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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Here We Go: Alabama to Implement “Race-Based Standards” in Public Schools

Daniel Doherty | Jul 12, 2013

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to post-racial America. Via the Wall Street Journal:

The Alabama Federation of Republican Women (AFRW) strongly opposes "race-based standards for student achievement" pushed by the Alabama Department of Education, as reported in The Tuscaloosa News on Sunday, June 30. Minority students will be held to a lower standard, and would be tracked at a lower standard throughout their academic career from K-12.
According to this article by Jamon Smith, "Beginning this fall, Alabama public schools will be under a new state-created academic accountability system that sets different goals for students in math and reading based on their race, economic status, ability to speak English and disabilities." Alabama's Plan 2020 "sets a different standard for students in each of several subgroups -- American Indian, Asian/Pacific islander, black, English language learners, Hispanic, multirace, poverty, special education and white."
The "race-based" standards are part of Common Core, adopted by the state board of education in November 2010.

Walter Russell Mead points out that race-based standards are hardly new. Indeed, he writes, 27 out of the 33 states that received waivers from No Child Left Behind’s strict academic requirements in 2012 “now have different achievement goals for different groups of students.” This in turn works out well for public schools who can keep receiving federal funds even though many of their students are falling by the wayside. But just because this practice is exceedingly common and popular doesn’t necessarily mean it’s morally defensible. One of the more powerful arguments against Plessy vs. Ferguson -- the infamous “separate but equal” Supreme Court ruling in 1896 -- was that sending white and black students to separate but unequal school systems seriously harmed children. Why? Because it made young blacks feel inferior. Question: How on earth would lowering academic standards for non-whites in Alabama’s public schools be any less discriminatory?
The implicit assumption here is that minority students can’t compete with white students. And while it’s certainly true that perhaps some students lag significantly behind their white counterparts in the classroom, what kind of message does it send to persons of color when the achievement bar is purposefully lowered for non-academic reasons? Uniform academic benchmarks might be impossible in Alabama, but I find it reprehensible that minority students would be consigned to dumbed down standards solely because of the color of their skin and/or their parents’ level of income.
It’s self-evidently true that any child -- regardless of race, class or gender -- has the ability to attain the highest levels of academic achievement. Lowering standards and racial profiling in public schools is a terrible idea, not least because it seems to suggest otherwise.
H/T Via Meadia
UPDATE: Note also how the organization in Alabama that opposes race-based standards is not comprised of progressives but of conservative women. Remember that the next time someone on MSNBC shrieks that Republicans down in Dixie are “racists.”

Why is Barack Obama meeting with an African tyrant? The White House rolls out the red carpet for President Ali Bongo of Gabon

By Nile Gardiner World Last updated: June 9th, 2011
46 Comments Comment on this article

'Less than sterling record': President Bongo (Photo: AP)

The White House is rolling out the red carpet today for President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, whose penniless West African regime is notorious for its human rights abuses and widespread corruption (hat tip: this eye-opening report by ABC News). In yet another display of extraordinarily bad judgment, the Obama administration is extending the hand of friendship to another prominent tyrant, just two days after Washington sided with Hugo Chavez and various Latin American despots against Britain in a declaration over the Falkland Islands by the Organisation of American States (OAS).
Needless to say, Obama’s press secretary Jay Carney struggled to explain why President Bongo has been accorded the honour of a White House visit, admitting to ABC News that he has a "less than sterling record". But, said Carney, it was still “very important” for Bongo to meet with the US president, because:

First of all, the president of Gabon is making reform efforts, which we support. Secondly … Gabon has been an important partner in some of the issues that are very important to American national security.

Gabon, with a population of only 1.5 million and a per capita income of just $1,438, has never been a key US “partner”, as Carney ludicrously spins it, and as for “reform efforts”, they are nowhere to be seen. But it does have a reputation for being a massive kleptocracy governed by a ruling family that has been in power for more than four decades, since 1967. According to UN consultant Jack Blum in an interview with ABC, the Bongo family and its cronies have “siphoned off 25 percent of the gross domestic product of the country… the people who are running the country are guilty of grand theft nation.”
Human Rights watchdog Freedom House classifies Gabon as “not free”, with a political rights score of 6 (on a scale of 1 at the top, and 7 at the bottom), and a civil liberties score of 5. As Freedom House points out, Gabon is a classic one-party state:

Gabon is not an electoral democracy. The 2009 presidential election was marred by irregularities, including allegations of vote rigging and intimidation of the press. The president is elected for seven-year terms, and a 2003 constitutional amendment removed the two-term limit imposed in 1991. The president has extensive powers, including the authority to appoint judges and dissolve the parliament.

