SI
SI
discoversearch

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 : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FJB who wrote (764010)1/15/2014 7:28:16 AM
From: average joe  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1576601
 
AC casino revenue below $3B; 1st time in 22 years


By WAYNE PARRY 10 hours ago

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Atlantic City's casino revenue fell below $3 billion last year for the first time in 22 years, as increasing competition in the northeastern U.S. continued to shrink the market.

Figures released Tuesday by the state Division of Gaming Enforcement showed the city's casinos won $2.86 billion in 2013, down from just over $3 billion in 2012.

It marked the seventh straight year of plunging gambling revenue for Atlantic City, which won $5.2 billion in 2006. That was the year the first of what would become 12 Pennsylvania casinos opened, cutting deeply into a market the New Jersey resort town once called its own.

The casino saturation claimed its first New Jersey victim on Monday when the Atlantic Club Casino Hotel shut down, leaving Atlantic City with 11 casinos.

"Obviously it's disappointing to see another year where it's a decline," said Tony Rodio, president of the Tropicana Casino and Resort, and head of the Casino Association of New Jersey. "But hopefully with the addition of Internet gambling, I think you're going to see an increase in 2014."

The revenue figures showed the state's fledgling Internet gambling industry being dominated by two main players: the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, and Caesars Interactive, which together won $6.1 million of the $8.4 million that was taken in by the New Jersey Internet gambling sites over the final five weeks of 2013.

The Borgata, with its Party Poker online brand, took in more than $3.7 million in online gambling revenue since Internet betting began in New Jersey on Nov. 21.

"Our network has attracted the largest pool of players in the New Jersey online market, allowing us to offer our customers a wide selection of games and table stakes at all times," said Keith Smith, president of Boyd Gaming, which owns half of the Borgata. "This gives our network a significant competitive advantage and positions us for further success."

He also said the initial figures answer one key question, at least for the Borgata: whether Internet gambling will bring in new revenue, or simply cannibalize existing brick-and-mortar operations.

"When matching our online and land-based databases, we found that 60 percent of online casino customers had not been to Borgata in over a year, and over 75 percent had made fewer than two trips to Borgata in the past year," Smith said. "And on a combined basis, online and land-based poker revenue at Borgata was up more than 40 percent from our land-based play in December 2012. Clearly, online gaming is complementary to our land-based business, not competitive."

Caesars Interactive, which runs sites including the WSOP and 888 brands, won nearly $2.4 million online from late November through the end of the year.

In this Nov. 26, 2013 photo, Jon Hernandez of Roselle Park, N.J. plays a game of Internet poker from …

Other competitors lagged badly in the online market. The Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort and its ucasino brand, won $883,000. The Tropicana Casino and Resort won $748,000; Trump Plaza Hotel Casino and its Betfair online brand won $427,000, and the Golden Nugget, whose launch was delayed for weeks by technical problems, won $179,000.

Revel Casino Hotel posted the biggest annual revenue gain, at nearly 27 percent to $155 million, but that was mainly because it did so poorly a year earlier. The Atlantic Club, which shut down on Monday, had the second-biggest percentage increase in 2013. It was up 11.6 percent to nearly $142 million. But that was not enough to keep it from a bankruptcy filing that led to its purchase by two rivals, Tropicana and Caesars, who shut it down and split up its assets.

The Borgata was up less than 1 percent to $616 million, but that was almost twice as much as its nearest competitor, Harrah's Resort Atlantic City, took in. Harrah's was down nearly 11 percent.

Resorts Casino Hotel was virtually unchanged for the year at just under $131 million.

Trump Plaza had the biggest decline, down nearly 28 percent, to just $74 million for the year.

Other declines included Bally's Atlantic City, down 17.4 percent to $244 million; the Showboat Casino Hotel, down 14.3 percent to $193 million; the Taj Mahal, down 12 percent to $260 million; and the Tropicana, down 8.8 percent to $228 million.

Caesars Atlantic City was down 6.2 percent to $336 million; and the Golden Nugget Atlantic City was down 4.3 percent to $125 million.

For the month of December 2013, the casinos took in nearly $222 million, including Internet revenue. That was down from the $223.5 million they won in December 2012, before Internet gambling was permitted.

news.yahoo.com



To: FJB who wrote (764010)1/15/2014 1:16:36 PM
From: joseffy1 Recommendation

Recommended By
FJB

  Respond to of 1576601
 
Ads Attacking Health Law Stagger Outspent Democrats
.......................................................................................................
By CARL HULSE JAN. 15, 2014
nytimes.com


An ad takes aim at Representative Joe Garcia of Florida.

