreign policy over to Al Jazeera-owning and terror –supporting Qatar and to the anti-Semitic and anti-American de facto dictator of Turkey (and Obama best friend forever) Recep Erdogan . What could go wrong?
Obama willfully dismissed ISIS as a threat, demoting them to JayVee status.  Obama has dismissed threats from Al Qaeda repeatedly bragging  that Al Qaeda was  decimated and on the run on the path to defeat and then defeated -- a claim Obama has made over 30 times. In the real world, Al Qaeda and its offshoot, the JayVee ISIS, now occupy more territory and has far more wealth and power than it ever had before.  It is on the run, alright, towards a city and shopping center near you. But rest assured, Obama tells us, they are defeated and the tide of war is receding.  He barely reacts but recreates instead. The world is more tranquil than ever before because of Obama’s leadership.
Obama’s willful blindness is chronic.  Or part of a con-man strategy by our Storyteller in Chief to convince Americans his presidency has been triumphant,  his policies brilliant, that he has never done “stupid sh*t”  and he has fundamentally transformed America. Only the latter is true and not in a good way.


Never has the thesaurus been used so often to lull America to sleep (see John F. Kennedy’s, Why England Slept, for a primer on what happens to a nation led by a loser).


He can refuse to secure our borders and ignore threats that open borders are an invitation for terrorists to come and make murder in America. He is willfully blind to the dangers inherent from his de facto open border policy and he and his proxies have tried to import and create millions of future  Democrats and disparage critics as inhumane.  He can do the same through excessive use of the “refugee” label to allow them to live in America (ask Minnesotans how that has worked for their large population of Somalis -- the Power Line website has been superbly covering this issue for years; the major media, willfully blind like their idol).  Americans have already left for and come back from terrorist training camps in the Middle East.  For younger people those “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” essays can certainly be explosive – one hopes just in the metaphorical sense.


Barack Obama dismissed Russia as a “regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors -- not out of strength but out of weakness.”  He mocked Mitt Romney’s 2012 debate statement that Russia was our geopolitical foe by stating that the “Cold War” is over and recently reiterated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine did not signify a new Cold War. Former KGB leader turned Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is just like a “bored kid in the back of a schoolroom” Obama reassures us.  Does it seem as if Putin is just some “bored kid” leading a “regional power” from a position of weakness? Obama seems to be describing himself more than the marauding Vlad the Impaler.  While Obama serenely reassures us all is well on planet Obama he slashed defense spending to feed Leviathan and to create millions of people dependent on Democrats.


Obama is America’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy President” determined not to let reality spoil his life in fantasy camp.  Barack Obama is addicted to popular culture and maybe just cannot shake his TV and sports addiction to see the world around him as it is, not how he wants it to be; not as he commands it to be. Or maybe he just does not care what happens to Americans (his empathy deficit is as large as his fiscal deficit; who else golfs, fist bumps and laughs after announcing an American has been beheaded by an evil that dare not speak its name but the world’s biggest-and most successful narcissist?).  To recognize danger -- to not be willfully blind -- would require Obama to work, and work is the nastiest four-letter word in Obama’s vocabulary (if Americans don’t realize by now that Obama has a severe work ethic problem, they are the ones who are willfully blind -- maybe that is why many millions of American still support him.)
Does he ever see enemies?


He has tried to sway Americans to ignore, as he has, radical Islam. Instead Obama whitewashed Islamic terror (see the Cairo speech, for just one example) for years.


 He sees no enemies abroad; he reserves his harshest rhetoric for fellow Americans (he disdains millions of Americans (see What Obama Thinks of Americans). He has called Republicans “enemies” to be “punished” by Latino voters; at another speech, he called on people to vote for revenge.  Republicans, not Muslims, are bomb-throwers, hostage-takers , obstructionists, traitors, and terrorists. If the Israelis had been smarter they would have depicted Hamas as “our Republicans” and then Obama would not have threatened to hold up Hellfire missiles to them during the missile onslaught from real terrorists. 


Another possibility arises and it is a dire one. Could Obama’s policies be deliberate -- to weaken an America that he views as the world’s biggest problem, a colonizing, imperialistic and racist power that needs to be permanently stripped of its might? Then he has succeeded where none have ever gone before and fulfilled at least one campaign promise: he has fundamentally transformed America for many decades to come.
We are living in days of infamy.




http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/08/obamas_willful_blindness.html

20 Reasons Why Thomas Jefferson Would Oppose The Hell Out Of Obama And His Progressive Ilk

If TJ is in heaven right now, and he’s able to peer through some celestial portal and behold the BS Barack has saddled this nation with -- a country, by the way, that Jefferson labored to make independent from tyrants -- then I would bet that Thomas is more ticked than a boar that just had its balls clipped.