And as the US State Department points out in its latest annual report, Gabon has an appalling human rights record:

The following human rights problems were reported: ritualistic killings; use of excessive force by police; harsh prison conditions and lengthy pretrial detention; an inefficient judiciary subject to government influence; restrictions on privacy and press; harassment and extortion of African immigrants and refugees; widespread government corruption; violence against women; societal discrimination against women, noncitizen Africans, Pygmies, and persons with HIV/AIDS; and trafficking in persons, particularly children.

Is this really the kind of “partner” the White House wants to cultivate? The decision by President Obama to host one of Africa’s worst despots is a sad reflection on the current US administration, whose dictator-friendly foreign policy, from Tehran to Khartoum to Libreville, is an embarrassment for the leader of the free world.

DHS rife with wasteful spending

Janet Napolitano is pictured. | AP Photo

The author says Janet Napolitano cannot afford to waste taxpayer dollars. | AP Photo

By REP. JEFF DUNCAN | 3/13/13 9:48 PM EDT

This month will mark 10 years since the Department of Homeland Security opened its doors. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, forced us as Americans to fundamentally rethink the threats our nation faces and our approach to defending the homeland. As the 9/11 Commission Report documents, “Before 9/11, no executive department had, as its first priority, the job of defending America from domestic attack.”
Not since the creation of the Department of Defense had our government so hastily deployed historic levels of resources, personnel and funding in order to restructure the government. Almost overnight, a new federal bureaucracy combined 22 disparate agencies with over 200,000 employees under one department. Naturally, the creation of DHS was an enormous undertaking with huge management and programmatic challenges. Recognizing these challenges and the time it would take to transform the department, the Government Accountability Office in 2003 determined that the transformation of these agencies into DHS would be “high risk,” meaning the potential for wasted taxpayer dollars was likely.

Here we are, a full decade later, and GAO has again determined in its biennial report, which was released Feb. 14, that DHS remains “high risk” in implementing key management initiatives critical to mission outcomes and in the efficient and effective use of the department’s resources. As the report noted, serious deficiencies still exist in how the department buys technologies, manages its finances and data and deals with low morale.

However, as the immediacy of Sept. 11 fades, and as our fiscal burdens mount, we must ask the question: How wisely is DHS spending American taxpayer dollars? On Feb. 15, I held my first hearing as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency with this very concern in mind. Indeed, examples of DHS waste are rife. As former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore stated at that hearing, “Al Qaeda has said in their public statements that their goal is to collapse the economy of the United States. … If we waste money or carry out an ineffective program, … then we carry out the mission of Al Qaeda.” All the hearing witnesses agreed that DHS must implement a risk-based approach that guards against inefficiencies while realizing we cannot protect against all threats. Episodes where DHS officials focus on screening innocuous children and senior citizens distract from the department’s fundamental mission.

DHS’ Napolitano Leaves Legacy of Corruption, Lies, Lawsuits, and Waste

Written by Bob Adelmann

Many were surprised at Janet Napolitano’s announcement that she will leave her position as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at the end of August to become president of the University of California. Chosen from more than 300 candidates vying for the position, Napolitano managed to keep her interest in that position, and her successful bid for it, from the public until Friday.
She issued the usual departure appreciation statement:

I thank President Obama for the chance to serve our nation during this important chapter in our history. And I know the Department of Homeland Security will continue to perform its important duties with the honor and focus that the American public expects.

In response the president issued his dutiful reply:

Since day one, Janet has led my administration’s effort to secure our borders, deploying a historic number of resources, while also taking steps to make our immigration system fairer and more consistent with our values.

And the American people are safe and more secure thanks to Janet’s leadership in protecting our homeland against terrorist attacks.

Senator Jeff Sessions, (R-Ala.), saw things just a little differently: Napolitano’s tenure has been marked “by a consistent disrespect for the rule of law,” he observed.
Almost from her first day in office Napolitano failed to grasp the difference between truth and falsehood. Taking office in January 2009, she stoked controversy and an angry response from the Canadian ambassador when she incorrectly claimed that the September 11, 2001 attackers had entered the United States from Canada. When caught, she demurred without apology:

To the extent that terrorists have come into our country … across a border, it’s been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there.

Michael Wilson, Canada’s ambassador to the United States, angrily corrected Napolitano:

All of the 9/11 terrorists arrived in the United States from outside North America. They flew to major U.S. airports. They entered the U.S. with documents issued by the United States government, and no 9/11 terrorists came from Canada.

Thus began the long litany of inaccuracies, distortions, and cover-ups issued by Napolitano and her agency. In an interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley about how the DHS “system” worked in deflecting an attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 into Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009, Napolitano said:

One thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action. Within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring, all 128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures in light of what had occurred on the Northwest Airlines flight.