WASHINGTON — Democrats are increasingly anxious about an onslaught of television ads hitting vulnerable Senate and House candidates for their support of the new health law, since many lack the resources to fight back in the early stages of the midterm campaign.

Since September, Americans for Prosperity, a group financed in part by the billionaire Koch brothers, has spent an estimated $20 million on television advertising that calls out House and Senate Democrats by name for their support of the Affordable Care Act.

The unusually aggressive early run of television ads, which has been supplemented by other conservative initiatives, has gone largely unanswered, and strategists in both parties agree it is taking a toll on its targets.

Building on the success, the deep-pocketed organization disclosed on Tuesday that it was expanding its Senate efforts with $1.8 million in airtime to attack Democratic House members running for the Senate in Iowa and Michigan, where Democrats are viewed as holding an early advantage. The group was also moving into Montana, a state where Democrats may struggle to defend a seat, on behalf of a Republican House member running for the Senate.

Campaign experts said they believe that the early advertising blitz has driven down the support for Senate incumbents in highly competitive states such as Louisiana and North Carolina that are critical to the Democratic Party’s push to hold its majority.

Some House Democrats in competitive districts find themselves under steady assault with little ability to respond unless they want to dip into money they will need later in the campaign.

Attacking Democrats Over Health Care Law

The conservative group Americans for Prosperity has released a barrage of television ads faulting individual vulnerable Senate and House Democrats for their support of the president’s health care law.





Number of times televison ads criticizing candidate’s stance on the health law aired between June 1, 2013, and Jan. 12


EXCERPT FROM AN AD


“Kay Hagan told us, if you like your insurance plan and your doctors, you could keep them. That just wasn’t true.”


Sen. Kay Hagan


3,535


North Carolina


“Mary Landrieu cast the deciding vote for Obamacare. Now, Landrieu is backtracking, and trying to avoid accountability.”


Sen. Mary L. Landrieu


1,424


Louisiana


“Obamacare means higher costs for struggling families. ... yet Congressman Rob Barber supports Obamacare.”


Rep. Ron Barber


856


Arizona 2nd


“Ann Kirkpatrick voted for Washington’s government takeover of health care. ... Now Arizonans are losing the health care plans they love.”


Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick


697


Arizona 1st


“Lots of promises were made to pass Obamacare. ... Senator Begich didn’t listen. How can I trust him again?”


Sen. Mark Begich


678


Alaska


“Obamacare doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. Tell Congressman Murphy to stop thinking about politics and start thinking about people.”


Rep. Patrick Murphy


431


Florida 18th


“I’m supposed to trust my family’s health care to a website that doesn’t even work? Call Congressman Rahall, and tell him West Virginia families deserve better than Obamacare.”


Rep. Nick J. Rahall


136


West Virginia 3rd


“It’s the lie of the year: ‘You can keep your insurance if you like it.’ And Senator Shaheen kept telling it.”


Sen. Jeanne Shaheen


32


New Hampshire








By ALICIA PARLAPIANO

Source: Campaign Media Analysis Group at Kantar Media

Note: Totals do not include local cable advertising.

“Money spent now is money lost,” said Representative Joe Garcia, a South Florida Democrat who was the target of an ad campaign late last year along with Representative Patrick Murphy, a fellow Floridian. Both are in their first terms, and freshmen incumbents are usually considered the most vulnerable.

Americans for Prosperity has also run ads in competitive districts represented by Democratic House members in Arizona, Minnesota, New Hampshire and West Virginia.

In Colorado and the Florida Panhandle, eyeing districts where Republicans face serious challenges, the organization has aired television spots thanking Republican House members for opposing the health care law. The ads announced Tuesday include one thanking Representative Steve Daines, a Montana Republican seeking a Senate seat.

The group has poured millions of dollars — amounts more typically spent during the closing stages of Senate races — into attacks on the health care stances of Democratic senators such as Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Begich of Alaska and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

While campaign experts differ on the staying power and impact of advertising that runs many months before voters begin paying closer attention, Democratic strategists say the sheer volume of the ads is a threat.

Conservatives behind the advertising flurry acknowledge that this is an unorthodox effort for this point in the midterms, but the intense polarization over the health care law provides a rare opportunity to shape public opinion and put severe pressure on congressional supporters of the health care law.

“I suspect it is causing an enormous problem for all of these members,” said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity. “There is an easy solution: Repeal the law and it goes away.”

Democratic strategists say that given a level playing field, they believe their candidates can defend and explain their position on the health care law and fight the issue to at least a draw. But they fear that if the anti-health-law campaign is not checked, it could lock in a hostile midterm environment before some campaigns even get off the ground.

