Obama's Education Secretary Apologizes for Comments on ‘White Moms’

Education Secretary Arne Duncan apologized on Monday for comments made that opponents to Common Core academic standards are “white suburban moms” scared that “their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought.”

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and (left) Obama's U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited a fifth-grade and pre-kindergarden Detroit Public School classroom at Thirkell Elementary Monday morning, May 6. 2013 Gov. Snyder and Secretary Duncan listen to Miss Pitt's fifth grade classroom given presentation on the U.S. states. They also read the book, The Rainbow Fish, to a pre-kindergarden classroom. This was to push Common Core Education in Michigan

“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were,” said Duncan at a gathering of state superintendents last week.

The comments led to the launch of a White House petition calling for Duncan’s removal. Other outraged parents formed the Facebook group

The backlash has led Duncan to post a formal apology on the department website,Politico reports:

In a blog post on the department website, Duncan said when he mentioned the white suburban moms, he had been trying to “encourage a difficult conversation and challenge the underlying assumption that when we talk about the need to improve our nation’s schools, we are only talking about poor minority students in inner cities.” On the contrary, he said, “every demographic group has room for improvement.”

Duncan, a white suburban dad who has two children in public schools, said he knows that “no one enjoys hearing tough news from school.” Yet he said all parents “need the truth” – and that truth, he said, is that previous standards were too low, previous tests were too easy and American students are not prepared to compete in the global economy.

GOP CONGRESSMAN FROM OKLAHOMA DELIVERS SCATHING INDICTMENT OF OBAMA REGIME

Why aren't more in our Congress and Senate Speaking out?

CVS Workers Must Give Medical Information To Their Employer!

A new CVS policy is causing outrage among employees for asking workers to “voluntarily” give medical information or face a $600 fine.

The new policy will require the Rode Island-based company’s 200,000 employees to report their height, weight, BMI, blood pressure and glucose levels or face a $50-per-month or $600-per-year fine.

Critics of the policy worry that those employees in poorer health might risk getting fired, The Daily Mail reports.

The rule has been deemed “technology-enhanced discrimination” by Dr. Deborah Peel, the founder of Patient Privacy Rights. She told ABC News that the company is discriminating through coercion.

“The approach they’re taking is based on the assumption that somehow these people need a whip,” she said. “How is it voluntary if you are a low or medium-wage person?”

CVS is covering the costs of all screening of its employees. Employees are required to submit all test results beginning May 1 or pay a fine

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/20/voluntary-policy-cvs-medical-info-dishes-out-600-f/#ixzz2OCPyPFI6

SNOPES.com Exposed: Left Wing Website Not Quite the Impartial Arbiter of Truth

If you’re like me, the first thing You did when you received an e-mail saying that the moon was full of UFOs or that President Obama was a Kenyan trained Ninja assasin, you went off to SNOPES.com to see what the deal was with those crazy e-mails. And for the most part, SNOPES has been a reliable informant on the truth about these Urban legends.

Or . . . apparently not. I began to notice that Snopes was taking more of a Leftist tack with things I obviously knew to be true, and was unwilling to revise their opinion when things went more for the right-wing than the lefties. This message board post HERE agrees, especially when it comes to politics; and especially lefty politics.
(And just in case this Message Board post “disappears,” I’ve reprinted the post in toto so it will be archived. Should the author have any problems with that, they can contact me and we’ll fix it post-haste; but as of this printing they haven’t responded to my e-mails.)

For those of you that think snopes is god when it comes to knowing the truth or not. By the way you might want to check this out on snopes.
I present this for your own evaluation.
Who “Snopes” are was written up in READERS DIGEST and agrees with this account.
(no politcal bias was mentioned in the article).