How do I know Jefferson would loathe Obama and seek to jettison our Jester-In-Chief? Well, it’s principally via Thomas’ musings -- musings that, for the time being, we’re still afforded the wherewithal to access; principles that also happen to have made our nation great and that used to be taught in our school system.

Plow through the following from one of our nation’s illustrious framers’ quills and try to tell me with a straight face that Jefferson wouldn’t have sought to derail BHO via tooth, fang and claw:

1. The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.

2. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?

3. A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

4. If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.

5. The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.

6. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever. 

7. No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements].

8. The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

9. Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. 

10. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

11. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

12. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition. 

13. I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. 

14. The disease of liberty is catching; those armies will take it in the south, carry it thence to their own country, spread there the infection of revolution and representative government, and raise its people from the prone condition of brutes to the erect altitude of man. 

15. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.

16. Still one thing more, fellow-citizens — a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. 

17. A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army. We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.

18. Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular.

19. I have been happy … in believing that … whatever follies we may be led into as to foreign nations, we shall never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, and that alone which is to prevent this heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators.

20. I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

http://townhall.com/columnists/douggiles/2014/08/24/20-reasons-why-thomas-jefferson-would-oppose-the-hell-out-of-obama-and-his-progressive-ilk-n1882454/page/full

A Closer Look at the Botched Common Core Results

Common Core is part of the indoctrination by the democrat party.
Here's two quotes from Joseph Stalin to bear in mind when examining Common Core:
"Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and to whom it is aimed"
America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold; Its Patriotism, its Moralty, and its Spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.

Misleading title aside, the Buffalo News report was not good. “Students in Buffalo statewide make modest gains in math,” declared an article in the New York newspaper detailing the results from the second year of Common Core implementation. Well yes, math scores did overall improve. But, the rest of the report was not quite so rosy:

Despite another full year of preparation by schools after the rollout of state Common Core tests in 2013, there were no dramatic, across-the-board gains in English this year. Large-city districts saw slight year-to-year improvement, but wealthier suburban districts statewide actually saw overall declines on the English exam.

The detailed grade proficiency results in New York from 2012 through 2014 are downright embarrassing. Even the most successful schools weren’t spared from Common Core. Take Ledgeview Elementary School, for example. This school boasted a 91.2 percent proficiency in 2012 for third grade math. The next year, those scores slid down to 76.3 percent. It ticked back up slightly in 2014 to 82 percent, but that was small consolation.

City Honors School, a top rated school in the state, had an impressive 90.2 percent proficiency in eighth grade ELA in 2012. That shot down to 80.4 percent in 2013. 

Orchard Park Middle School experienced a swift decline as well. Eighth grade ELA in 2012: 77 percent proficiency, 2013: 58.1 percent, 2014: 52 percent.

Most tragically, the schools already struggling were hit hardest by the new program. The Harriet Ross Tubman Academy, which had a 25.7 percent in third grade math, is now down to two percent.

While Buffalo had minor gains overall, the main issue is worth repeating:

The minor gains in Buffalo were carried by a relatively small number of schools, with the vast majority showing little to no improvement.

Many suburban schools saw significant declines in their eighth-grade scores this year. In Clarence, 52 percent of eighth-graders were proficient in English this year, compared with 64 percent the previous year. The decline was more dramatic in math – 30 percent were proficient this year, compared to 59 percent last year.

Despite these undeniably poor results, State Education Commissioner John King said this year’s statewide scores are “encouraging.”

I guess these students have to bring home ‘F’s to their parents before King dares to criticize the new program.

Unlike King, many parents and teachers are now rejecting the new Common Core standards. In a new poll released by PDK International and Gallup, 60 percent of those surveyed said they oppose the educational standards. What’s more, an education journal named Education Next found that 76 percent of teachers supported Common Core last year, but in 2014, that number has droppedto 46 percent.

In addition to hurting test scores, Common Core is threatening children's educational foundations with its misleading lessons. Take, for instance, the program's take on American history. Rebecca wrote about Common Core’s new standards for the AP US History exam, which leaves out inspiring details about our Founding Fathers and portrays America in a negative light.

Every state should take Governor Bobby Jindal’s (R-LA) lead. The Louisiana governor is fighting to delay Common Core implementation in his state. Although a judge recently ruled  against his efforts, Jindal is taking the right steps to try and defend these educators' freedom to teach as they wish, without worrying about these government standards.

Common Core is not in the best interests of students or teachers. How many more bad grades do children have to receive before the program is scrapped?

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2014/08/23/a-closer-look-at-the-botched-common-core-results-n1882009?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Common Core’s NSA-like data suctioning secret rears its ugly head?