Some Democrats are open about calling for help from allies and supporters of the health care law who may be biding their time.

“Democrats need money at this early stage in order to fight back against the limitless spending from the Kochs,” said Guy Cecil, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “As we get closer to the election, we will have the resources to introduce their Tea Party candidates before they have an opportunity to define themselves for voters, but right now the limitless spending from the Kochs means we need Democratic donors to step up in a bigger way immediately.”

The so-called issue ads cannot call for the election or defeat of individual lawmakers, but they generally encourage voters to call lawmakers to register their opposition to the health program.

For example, an ad running in Louisiana as recently as Sunday, called “Doubling Down,” notes that Ms. Landrieu has maintained support for the health care law she originally voted for despite the problems with carrying it out.

“Tell Mary Landrieu doubling down on Obamacare is wrong,” the ad says.

Ads challenging other Democrats, seeming to recognize the Republican Party’s need to broaden its appeal to women, feature a lone woman talking to the camera about negative aspects of the health law and noting the Democratic target’s support of the measure.

There has been limited Democratic response by independent groups in some of the battlegrounds.

Notably, the Senate Majority PAC has countered with television ads against potential Republican contenders in Louisiana and New Hampshire and with ads supporting Ms. Hagan in North Carolina.

The Democratic group, led by allies of Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, is not keeping pace dollar for dollar with Americans for Prosperity. For example, those who closely track ad expenditures say the conservative group has spent about $5 million in North Carolina compared with just under $1.5 million by the Democratic organization. In Louisiana, the comparable estimates are about $1.8 million for the conservatives and $625,000 for the Democratic PAC.

“We absolutely have to keep battling back, and we can’t let ads go unanswered,” said Ty Matsdorf, campaign director for the Democratic PAC.

The leaders of Americans for Prosperity intend to keep up the pressure and in the new ads will turn more to the experiences of Americans dealing with the health law.

“People are moving beyond their frustration with the technology and toward the actual service,” said Levi Russell, a spokesman for the organization. “Obamacare’s more unpopular now than it ever has been, and it’s important to us to emphasize that message of accountability.”

Nicholas Con



To: FJB who wrote (764010)1/15/2014 2:40:57 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 1576601
 
One Month After JFK’s Murder, Former President Truman Called For Abolishing CIA
International Business News ^ | January 13, 2014 | Joseph Lazzaro



One month to the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, former President Harry Truman recommended that the U.S. abolish the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In an op-ed column published in the Washington Post on Dec. 22, 1963, Truman never linked the CIA to President Kennedy’s murder, but the timing of the explicit and strongly worded column and complaint implied a connection.



“For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment,” Truman wrote. “It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.”



Truman continued:

“This quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue -- and subject for cold war enemy propaganda,” the former president wrote.

Truman: No Distant Observer

Truman was no distant, uninformed public policy professional when it came to the CIA: In July 1947, then-President Truman signed into law the legislation that created the agency, which replaced the former U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

In 1944, William J. Donovan, the OSS’ creator, suggested to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the nation should create a new, centralized organization/agency directly supervised by the president -- "which will procure intelligence both by overt and covert methods and will at the same time provide intelligence guidance, determine national intelligence objectives, and correlate the intelligence material collected by all government agencies."

Donovan also proposed that the new agency should have authority to conduct “subversive operations abroad.”

In December 1963, Truman articulated in no uncertain terms what he thought of the CIA’s covert operations dimension:

Truman said they should “be terminated.”

Later, in 1964, Truman would reiterate his call for removing covert operations from the CIA in a letter to Look magazine -- underscoring that he never intended the CIA to get involved in “strange activities” when he signed the legislation creating the institution.

Further, Truman is not the only high-profile U.S. public official to call for the abolition of the CIA’s operational activities. Former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., wanted to abolish the agency and transfer its intelligence functions to appropriate existing U.S. government departments. For example, weapons intelligence would be under the U.S. Department of Defense, political intelligence under the State Department and non-public economic intelligence under the Commerce Department.

What’s more, placing intelligence gathering and covert operations in separate government institutions helps prevent the government’s covert operations wing from influencing or distorting the intelligence-gathering wing’s reports to support its own goals. This separation addresses the inherent or at least potential conflict-of-interest problem that occurs when one institution is home to both research and operations functions.

Equally significant, placing the covert operations function in the U.S. Department of Defense would give the president more direct oversight of those operations than if they remain with the CIA. In other words, covert operations as part of the U.S. DOD -- whose secretary of defense regularly speaks with the president -- would improve their visibility and accountability via more-frequent policy reviews. It would also make it harder for an improvisational or rogue/unauthorized group in the department to create a “shadow operation” -- literally, an unauthorized covert foreign policy or para-military policy.