SNOPES EXPOSED
For the past few years http://www.snopescom/ has positioned itself, or others have labeled it, as the ‘tell-all final word’ on any comment, claim and email. But for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind snopes.com. Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it – kinda makes you wonder what they were hiding. Well, finally we know. It is run by a husband and wife team – that’s right, no big office of investigators and researchers, no team of lawyers. It’s just a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby. David and Barbara Mikkelson in the San Fernando Valley of California started the website about 13 years ago and they have no formal background or experience in investigative research. After a few years it gained popularity believing it to be unbiased and neutral, but over the past couple of years people started asking questions who was behind it and did they have a selfish motivation?
The reason for the questions – or skepticisms – is a result of Snopes.com claiming to have the bottom line facts to certain questions or issue when in fact they have been proven wrong. Also, there were criticisms the Mikkelsons were not really investigating and getting to the ‘true’ bottom of various issues.
A few months ago, when my State Farm agent Bud Gregg in Mandeville hoisted a political sign referencing Barack Obama and made a big splash across the Internet, ‘supposedly’ the Mikkelson’s claim to have researched this issue before posting their findings on snopes.com. In their statement they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort ‘ever’ took place. I personally contacted David Mikkelson (and he replied back to me) thinking he would want to get to the bottom of this and I gave him Bud Gregg’s contact phone numbers – and Bud was going to give him phone numbers to the big exec’s at State Farm in Illinois who would have been willing to speak with him about it. He never called Bud. In fact, I learned from Bud Gregg that no one from snopes.com ever contacted anyone with State Farm.
Yet, Snopes.com issued a statement as the ‘final factual word’ on the issue as if they did all their homework and got to the bottom of things – not!
Then it has been learned the Mikkelson’s are very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal. As we all now know from this presidential election, liberals have a purpose agenda to discredit anything that appears to be conservative. There has been much criticism lately over the Internet with people pointing out the Mikkelson’s liberalism revealing itself in their website findings.

Gee, what a shock?
So, I say this now to everyone who goes to snopes.com to get what they think to be the bottom line fact ‘proceed with caution.’ Take what it says at face value and nothing more. Use it only to lead you to their references where you can link to and read the sources for yourself. Plus, you can always Google a subject and do the research yourself. It now seems apparent that’s all the Mikkelson’s do. After all, I can personally vouch from my own experience for their ‘not’ fully looking into things.
http://http//www.wikipedia.org/ or http://http//www.snopes.com/

I have found this to be true also! Many videos of Obama I tried to verify on Snopes and they said they were False. Then they gave their liberal slant! I have suspected some problems with Snopes for some time now, but I have only caught them in half-truths. If there is any subjectivity they do an immediate full left rudder.
Truth or Fiction, is a better source for verification, in my opinion.
TruthOrFiction.com-Is that forwarded email Truth or Fiction? Research into stories, scams, hoaxes, myths, and urban legends on the Internet
I have recently discovered that Snopes.com is owned by a flaming liberal and this man is in the tank for Obama. There are many things they have listed on their site as a hoax and yet you can go to You tube yourself and find the video of Obama actually saying these things. So you see, you cannot and should not trust Snopes.com, ever for anything that remotely resembles truth! I don’t even trust them to tell me if email chains are hoaxes anymore.
A few conservative speakers on MySpace told me aboutSnopes.com. A few months ago and I took it upon myself to do a little research to find out if it was true. Well, I found out for myself that it is true. Anyway just FYI please don’t use Snopes.com anymore for fact checking and make your friends aware of their political leanings as well. Many people still think Snopes.com is neutral and they can be trusted as factual. We need to make sure everyone is aware that that is a hoax in itself.
Thank you,
Alan Strong
Alan Strong CEO/Chairman
Commercial Programming Systems, Inc.
4400 Coldwater Canyon Ave. Suite
200 Studio City, CA. 91604-5039

Federal Appeals Court Limits Warrantless Border Confiscations and Searches of Mobile Devices...

Federal Appeals Court Limits Warrantless Border Confiscation and Searches of Mobile Devices... The ruling makes clear that there should be reasonable suspicion; a ruling by the full 9th Circuit that overturned a previous ruling by a three judge panel:

Customs and Border Protection officers cannot confiscate or download every laptop or electronic device brought into the U.S., ruling that people have an expectation their data are private and that the government must have “reasonable suspicion” before it starts to do any intensive snooping.