State superintendents in Common Core/PARCC states knowingly permitted a private company, PARCC Inc., to apparently suction all manner of data from their states’ students, according to an internal email obtained by the AZ Daily Independent, all this while they were working on the PARCC’s Data Privacy and Security Policy. This possible data breach and the recent Common Core field tests (both PARCC and Smarter Balanced tests), just administered in thousands of schools across the country to over 3 million of your kids, are perfect examples of one of Common Core’s least known, yet most insidious features.


 You’ve no doubt heard of the Common Core learning standards or tests, but have you heard about the NSA-like data suctioning systems each member state has set up to suction all manner of your child’s most private data from your state directly into the hands of data predators waiting outside of the U.S. Department of Education wringing their hands in anticipation? Bear with me as I give some much needed background on the NSA-like data suctioning systems that the Common Core group has in place in our states and then we’ll deal with the troubling email at the end of this article. NSA-like data suctioning- Background Each state that applied to receive Stimulus money for education, back in 2009, agreed to set up data suctioning systems, known as Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems, (SLDS). These systems would be different from previous state data systems because they would need to be “longitudinal”. Visualize a single line of longitude on a map; longitude lines are the vertical lines running north and south. A longitudinal system pulls all of your child’s data into a single line or stream of information. You might even visualize a river that is being fed by multiple creeks converging into it, adding to the total volume of the river’s flow of water.


 Longitudinal data systems do the same thing with your child’s data, pulling all their various points of data into one stream that is continually added to as they progress from pre-school up through college and career. This system makes tracking all of your child’s data easier than the previous system, which had a lot “creeks” of information, but no one single “river” of information to tap into. An entity could tap into this stream of data at any point and receive all of your child’s data. In an ideal world, where we have cotton candy for breakfast, this change would not have been so bad for education because teachers would be enabled to tap into that stream of data to help inform how they teach your child. If your child’s teacher is underperforming, then the data stream will alert their principals to take corrective action. In fact, the cult of Common Core crowd uses these justifications in its demand that these longitudinal systems be put in place. But in light of recent abuses by the NSA and the IRS with regards to confidential data, it is worth a closer look.


The sinister side of Common Core’s data suctioning The more sinister side of these longitudinal systems is that the U.S. Department of Education, under the direction of President Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, broadened its interpretation of the education privacy laws (FERPA ) in 2011, when it changed its regulations, in two crucial ways. First, they increased the number of players that could have access to your child’s centralized personal data to include, not just your child’s teachers, but any organization or group tangentially involved in your child’s education. This can include testing, gaming, technology, textbook, or research companies, just to name a few examples. Second, they no longer require parent notification or permission when it shares or stores your child’s personal data with these chosen groups or companies.


 U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, explained these regulatory changes in a 2011 letter to the states. In the letter, he says that laws requiring parent permission or notification in order to share your child’s data: “…do not apply to the collection, disclosure, or use of personal information collected from students for the exclusive purpose of developing, evaluating, or providing educational products or services for or to students or educational institutions.” As long as the US Department of Education can find even a small involvement on behalf of its private data predator companies in your child’s education, you need know nothing. NSA-like data suctioning and the PARCC field tests Still not convinced? How many of you were asked by your schools for permission to subject your child to a private company’s Common Core field test? How many of you were notified of the exact date and time of their participation in a Common Core field test? How many of you were permitted to preview these field tests that your child was going to be subjected to?


 How many of you are able to see the data that is gathered on your child by the private Common Core testing companies? How many of you are able to see what the testing companies are doing with your child’s data? How many of you have been intimidated or stonewalled when having the gall to ask a teacher or administrator if you are able to “opt your kid out” of the field test? The private Common Core companies used the information from the field test to make their tests better so that they can turn around and sell that test back to the states for millions of dollars.


The schools deceptively acted as if these tests were just part of the state’s testing regimen, which they definitely were not. The schools colluded with these private testing companies to suction data from your kids. What did our schools get from the field tests? Absolutely nothing.


 The results were not shared with the schools and no financial reimbursement was made to the students or the schools for their part in making the private company’s tests better. The states have already agreed to share any and all your child’s data stream as part of the condition of receiving federal money to set up the data suctioning systems. Parental permission is required to have your child’s artwork displayed on the school webpage. Why are your family and your child’s private data no less worthy of parental permission or notification? What if an energy drink company came to your kid’s classroom to field test its product on your kids, taking all sorts of data such as blood pressure, heart rate, or family history of energy drink use, without notifying you or asking your permission? Why is your kid’s data no less sacred? Common Core/PARCC’s Privacy Charade The PARCC group with great fanfare publicly released the PARCC Data Privacy & Security Policy in December 2013.


The policy basically mimics U.S. Secretary of Arne Duncan’s version of student data security where it makes a big show of all the personal student data it purports to protect with the caveat listed earlier in this article that makes all the data protections put forth useless. The education privacy laws are enumerated in the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) which gives parents the rights over who sees their child’s data, period.


