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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: sandintoes who wrote (45849)9/15/2010 9:46:58 PM
From: Peter Dierks2 Recommendations  Respond to of 71588
 
Like, Is Sarah Palin Totally Conceited?
Ann Coulter
September 15, 2010

In the October issue of Vanity Fair now on newsstands, Michael Gross reverts to junior high school to issue gossip-girl digs at Sarah Palin. Next up in Vanity Fair: "Sarah Palin Super Stuck Up; Thinks She's All That."

Gross dramatically reveals, for example, that her speech in Wichita, Kan., was "basically the same speech she gave 18 hours earlier to the Tea Party group in Independence (Mo.)."

A politician repeated lines in a speech? You must be kidding! Hello, Ripley's? No, you cannot put me on hold. This is a worldwide exclusive. I'm sitting on a powder keg here.

Gross also apparently believes Vanity Fair readers will be tickled, rather than appalled by this story about Palin:

"Sometimes when she went out in public, people were unkind. Once, while shopping at Target, a man saw Palin and hollered, 'Oh my God! It's Tina Fey! I love Tina Fey!' When other shoppers started laughing, the governor parked her cart, walked out of the store, and drove away." (That jackass was lucky Sarah didn't have her moose rifle with her.)

A random encounter with a rude, abusive jerk in public is supposed to make her look bad? Liberals have really lost their minds about Palin. They'd laugh if someone hit her with a baseball bat.

Gross also includes a strange exegesis about Palin's tipping. It seems an unnamed bellman at an unnamed Midwestern hotel "waited up until past midnight for Palin and her entourage to check in -- and then got no tip at all for 10 bags."

First of all, what does Gross' imaginary bellboy think the entire Palin family and their assistants and aides were doing until after midnight? Bowling? Playing beer-pong at a local pub? They've been traveling -- with kids -- all day, arriving after midnight, and the only thing he can think about is how he had to stay up past midnight.

Assuming the story is true, which I do not, why is it Palin's fault no tip was given? According to the bellboy, there must have been at least half a dozen people in her group. Palin is the "talent." Other than Trig, she's the last person who should be held responsible for the tip.

Gross was just getting warmed up with the bellboy. "The same went for the maids who cleaned Palin's rooms in both places," he reveals in a worldwide exclusive: "no tip whatsoever."

I think most normal people reading that aren't thinking about Palin, they're thinking, "Wait -- do I tip maids?"

I don't on principle, unless I've stayed several nights or left a dead body in the room. Even then, it depends on the size of the body. I also don't leave a tip for the guy who put batteries in the TV remote, the hotel buyer who chose the nice soaps, or the interior decorator who designed the room. That's what I'm buying: a clean, functional room for one night.

Also fantastic is Gross' conspiracy theory on why no one in Alaska will talk to him about Palin.

In part, this is the typical, head-up-the-butt, New York reporter's view of Alaska. Gross assumes everyone in the state personally knows Sarah Palin and if they don't talk to him ... they must be afraid!

Thus, according to Gross, "(t)hey don't want her to find out they have talked with a reporter, because of a suspicion that bad things will happen to them if she does."

Why else wouldn't people talk to him? It's me -- Michael Gross from Manhattan! Everyone in Alaska should want to hang with me! The fact that they don't, he believes, is indisputable evidence of a conspiracy.

Another explanation is that not everyone in Alaska, not even everyone in Wasilla, personally knows Sarah Palin. Nor are they in awe of Manhattan or Vanity Fair. In other words, maybe Alaska is remarkably like other places.

Most psychotically insane is Gross' rumination on why the Palins would leave their home on, I quote, "the anniversary of Sarah's resignation."

This is the kind of "anniversary" celebrated only by Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and other Palin obsessives. It is not yet, as we go to press, an anniversary celebrated by Hallmark.

The fact that Michael Gross imagines the date Palin resigned is an "anniversary" anyone else in the world would notice proves only that he is a head case.

He discusses the Palins' absence on this momentous day (in his own mind) with his fellow obsessive, Joe McGinniss -- the man who moved into the house next door to the Palins for more convenient stalking.

On and on the two nutcases speculate about why the Palins are gone -- because, you see, THERE MUST BE AN EXPLANATION!

Perhaps "the Palins would want assurance that no curiosity seekers would trespass," Gross offers. But why, he asks himself, "make such a long flight"?

In the climactic scene of the article, Gross asks McGinniss, "Wouldn't it be easier to hire a guard?"

Before giving the reply, Gross notes that McGinniss has put himself "in the frame of mind of his subject -- where everything is fungible, and everyone is suspect." So McGinniss speaks with authority. And he says: "A guard would have a story he could sell."

Yeah, like the Midwestern bellboy. But the reader is supposed to be gasping at the strangeness of the Palins, not the strangeness of the two reporters, standing alone, staring at the Palins' empty house on an imaginary "anniversary," postulating theories on why the Palins aren't there.