When forced to correct the account, Napolitano told Matt Lauer on December 28 that her comments “were taken out of context” and admitted that in fact “our system did not work.”
Napolitano either allowed or encouraged a “female sorority house” environment at the highest levels of her department that resulted in a federal discrimination lawsuit being filed by special Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent James Hayes which claimed her subordinates, Dora Schriro and Suzanne Barr, mistreated and sexually harassed him and other male staffers. When Hayes first reported the misbehaviors (beyond propriety to describe here) to the Equal Employment Opportunity Office, Napolitano launched a series of misconduct investigations against him. Soon thereafter Barr went on leave and then resigned altogether in September, 2012.
One of the most outrageous incidents concerned the publishing of a threat assessment report entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence of Radicalization and Recruitment” in April, 2009. The report claimed that the election of a black president, the economic meltdown, home foreclosures, concerns about impending gun control legislation, illegal immigration, and other factors were likely to drive recruiting into right-wing extremist factions. From that report:

The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment…

The consequences of a prolonged economic downturn — including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit — could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past.

The report referred to various “conspiracy theories” that might put the country at risk, along with a porous Mexican border:

Historically, domestic rightwing extremists have feared, predicted, and anticipated a cataclysmic economic collapse in the United States. Prominent anti government conspiracy theorists have incorporated aspects of an impending economic collapse to intensify fear and paranoia among like-minded individuals and to attract recruits during times of economic uncertainty…

DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremist groups’ frustration over a perceived lack of government action on illegal immigration has the potential to incite individuals or small groups toward violence.

When challenged about those “findings," Napolitano was forced to make numerous apologies and her department admitted to a “breakdown in internal processes” in creating the report.
Congressman Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency, noted in an editorial in March that the Government Accounting Office (GAO) identified billions of dollars in cost overruns incurred by the DHS and that even the DHS Inspector General’s office identified more than $1 billion in “questionable” expenses. He pointed out that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), one of Napolitano’s agencies, pays salaries of more than $100,000 a year to over 3,500 bureaucrats while the DHS itself was paying out performance bonuses of $61 million in 2011. As Duncan noted:

Our country is over $16 trillion in debt. Numerous examples of departmental cost overruns, schedule delays and performance problems cannot continue in this constrained budget environment.

One is reminded of General Sherman’s March to the Sea where total war against Georgia citizens was waged in late 1864 in order to destroy Georgia’s economy. The obvious benefit of Napolitano’s departure for the University of California is that she may be likely to inflict less damage there than she did as head of the DHS.

^{Photo of Janet Napolitano: AP Images}

A graduate of Cornell University and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at badelmann@thenewamerican.com

CO2 and the Ideology of Climate Change: The Forces Behind “Carbon-Centric Environmentalism”

By James F. Tracy

Global Research, July 12, 2013

On June 25, 2013 President Obama laid out his long term agenda for reducing US industrial and consumer “greenhouse emissions.” On July 11th the Department of Energy warns that “climate change”-related events will be threatening traditional sources of energy production and causing more energy supply disruptions. All the while, the notion that unusual or extreme weather events are primarily due to an excess of atmospheric CO2 and the consequent “greenhouse effect” is arguably based much more on long term economic and political designs than sound science.

As a response to the urgent pleas accompanying the purportedly thorough and unbiased research from scientists comprising the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that seeks to link climate change to human and industrial activity, an array of programs are being proposed and implemented by fiat in both Europe and the US.

Such programs will drastically change the standard of living of most every individual in the developed world. Indeed, since global temperatures do not readily correlate with the minute rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, there has been a marked shift within the CO2 public relations machine from the “global warming” meme to the more amorphous and catchall term, “climate change.”

The real agenda behind this international agenda and promotion of its almost religious “climate change ideology” is establishing the rationale for a massive regulatory and taxation system to reshape human behavior and lifestyle, in addition to carving out an entirely new area for technology outlays and financial speculation using carbon-related securities and derivatives.

Ostensibly a not-for-profit enterprise, preaching the climate change creed has also become a lucrative endeavor, with immense financial resources provided for its continued proselytization. Indeed, the climate-related tax-exempt 501C3 organizations constitute a multi-billion dollar public relations machine devoted to driving home one central theme: humans are to blame for every weather-related disaster graphically presented in every electronic media outlet. Such phony environmentalism involves vigorous efforts to transform public policy based on dubious science while ignoring genuine environmental threats.

While such 501C3s may be found encouraging donations from the general public, the scale of many such organizations’ annual revenue and assets suggests reliance of very deep-pocketed individuals and institutions with an eye toward selling government officials and the broader public on the notion that almost every aberrant weather event is the result of greenhouse emissions.

The following list of nonprofit organizations devoted to pushing the view of climate change and sustainability—by no means complete—has been gathered from their 990 tax forms for 2010. In that year such 501C3s brought in over 1.7 billion in revenue ($1,742,350,656), with the Nature Conservancy, led by former Goldman Sachs managing director Mark Tercek, accounting for over half that amount. Data in the fourth column demonstrates the extent of such entities’ public presence; some command greater journalistic attention while others operate with almost complete anonymity.