The Common Core crowd has a different interpretation of your child’s data security. One key component of Common Core/PARCC’s data security policy states that, “States must give permission to PARCC and PARCC contractors in order for them to access any personally identifiable information – and only for specific purposes defined by states.” Let’s get one thing straight right now. Parents are their child’s chief educators and protectors. Parents must be asked or notified if PARCC or anyone else who wants to see their child’s data, the state and the U.S. Department of Education cannot usurp that right. Common Core/PARCC email Now let’s turn our attention to the email sent out to all PARCC state leads and every PARCC state’s Superintendent of Instruction on November 12, 2013 by PARCC’s CEO, Laura Slover. Here’s the email and the list of data predator enablers that it was sent to:


__________________________ From: Laura Slover added: (CEO, PARCC, Inc.) Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 9:35 AM To: Carey Wright; Chris Cerf; Chris Cerf Personal; Chris Koch; Deborah Gist; Hanna Skandera; Jesus Aguirre; John Huppenthal; John King; John White; Kevin Huffman; Laura Slover; Lillian Lowery; Mitchell Chester; Pamela Stewart; Paul Pastorek — personal; Richard Ross; Robert Hammond; Tom Kimbrell Cc: PARCC Staff and state leads Bari Erlichson; Bill Morrison; Bob Bickerton; Christina Wirth-Hawkins; Dan Long; Doug Jaffe; Emily Barton; Erin O’Hara; Evo Popoff; Heather Neal; Heidi Beeman; Henry Johnson; Iris Bond-Gill; James Mason; James Wright; Janet Bagsby; Jeff Hauger; Jeffrey Noel; Jennifer Sattam; Jessica Baghian; Jessica Enos; Joyce Zurkowski; Kamlyn Keith; Kristen Huff; LaQuisha Oliver; Larry Cocco; Williams, Leila; Liz Davis; Lynn Vasquez; Mary Ann Snider; Mary O’Brian; Megan Witonski; Melody Morgan; Michael Ferry; Pete Goldschmidt; Phyllis Lynch; Richard Baliko; Sarah Dove; Gardner, Sarah; Stephanie Boyd; Steve Chrostowski; Susie Morrison; Todd Clark; Tracey Severns; Trinell Bowman; Vince Verges; Walt Drane; Alexandria Baltimore-Hookfin; Jennifer Stafford; John Weiss; Ken Draut; Sarah Mahurt Subject: PARCC update for Governing Board 11.12.13 PARCC Governing Board Members I wanted to share a number of important updates with you, including three important action items for you and your state leads. Laura ACTION ITEMS: 1. Operational Assessment RFP (omitted for brevity) Approving the Data Privacy & Security Policy a. Since our last Governing Board call, we have spent time working with states on final suggested revisions to the PARCC Data Privacy & Security Policy. b. I am pleased to share a final recommended version of the policy for your approval. Attached are two versions of it – one in track changes so you can see the edits that have been made since the last version, and a second “clean” version without track changes. c. After reviewing the changes, please email me by 5:00 pm EST on Thursday, November 14th to indicate whether you approve of the policy as it is now written. If the Governing Board approves the policy, next steps would include: i. Sharing the policy with current PARCC contractors ii. Posting the policy on the PARCC website for bidders on the operational assessment RFP to review. (The RFP indicates that the eventual contractor will need to abide by the policy adopted by the Governing Board.) iii. Publicly releasing the policy, along with communications tools for states the week of December 2nd. (Designed to give you time to prepare to communicate about the policy in your state) Based on the last round of state review, we have decided to hold on the approval of the data sharing agreements until states finalize the initial set of research studies for which states will need to provide data to PARCC contractors and/or the PARCC non-profit. Therefore, this will move on a separate track from the policy itself, which we would like your approval of by November 14th. __________________________ The first part of the email asks for each PARCC state’s Superintendent of Instruction to informally email their approval of their Data Privacy and Security Policy agreement by November 14, 2013. The email then goes onto reveal that PARCC has, “decided to hold on the approval of the data sharing agreements until states finalize the initial set of research studies for which states will need to provide data to PARCC contractors and/or the PARCC non-profit. Therefore this will move on a separate track than the (data security) policy itself.” Translation: The Common Core was already suctioning personal student data in anticipation of handing it to the private company PARCC and its vendors even before a policy designed to protect student data was in place. “Research studies” is just another way of saying data gathering. It seems as if they wanted to keep suctioning student data outside the purview of the security policy (as weak as it is) for as long as possible, that’s why the research studies were going to “move on a separate track than the policy itself.” Our states should not be gathering data on our kids to send to a private company, in this case PARCC, to improve that company’s tests without parental permission or notification. Much less should they be gathering data on a “separate track” before it falls under the private company’s data security agreements. Either possibility is shady. PARCC’s Data Privacy & Security Policy was formally approved by the PARCC Governing Board on December 11, 2013, one month after the email was sent. How long was Common Core/PARCC suctioning student data from our kids? What kind of data do they have and what have they been doing with it? Where is this data being stored? Did the Common Core or PARCC ask parent permission for this data gathering? Did the Common Core/PARCC notify parents of this data grab? Need for Congressional investigations of Common Core Since PARCC is a private company it is not subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, so we can’t know the answers to these questions. The Common Core does this purposefully when it uses private companies, such as PARCC or Smarter Balanced, to launder their education reform in secret. Concerned citizens, however, can request any and all emails between PARCC or Smarter Balanced, whichever testing group their state belongs to, and their Superintendents of Instruction and their “state leads” to get insights into what is going on with the Common Core and their state departments of education. Private companies look out for their customers/shareholders and their bottom line. Chambers of Commerce across the country intensely lobby legislators on behalf of their customers, these same private companies. Many of these companies are education focused companies. Governors, Superintendents of Education, and state Departments of Education across the country were elected by us to protect the interests of their customers, the students and parents of each state. Our leaders have let us down. With the Common Core there has been this worrisome blurring of public and private lines as our elected leaders use private companies and “non-profits” they created as front groups to do their dirty work of quietly implementing their shady Common Core education reform scheme nationally with the ultimate goal of controlling education and thereby controlling our kids’ minds. If education was still decentralized into the states I would recommend that our state’s Attorney General investigate this apparent detrimental collusion between the private and public sectors. However, leaders in states across the country have been
coordinating this education scheme and its takeover like a mafia crime syndicate. For this reason, there needs to be a Congressional investigation into the national problem of collusion between government officials, at the state and federal level, and private companies to take over our education system for their mutual political and financial benefit through the Common Core. Brad McQueen is a former Common Core insider and current public school teacher in Tucson, Arizona and is the author of the anti-Common Core book “The Cult of Common Core”. Connect with Brad at cultofcommoncore@gmail.com