In a broad ruling, the court also said merely putting password protection on information is not enough to trigger the government’s “reasonable suspicion” to conduct a more intrusive search — but can be taken into account along with other factors.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges said it was a “watershed case” that gets at what kinds of limits the government must observe when it comes to technology and privacy.

Caro, Michigan: 9 Year Old Boy In Trouble For Plastic Green Army Men on Birthday Cupcakes

OK, now this stuff is just getting absolutely ridiculous. In the latest instance of a school official completely overreacting to a situation, a 9-year-old boy has found himself in some hot water for bringing his birthday cupcakes to school because they had… wait for it… plastic army men on top. From CBS Detroit:

A 9-year-old boy’s birthday cupcakes sparked a school controversy that just keeps growing, with scores of people lining up against a school principal who found the cupcake’s topping “inappropriate.”
The boy was chided, and so were his parents, for cupcakes featuring little green Army men on the top.
Schall Elementary School principal Susan Wright called the parents at home and said the cupcakes were insensitive in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting. School staff pulled off the Army men before they were served.

Of course the outraged parents decided they call the media about this ridiculous incident, so the principal issued this statement:

In the climate of recent events in schools we walk a delicate balance in teaching non-violence in our buildings and trying to ensure a safe, peaceful atmosphere. On one hand, there are those who advocate arming teachers, having armed security guards and creating a fortress of defense in our schools. On the other hand, there are those who feel that guns create fear in schools and we need to put solid security measures in place plus practice routines to be prepared in case an emergency should ever occur. Living in a democratic society entails respect for opposing opinions.

Umm, what? What does this have to do with army guys on top of cupcakes? I keep hearing about these ridiculous reactions by school administrators and am wondering if NOT having any form of common sense is a prerequisite for being a principal. I get that everyone wants to keep kids safe and all that, but no one is being well served by this kind of garbage decision making by principals. Most certainly not a 9-year-old on his birthday.

High School Female Student Forced By Teacher To Do Lap Dances On Male Students

A 16-year-old female  public high school student is alleging, among other things, that her computer science teacher forced her to perform lap dances on her male classmates during class. From Yahoo:

In the latest sign that America is obviously headed to hell in a hand basket, a 16-year-old student at a public high school in Pittsburghhas accused a teacher of forcing her to perform lap dances for male students in his computer technology class.

The Perry Traditional Academy student says the teacher, Michael White, also kissed her on the lips in a classroom, according to CBS Pittsburgh.

Police charge that White, 29, also encouraged her to attend a hotel party where the festivities would have included a striptease.

The girl declined, she said. However, the criminal complaint against White charges that the computer technology Lothario later seduced the girl into leaving school without permission and having sex at his house. This occurred at least twice, and the teacher also allegedly plied the teen with alcohol and marijuana.

The teacher has denied any wrongdoing through his attorney who said the following:

“We have no reason not to be very skeptical of these allegations at this time,” Chuck Gallo, an attorney representing White, told CBS Pittsburgh.
“Let’s slow down here,” added Blaine Jones, another attorney representing White. “We live in America and he is innocent until if ever proven guilty.”

Of course I believe he is innocent until proven guilty, but it seems that at least some of these allegations should be easy to get to the truth. I mean, the lap dances in the middle of class seem like they’d be easy to prove or disprove, right? No way a classroom of teenage boys ccould keep quiet about that. Even if that was the only thing that went on and even if he didn’t force her to do that, this man belongs nowhere near children or schools. To even allow that to go on in your classroom is completely irresponsible and the antithesis of a being a teacher.

Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that, the older I get, I am reading more and more of these stories. It really makes me wonder about the kind of people we are recruiting and hiring to teach in and run our schools. Do we even conduct job interviews, check references, and do background checks anymore before allowing adults to interact with the future of our country? I only ask because it just seems like lately we’re just picking teachers and administrators out of a hat. We have to do better.