501C3 Name	2010 Income	Net Assets	Mentions in Major World News Publications, July 1 2012-June 30 2013 (LexisNexis)
Sierra Club	$97,757,678	$52,209,573	726
World Wildlife Fund	$267,993,426	$182,067,246	993
Friends of the Earth	$5,495,897	$3,407,984	1,831
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change	NA	NA	697
United Nations Environmental Program	NA	NA	115
United Nations Foundation	$197,737,803	$231,213,165	101
Nature Conservancy Inc.	$997,037,663	$5,180,558,726	242
Greenpeace Inc.	$27,465,948	$824,056	2,879
Climate Works Foundation	$83,026,313	$215,248,816	1
World Resources Institute	$50,079,176	$59,901,847	125
Center for Biological Diversity	$7,181,472	$10,734,072	115
Defenders of Wildlife	$30,229,512	$23,839,354	35
International Institute for Environment and Development	$30,335,978	$5,121,919	1
Natural Resources Defense Council	$97,957,964	$197,413,060	484
National Council for Science and the Environment	$3,526,925	$562,386	8
Global Green USA	$4,633,587	$4,372,965	8
Pew Center on Global Climate Change	$6,424,365	$4,666,874	2
Institute for Sustainable Communities	$15,007,337	$6,207,761	0
Sustainable Markets Foundation	$4,347,579	$1,660,940	0
US Climate Action Network	$2,414,999	$1,067,116	1
350 Org	$3,013,995	$2,250,300	109
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education	$2,362,495	$736,159	0
The Alliance for Climate Protection	$19,150,215	$12,052,979	5
Climate Solutions	$2,642,682	$907,901	29
Alliance for Climate Education	$2,749,291	$369,251	2
Climate Central Inc.	$3,273,478	-$808,414	49
Climate Group Inc.	$2,746,784	$465,685	0

For example, the Al Gore-funded Climate Project was first set up for “educational purposes,” principally to have the message of An Inconvenient Truth carried into US classrooms. Another organization, Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, similarly carries out the less prominent work of promoting the green agenda within colleges and universities. Overall, such resources are utilized to emphasize the alleged dangers of greenhouse gas emissions to the very existence of civilization and life itself. The extent of such resources is comparable to what many transnational corporations spends on advertising annually.
While Obama and the array of well-funded environmental organizations campaign on the purported dangers of gaseous emissions, they are wholly silent on what are truly grave threats to the environment and humanity—namely the widescale contamination of the food supply from genetically modified organisms, the array of clandestine weather modification and geoengineering programs, the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, and grave pollution of entire global regions from depleted uranium and Fukushima radiation that will last many lifetimes.

In light of these ongoing catastrophes and the powerful financial interests behind carbon-centric environmental advocacy, Obama’s posturing over anthropogenic climate change and environmentalists’ well-funded overtures may be seen for what they actually are—the visible components of a complex social engineering program far advanced in convincing the public that its return to a pre-feudal-like existence will not only be agreeable, but absolutely imperative for the greater good.

Friday, July 12, 2013

New Black Panther hopes Zimmerman is killed in prison [VIDEO]

9:08 PM 07/12/2013

Chuck Ross

SANFORD, Fla. – At least one member of the New Black Panther party hopes George Zimmerman is found guilty and murdered in prison.
“Anything less than death for George Zimmerman is not justice,” Kojo Kayrallah told The Daily Caller Friday afternoon. Kayrallah, who identified himself as the Chief of Staff for the state of Florida said he and his group were here in Sanford seeking “justice for Trayvon.”
When asked if death in prison was satisfactory, Kayrallah said “praise be to God.”

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The New Black Panther Party protested in front of Seminole County Courthouse along with several other groups on Friday as the six-person jury began deliberating Zimmerman’s fate. He can be convicted of either second-degree murder or manslaughter for the shooting death of Martin.
Brother James Muhammad also spoke to The Daily Caller saying “we’re not advocating any acts of violence against anyone in prison or out of prison.” But he added that there’s “always that possibility” that a “child killer” would face that fate of death behind bars.
Muhammad told the Daily Caller that he’d been invited to multiple protests by the Martin family and their family attorney Benjamin Crump. The group had associations with other civil rights leaders including Al Sharpton and his brother Kenneth Glasgow. “We came, and we supported,” said Muhammad of their visits to Sanford last year.
Kayrallah is part of the NBPP faction out of Jacksonville who issued a citizen’s arrest order and placed a $10,000 bounty on George Zimmerman’s head — “dead or alive” — last year before his arrest.
If Zimmerman is convicted of second-degree murder he faces at least 25 years in prison. A manslaughter conviction carries a 30 year maximum pena