Dang! I'm taking a 'gimme' on that shot for par

Obama Considering Granting 800K Guest-Worker Visas Will This Move Undermind Common Core You Know Making Kids Career And College Ready as 90% Believe American Workers Should Be Favored

They drive Americans out of some professions by importing foreign workers,

This not why they want Common Core making kids career ready? So we need to import more foreign workers?   When that causes fewer young Americans to choose those fields of work, they then point to that and lyingly say 'See, these are jobs Americans do not want to work at, so we must import foreigners to do them'

Obama is considering key changes in the nation's immigration system requested by , The technology industry So Again Common Core Is being pushed to make kids  ready For the technology jobs of the future, So the so we must import foreigners to do them' technology jobs of the future? So What here? Then Why do we need Common Core?

After meeting with a "bevy" of big-business groups, President Barack Obama is reportedly considering granting them up to 800,000 additional guest-worker visas via executive actions.

According to the Associated Press, "one of the more popular requests among business and family groups is a change in the way green cards are counted," which would "essentially free up some 800,000 additional visas the first year." In addition, "other requests have included removing the requirement that some spouses of U.S. citizens return to their native country for at least three years before they can apply for U.S. residency, as well as extending work permits to the spouses of all temporary H1-B skilled workers." The Obama administration is also considering granting work permits for low-skilled industries as well.


The Obama administration "has already increased the number of guest-worker permits by possibly 100,000 when it allowed the spouses of high-tech guest-workers who are applying for permanent residency to obtain permits."


Numerous companies – like Microsoft and Cisco – have massively laid off American workers while pushing the Obama administration for more guest-worker visas at a time when scholars and studies from organizations on the left, right, and center have debunked the notion that there is a shortage of American high-tech workers. The Obama administration reportedly wants to appease big-business interests so they give him air cover for his potential executive amnesty, which may enable millions of illegal immigrants to get work permits in addition to temporary amnesty.


All of these actions would make it tougher for Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder to get jobs, as U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Peter Kirsanow has repeatedly emphasized. And as Breitbart News has reported, Americans are increasingly demanding a "pause" in the number of guest-workers who are admitted. A Reuters poll "found that 70% of Americans feel illegal immigrants threaten U.S. beliefs and customs, 63% believe more immigration at this time threatens the country's economy, and 45% want fewer immigrants. A recent poll from The Polling Company found that 90% of likely voters feel that "U.S.-born workers and legal immigrants already here should get first preference for jobs." Strong majorities of those who favor a pathway to legalization and citizenship for illegal immigrants even believe that "jobs now held by illegal immigrants should go to American workers."


Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) accused the Obama administration of "actively working against the interests of the American worker."


"We have communities throughout America that are barely scraping by. Tens of millions of Americans are on welfare, unemployment, and public assistance," Sessions said in a statement this week. "Yet the White House and their Senate Majority seem more concerned about the economic demands of large corporations, or the citizens of other countries, than about getting our own citizens back to work into stable jobs that can support a family and uplift a community.”