It turns out the Palins had simply flown to Todd's parents' house for the weekend. No "curiosity seekers" showed up at the house to gawk -- other than the two reporters, who are utterly oblivious to the fact that the only paranoid psychotics in this story are themselves.

townhall.com



To: sandintoes who wrote (45849)3/30/2013 11:25:17 AM
From: greatplains_guy1 Recommendation  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 71588
 
3 dozen indicted in Atlanta cheating scandal
By KATE BRUMBACK
— Mar. 29 7:29 PM EDT

ATLANTA (AP) — In another embarrassing blow to Atlanta public schools, nearly three dozen former educators, including the ex-superintendent, were indicted Friday in one of the nation's largest test cheating scandals.

Former Superintendent Beverly Hall faced charges including racketeering, false statements and theft because prosecutors said some of the bonuses she received were tied to falsified scores.

Hall retired just days before a state probe was released in 2011. She has long denied knowing about the cheating or ordering it.

During a news conference Friday, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard provided examples of two students who demonstrated "the plight of many children" in the Atlanta school system. He described a third-grader who failed a benchmark exam and received the worst score in her reading class in 2006. The girl was held back, yet when she took a separate assessment test not long after, she passed with flying colors.

Howard said the girl's mother, Justina Collins, knew something was awry, but was told by school officials that the child simply was a good test-taker. The girl is now in ninth grade, reading at a fifth-grade level.

"I have a 15-year-old now who is behind in achieving her goal of becoming what she wants to be when she graduates. It's been hard trying to help her catch up," Collins said.

The criminal investigation lasted 21 months and the allegations date back to 2005. In addition to Hall, 34 people were indicted: four high-level administrators, six principals; two assistant principals; six testing coordinators; 14 teachers; a school improvement specialist and a school secretary.

All of the people named in the indictment face conspiracy charges. Other charges in the 65-count indictment include false statements and writings, false swearing, theft and influencing witnesses.

The investigation involved at least 50 schools as well as hundreds of interviews with school administrators, staff, parents and students. The district has about 50,000 students.

Howard would not directly answer a question about whether Hall led the conspiracy.

"What we're saying is that without her, this conspiracy could not have taken place," he said. "It would not have taken place if her actions had not made that possible."

Hall faces up to 45 years in prison, Howard said.

Richard Deane, an attorney for Hall, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The tests were the key measure the state used to determine whether it met the federal No Child Left Behind law. Schools with good test scores get extra federal dollars to spend in the classroom or on teacher bonuses.

It wasn't immediately clear how much bonus money Hall received. Howard did not say and the amount wasn't mentioned in the indictment.

"Those results were caused by cheating. ... And the money that she received, we are alleging that money was ill-gotten," Howard said.

The previous state investigation in 2011 found cheating by nearly 180 educators in 44 Atlanta schools. Educators gave answers to students or changed answers on tests after they were turned in, investigators said. Teachers who tried to report it faced retaliation, creating a culture of "fear and intimidation" in the district.

State schools Superintendent John Barge said last year he believed the state's new accountability system would remove the pressure to cheat on standardized tests because it won't be the sole way the state determines student growth. The pressure was part of what some educators in Atlanta Public Schools blamed for their cheating.

Hall served as superintendent for more than a decade, which is rare for an urban schools chief. She was named Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators in 2009 and credited with raising student test scores and graduation rates, particularly among the district's poor and minority students. But the award quickly lost its luster as her district became mired in the scandal.

In a video message to schools staff before she retired, Hall warned that the state investigation launched by former Gov. Sonny Perdue would likely reveal "alarming" behavior.

"It's become increasingly clear that a segment of our staff chose to violate the trust that was placed in them," Hall said. "There is simply no excuse for unethical behavior and no room in this district for unethical conduct. I am confident that aggressive, swift action will be taken against anyone who believed so little in our students and in our system of support that they turned to dishonesty as the only option."

The cheating came to light after The Atlanta Journal-Constipation reported that some scores were statistically improbable.

Most of the 178 educators named in the special investigators' report in 2011 resigned, retired, did not have their contracts renewed or appealed their dismissals and lost. Twenty-one educators have been reinstated and three await hearings to appeal their dismissals, said Atlanta Public Schools spokesman Stephen Alford.

Superintendent Erroll Davis said the district was focused on nurturing an ethical environment, providing quality education and supporting the employees who were not implicated.

"I know that our children will succeed when the adults around them work hard, work together, and do so with integrity," he said in a statement.

The Georgia Professional Standards Commission is responsible for licensing teachers and has been going through the complaints against teachers, said commission executive secretary Kelly Henson. Of the 159 cases the commission has reviewed, 44 resulted in license revocations, 100 got two-year suspensions and nine were suspended for less than two years, Henson said. No action was taken against six of the educators.

bigstory.ap.org