Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Carolyn who wrote (65479)	6/5/2013 11:14:05 PM
From: greatplains_guy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

Politico Attacks Victims of IRS Scandal by John Nolte5 Jun 2013, 5:55 AM PDT When the trifecta of scandals first broke over the White House a few weeks ago, the media (who were literally blocking the truth from getting out about the IRS and Benghazi) were so caught off guard that for a couple of weeks they accidentally acted like real media and just reported the facts. Over Memorial Day weekend that all changed. It is fairly obvious that the media used the three-day weekend to gather themselves, talk to the White House, and coordinate talking points with one another. The result of this coordination has been apparent in the words "overreach," "McCarthyism," "disarray," and "no GOP agenda" -- all being uttered simultaneously across media platforms that are supposed to compete, not coordinate, with one another. The idea is for the media to revert to form. Rather than seek the truth, the media will go back to attacking those seeking the truth. Obama's approval rating is going down, his left-wing agenda and legacy are in jeopardy, and the bleeding must be stopped. Another piece of coordination between media and Democrats reared its ugly head today in the most expected of places: Politico. No one takes more glee in savaging private citizens who dare not support Obama than Obama's bullying thugs at Politico. During Tuesday's testimony, Congressional Democrats attacked the private citizens brought before them to tell their individual horror stories. The witnesses were Tea Party groups and other conservative groups put through months of paralyzing harassment by an IRS that had intentionally singled them out based on their political beliefs. Democrats, however, did not care about the fact that these groups had been targeted, and they kept insinuating that these groups deserved the IRS scrutiny due to their political activity. Well, that is not the point and everyone knows it. Had the IRS put the same number of left-leaning groups through the same hyper-scrutiny as they did right-leaning groups, none of this would be happening. There would be no scandal. But the idea here is to change the subject from the fact that the IRS singled out Obama's political foes for paralyzing scrutiny in the run-up to Obama's re-election campaign, to the supposed abuse of a tax exempt status by conservative political groups. The thinking goes that if Democrats can make the Tea Party look like tax cheats it will take the heat off of Obama and further damage his opponents. Well, right on cue, Politico arrives this morning like the cavalry with an appallingly dishonest (but expected) piece of reporting that falls right in line with what Congressional Democrats did yesterday. It is as pure a piece of coordination and left-wing propaganda as you will ever read. And this is the only kind of investigative reporting Politico ever does. Imagine if Politico poured these same resources into investigating the IRS's connections to the White House or the shaping of the IRS talking points by the State Department. But today's Politico piece is all about changing the subject. All it looks at is the political activity of yesterday's Tea Party witnesses in order to make a case that they deserved scrutiny from the IRS. The Politico piece, however, intentionally ignores the fact that this is not the point of the scandal. The point is that these groups were singled out for harassment by their own government. The Politico piece intentionally ignores and chooses not to report on all the political activity of tax-exempt left-leaning groups (like Obama's Organizing for America) -- groups approved by the IRS, that are every bit as political as those on the right who were paralyzed by lengthy and intrusive questionnaires and threats of perjury–those who had their information leaked to the media. Working directly with the Democrats, Politico is now putting in overtime to desperately steer subject away from and distract from partisan horrors committed by the IRS. The actual crime is no longer the story, according to Politico. No, the story is that the victims had it coming. Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC breitbart.com

To: Carolyn who wrote (65479)	6/9/2013 11:33:49 PM
From: greatplains_guy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

The Real Truth About the Common Core State Standards by Karen Schroeder June 7, 2013 Wisconsin legislators invited Kathleen Porter-Magee of the Fordham Institute to testify before a joint committee on education about Common Core Standards. She also wrote “The Truth about Common Core” for National Review online. Ms. Porter-Magee’s testimony and article lack a basic understanding of the reasons that tax payers are opposed to Common Core. A most prominent reason that parents and teachers reject Common Core is: that federalizing education will severely limit local control of schools and make reforming education no more possible than reforming Social Security or Medicare. Under Race to the Top, the federal government has used its power and federal tax dollars to develop a set of curricula guidelines even though the Constitution, The General Education Provisions Act, the Department of Education Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 place limits on the federal government’s authority to direct or supervise instructional materials. The federal government has used its power and federal tax dollars to motivate textbook publishers and testing consortiums to create texts and tests that align with Common Core. Leaders from both parties ignore the wisdom of limits that have been placed on federal control of education; they do not recognize the relationship between lower academic achievement and each new federal program. During the 1970s when I first began teaching, our history book contained two sentences about a republic. One provided a definition and the other stated that America is a republic. The rest of the chapter focused on democracies. Teachers were free to alter their curricula, so many of us provided supplementary material on the historical significance of a republic. We taught our students that the American Constitutional Republic provided God-given freedoms which could not be taken away. Our students understood that many founders warned future generations to avoid becoming a democracy because democracies were self-destructive. The final exam included the question, “What form of government was shaped by the American Constitution?” Students who chose democracy as their answer said they remembered the emphasis on the positive aspects of democracies provided by their history book. Although never stating that America was a Democracy, the textbook led students to that mistaken belief. My organization, Advocates for Academic Freedom, communicates with citizens and teachers across the United States. For several years, teachers have been complaining that their texts no longer identify America as a republic but they refer to “American Democracy”. Current lies, misrepresentations, and significant omissions of basic facts found in recent history texts used in all educational settings are changes seen by parents and teachers as a direct result of educational standards shaped by the federal government. Many Catholic high schools and public schools across Wisconsin are using the text American Pageant, fourteenth edition, which provides a false definition of republic and republicanism. The definition that text offers is that of collectivism. Textbooks have been aligned with federally shaped state standards for many years, but teachers had the freedom to remedy the flaws in those texts. Now that the federal government has provided federal tax dollars to consortiums to shape tests (including ACT and SAT college-entrance exams) to be aligned with these standards, home-school parents or teachers in any educational setting will be unable to teach children the truth when falsehoods are being tested. This is another prominent reason that parents and teachers reject Common Core. Parents who believe that the educational system plays a significant role in protecting and defending America’s republic and her founding documents do not care whether George Bush, Jeb Bush, or President Obama support Common Core, Race to the Top, or No Child Left Behind. Citizens object to the federal government’s imposition of greater control over every aspect of education. Taxpayers reject standards that do NOT provide the academic rigor promised. Parents reject lower academic standards to provide time to promote federal efforts to create students with a “world view”, a prominent goal of every federal educational program since Benjamin S. Bloom and B.F. Skinner began pushing national goals in the late 1950s. Parents reject control by experts who have not had to implement their ideologies, to live with the consequences of those ideologies, or to carry responsibility for their failed policies. Parents and teachers longer accept blame for those failed academic policies. Taxpayers know that the American educational system was once the envy of the world before educational experts surrendered our children’s academic future to ever-increasing federal control. truthinamericaneducation.com