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/08/21/Obama-Considering-Unilaterally-Granting-800K-Guest-Worker-Visas-as-90-Believe-American-Workers-Should-Be-Favored

Even Obama's Defenders Can't Explain Obama's Golfing Decision

A story in the New York Times this morning reveals that even the White House isn’t sure how to explain President Obama’s decision to golf immediately after his press conference denouncing Islamic State terrorists for beheading American journalist James Foley.

In response to criticism of Obama’s decisions, White House aides only cited Obama’s earlier call with Foley’s family.

“Aides said the golf game did not reflect the depth of his grief over Mr. Foley, noting that the president had just spoken with his parents that morning,” the Times reported.
Jennifer Palmieri, the White House communications director, tried to point to Obama’s speech itself to dissuade critics.


“His concern for the Foleys and Jim was evident to all who saw and heard his statement,” she said, ignoring the golf question.


But as the Times reports, “Privately, many Democrats shook their heads at what they considered a judgment error.”


James Manley, a former aide to both Sen. Ted Kennedy and Sen. Harry Reid told the Times that “a lot of Democrats flinched” at Obama’s decision.









“[T]he idea that he was going to immediately run to the golf course was just a little too much for folks; it was tone-deaf,” he added.


Even former Obama aides, such as David Axelrod, David Plouffe, Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor and Bill Burton who frequently use their freedom to defend Obama on Twitter, did not weigh in on the situation.


On MSNBC, only Joe Scarborough appeared defensive of Obama’s position, even though he admitted that he wasn’t sure he was necessarily defending the decision.
“I’m merely pointing out these are horrible, horrible optics domestically, but internationally… for terrorists, it's basically like 'screw you. Screw you, we’re not going to live by your rules,'” he said on his Morning Joe program.


Other MSNBC anchors were willing to criticize Obama’s decision, such as Willie Geist.


“You'd think out of respect just for the family even, forget what the press thinks about it, for the family maybe just take a step back and quietly go about your job,” he said


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/08/22/Even-Obama-s-Defenders-Can-t-Explain-Obama-s-Golfing-Decision

Barack Obama, incoherent theologian

Perhaps it was all those years spent at Jeremiah Wright’s church. Or maybe it was merely a clumsy attempt to whitewash Islam in the American public’s mind.  Either way, President Obama’s attempt to lecture ISIS on theology was not merely presumptuous, it was incoherent. 

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto points out the serious self-contradiction the president engaged in:

The president kept his promise of clarity only for a few sentences: "They have rampaged across cities and villages--killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence. They abduct women and children, and subject them to torture and rape and slavery. They have murdered Muslims--both Sunni and Shia--by the thousands. They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can for no other reason than they practice a different religion. They declared their ambition to commit genocide against an ancient people."


But then he descended into sophistry: "So ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just God would stand for what they did yesterday, and for what they do every single day."


Hmm. ISIS both "speaks for no religion" and targets "Christians and religious minorities" because "they practice a different religion." Different from what?


Oops. Maybe when he comes back from his latest round of golf, the World’s Greatest Orator can explain that.
As Taranto points out, the president seems to be defining to Muslims what true Islam is, a but of hubris that also bothered me yesterday:

Is Obama merely confused, or is there a rhetorical strategy at work here? We'd speculate it's the latter. The first letter of the terrorist organization's acronym stands for "Islamic," a fact the president implicitly acknowledges by not including Muslim victims among those targeted because "they practice a different religion." Although his statements are logically consistent with the proposition that Islam is not a true religion, there is ample evidence that he thinks it is.

 

Thus, what he appears to be trying to suggest is that the ISIS terrorists are not true Muslims.

Somehow, I don’t think Obama will be very persuasive as far as Muslims are concerned. Perhaps his dwindling number of true believers in America will find his words of comfort, but as the logical contradiction Taranto points out indicates, he is descending to incoherence when he addresses serous problems.


http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/barack_obama_incoherent_theologian.html

Dems target federal judiciary to ensure Obama's leagacy

Obama and Reid’s machine will damage us for decades until they are stopped.




The Democrats plan to dominate at least one key branch of government is rolling out fine for them.  When Harry Reid went nuclear and eliminated the filibuster for federal judges, Obama’s left-wing judicial nominees were readily approved by the Democratic–dominated Senate. These are judges - some on key courts that rule on the legality of not just laws but regulations - who serve life-time tenures. They will solidify the agenda of Obama for years after he leaves office.


I wrote about this ploy and other steps taken by Obama and Democrats -  to extend their rule in Obama and the Dems Plot To Control America  . Burgess Everett reports on their progress to date in Politico :

Since Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) changed Senate rules in November to ease President Barack Obama’s approval of most nominees, Democrats have churned through confirmations of dozens of new judges — giving them lifetime appointments that will extend the administration’s influence for years to come. Over a roughly equivalent period during the 113th Congress, the Senate confirmed 36 district and circuit judges before the rules change and 68 after, according to Senate statistics.

Republicans have fought Democrats at every step, using their remaining procedural tools to stymie quick approval of judges and many executive branch nominees whose sway over regulations are magnified by today’s congressional stalemate. But the days of epic confirmation fights are over now because all nominees — save for those to the Supreme Court — need only a bare majority for approval after Democrats used the unilateral “nuclear option” to change the rules.

Now, Obama is catching up to the judicial confirmation records of his immediate predecessors and recasting the balance of the courts. Far more important than the minuscule number of major new laws this Congress, Democrats say, will be the installation of liberal-leaning justices up and down the bench.

“The rules change has made a huge difference,” said Marge Baker, a vice president at People for the American Way. “The legacy of this Congress has been the impact that the president and the Senate have made with judicial vacancies.”
…
Republicans don’t dispute that some key nominees would have been defeated under the old rules. Instead they highlight changes in balance of power: The Senate had long stood as a counter to the president; now the chamber processes Obama’s choices with little scrutiny.

“It’s empowered Obama and has taken power away from elected representatives that could offer a check on Obama,” said a Senate Republican aide.

Liberals are pushing for the retirement of senior Supreme Court Justices so Obama and Reid can plant even more liberal justices to the highest court of the land.


Recent polls highlight a large majority of Americans oppose further executive overreach by Obama. Obama’s takeover of the federal judiciary would potentially be among his greatest grabs for power - a power he will gleefully  see exercised as he makes millions giving speeches, setting up a charitable foundation (a la Bill Clinton) and golfing.


Democrats worry that a Republican takeover of the Senate in January will derail their plans:

The focus on nominations underscores the fears that Republicans will win the Senate and close the confirmation door to Obama.

“I’m sure they will shut it down. That’s why we’re launching everyone through,” said a Democratic leadership aide. “Even if we’re still in the majority, we’ll probably spend a lot of time in the lame duck on the nominees.”

Democrats are anticipating that their legacy may be defined sooner rather than later. Reid has joked about the “simple math” that gives Democrats the edge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, deemed by most legal watchers to be second only to the Supreme Court in legal impact and precedent.

That court was the focal point of Democrats’ decision to lower the voting bar from 60 to a simple majority after the GOP rejected three of Obama’s picks last fall for the then-evenly split court. Now, Democratic appointees are in the majority, which will affect legal challenges to the president on laws like Affordable Care Act.

This highlights the vital importance of winning the Senate to serve as a block on further Obama overreach.


Time to shut the Democrats down.


http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/dems_target_federal_judiciary_to_ensure_obamas_leagacy.html

Obama Foreign Policy: A Ship without a Sail

Much ink has been spilled in attempts to construe the meaning and significance, the sincerity or political opportunism, of the remarks made by Hillary Clinton about American foreign policy in her interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in Atlantic magazine. Interpretations will differ on the reasons for her indicating differences with President Barack Obama, especially on Middle East policies, and on the variances between her present and past statements on those policies.

It is not really necessary to ponder this less than earthshaking issue. Machiavelli, in tough-minded language in The Prince, said it all, six hundred years ago: “Everyone admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep his word, and to behave with integrity rather than cunning. Nevertheless, our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have considered keeping their word of little account.”


Much more and highly important for discussion of American foreign policy are the underlying differences between President Obama and his critics on the direction of international politics. Obama has made his position clear: he is cautious, has no enthusiasm for American military action, is reluctant to become involved unilaterally, and would limit any action taken in scope and in time. Critics, presumably now including Clinton, whether for political calculation or not, would favor a more assertive policy on the Middle East and other international issues. Above all, the main difference between the two points of view is deciding whether America’s national interest is served by a policy of intervention in world affairs.


There is a long history of American reluctance to engage in an activist foreign policy. From the beginning the Founding Fathers struggled with the issue, and with variations of what may be called isolationism, non-interventionism, and assertion of American power. To some extent we are still influenced by those early views on the degree to which the U.S. should participate, economically, politically, and militarily, in world affairs.

George Washington, in his Farewell Address in 1796, thought the general rule of conduct was to have as “little political connection as possible” with foreign nations. It would be unwise, he said, “to implicate ourselves… in the ordinary vicissitudes of her (European) policies, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enemies.” Yet, equally important, Washington thought the U.S. “could safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.”


President Thomas Jefferson in his Inaugural Address of 1801 also spoke of “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” Yet, without any alliances, Jefferson was the first president to engage the U.S. in a war fought on foreign land when he sent the Marines in 1804 to deal with the Barbary Pirates in Tripoli. His action is immortalized in the hymn of the Marines…”to the shores of Tripoli.”

It was John Quincy Adams who on July 4, 1821 articulated the firmest position on isolationism. The U.S. “does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” He warned against being party to “all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.” Yet, if Adams did not destroy monsters, he did negotiate successfully with foreign nations, with Britain over Oregon, and with Spain, from whom the U.S. acquired Florida.

It is easy to understand the past and present unwillingness of American leaders to be drawn into military activity not directly related to self-defense of American territory. Equally, many leaders have been hesitant about alliances with foreign countries, even though paradoxically the American rebellion against Britain necessitated an alliance with France.

The problem is compounded today by attitudes of the population on the use or misuse of American power. On key issues today, public opinion polls over the last year indicate that the majority of the public do oppose greater U.S. intervention in the Syrian civil war, while strongly favoring withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Overwhelmingly, polls show that the U.S. population believes that American military force should be used only to defend the homeland.

That belief coincides with the actions of the Obama Administration. It was reluctant to launch limited air strikes after Syria used chemical weapons against civilians, or to act in Syria to arm the moderate rebels fighting the Assad regime. Similarly, the U.S. air strike in mid-August 2014 to rescue some 35,000 Yazidi refugees trapped on a mountain range by ISIS fighters has been limited in scope by administration decision.
Nevertheless, although more assertive action carries risks for American lives and is economically costly, the limited Administration policy is mistaken. The failure to act in Syria and Iraq has made the problem more difficult to manage because it has contributed to the increase in strength and popularity of Islamic extremist groups.
What is fundamentally lacking is a basic principle on which policy can be based. Neither the Obama Administration, nor those who support the noninterventionist or so called “non entangling alliances” policy of Senator Ron Paul, and many in the Tea Party, have come to grips with current problems, including Ukraine, Georgia, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and Nigeria.


Above all there is the threat of Islamic extremism and militancy in the world, particularly in the Middle East and West Africa. Neither a policy of isolationism nor one of nonintervention is appropriate to meet the current threat. Western democratic principles must prevail over that Islamist threat which must not simply be contained but must be defeated.


That threat is active in a number of countries, but its most aggressive and menacing manifestations are the actions of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. However, President Obama declared on August 6, 2014 that he would not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq. Again, the majority sentiment in the country, as found in a poll by the Pew Research Center, was that the U.S. “should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.”


Perhaps one can differentiate this distaste for going to war from a stance of isolationism. Such a distinction is difficult in view of another recent poll that registers 80 per cent of the public as agreeing that the U.S. should “not think so much in international terms but concentrate more on our own national problems.” One can agree that the U.S. should not be the sheriff of the world. Alexander Hamilton warned that it was “not warrantable” for the U.S. to promise “to assist every people who may wish to recover their liberty, and to defend their citizens.” But this does not entail withdrawal from the world.


Two problems result from nonaction or rudderless activity. One is the prospect that the sentiments expressed in the polls may result in even more inaction by the administration. The other is the consideration that inaction is causing other countries to assert that the U.S. is less important and powerful as a world leader, and less respected, than it was.

The underlying problem is that the administration does not have a real strategy to indicate what kind of intervention may be necessary or to be successful. It must overcome the growing isolationist mood. The U.S. is not being manipulated by outside forces, as was argued by isolationists in 1940, trying to prevent American help in the war against Nazism, though bigoted anti-Semites today may claim there is a “Jewish conspiracy” at work.


It may be that the threat of Islamic Jihad does not appear as blatant or dire as was Hitler’s ruthlessness and paranoia. Yet the actions of ISIS in creating what it terms an Islamic Caliphate indicate the danger. Can the U.S. stand idle in view of images of the brutality of this new regime? To this point it has murdered 5,500 and injured 11,000. It is responsible for the deaths of 500 Yazidis, men, women, and children, buried alive in mass graves, for causing thousands of Iraqis to become refugees, and for the humanitarian crisis in Kurdistan.


American policy must take account of the threat in Iraq. ISIS has declared that the Shiites of Iraq are infidels who will be killed if they do not convert to Sunni Islam. It must also take account of the intentions of Hamas to eliminate the State of Israel and to establish a Caliphate in the areas it is able to control.


President Obama knows that force may sometimes be necessary. In his Nobel Peace Prize speech of December 10, 2009 he remarked, “A non violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.” It is arguable whether the ambitions of the Islamists, notably Hamas and ISIS, are totally comparable to the Nazi ambition to conquer the world. Yet, actions of both Islamists and Nazis stem from an extreme ideology and a perverted worldview. Islamist ambitions are a clear and present danger to democratic societies. The U.S. must play a constructive role in the struggle to bring about a tranquil and just world order.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/08/the_united_states_needs_a_principle_for_foreign_policy.html