Truman: An Agency For Intelligence-Gathering Only

The risk of the potential creation of covert operations and para-military policies not authorized by and hidden from the U.S. president is at the core of Truman’s Dec. 1963 complaint about the CIA: By that point, the CIA had created numerous covert operations, missions and projects -- the sort of “strange activities” in which Truman never intended the CIA to get involved.

In other words, to Truman in Dec. 1963, the CIA was an agency that had run amok, and although the former president could have called for the end of the CIA’s operational duties at any time, the fact that he timed his complaint to be published one month after the JFK assassination is significant. At minimum, Truman’s column is an expression of his concern about a CIA that had strayed far from its creators’ intent. At maximum, Truman’s column -- published when a stunned nation was still grieving and exhibiting shock and confusion over JFK’s death, and as suspicions of a plot reverberated across America -- is one of the earliest expressions of doubt concerning the government's official narrative that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and unaided to assassinate President Kennedy.

Further, the year-later release of the Warren Commission’s report on the JFK assassination -- which concluded that Oswald had acted alone in killing Kennedy with three rifle shots, and that Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby had acted alone in killing Oswald two days after Oswald’s arrest -- did little to dispel public concern that the report was implausible and unconvincing. In the months and immediate years that followed, assassination researchers would rebuke the Warren Commission for its grossly slipshod investigation procedures -- particularly for failing to collect 100 percent of the evidence, and for failing to analyze evidence it had collected -- and for other serious violations of basic protocols for criminal investigations.

Those doubts by the American people and by assassination researchers about the lone-gunman conclusion would increase in 1978, when a second investigation, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), concluded that President Kennedy was very likely assassinated as a result of a plot/conspiracy. However, the committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy.

Making Public JFK Assassination Files Held By The CIA Would Clarify Much

Further, as noted, Truman’s complaint is not an indictment of the CIA in the aftermath of the tragedy that occurred in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963 -- one of the darkest and most ignominious days in the nation’s history -- a day that changed the trajectory of both U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

That said, the U.S. intelligence community in general, and the Central Intelligence Agency specifically, could resolve many of the questions/anomalies that form the mystery at the center of this case -- and fill in the dozens of gaps left by the Warren Commission -- by making public more than 1,100 classified files related to the JFK assassination.

In particular, when made public, the classified files -- of CIA Officer George Joannides; CIA Officer David Atlee Philips, who was involved in pre-assassination surveillance of Oswald; Birch D O’Neal, who as counter-intelligence head of the CIA, opened a file on defector Oswald; and the files of CIA Officers Howard Hunt, William King Harvey, Anne Goodpasture, and David Sanchez Morales -- will help the nation determine what really happened in Dallas, who Oswald was and how the CIA handled Oswald’s file.

However, the CIA says the Joannides’ files and the files of the CIA officers -- which the Agency said are “not believed relevant” to the JFK assassination -- must remain classified until at least 2017, and perhaps longer, due to U.S. national security. But the CIA’s national security claim has never been independently verified, according to JFKFacts.org Moderator Jefferson Morley.

Morley v. CIA – An Attempt To Obtain The Full Truth

Morley is the plaintiff in the ongoing Morley v. CIA suit, which seeks to make public Joannides’ classified files.

In Morley’s suit, his attorney has responded to the CIA’s latest brief, on the issue of court fees. Having won on appeal twice, Morley argued that the standard practice of the U.S government paying court fees for a successful appeal should apply. The CIA countered that the litigation has not generated any significant new information, and therefore the government should not have to pay the court fees. The issue is now in the hands of U.S. Judge Richard Leon.

It must be underscored that, to date, there is no smoking gun or incontrovertible evidence of a plot or conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy, but there is a pattern of suspicious activity, along with a series of anomalies and a commonality of interests among key parties, that compel additional research and the release of non-public documents.

Further, the CIA probably is not covering up some tectonic, systemic crisis-triggering secret about the assassination of President Kennedy, or even evidence of a colossal Agency operational failure that would prompt the American people to call for a dismantling of the national security state apparatus.

However, until all of the JFK assassination files are made public, the pattern of suspicious activity, anomalies, and commonality of interests, along with the observations of the investigators and public officials -- including former President Harry Truman's Dec. 1963 call for the elimination of the CIA’s operational duties -- form a preponderance of evidence that strongly suggest that -- at minimum -- the American people do not know the full truth regarding the assassination of President Kennedy, and that the Agency is hiding something.

TOPICS: Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Click to Add Topic
KEYWORDS: cia; truman; Click to Add Keyword
[ Report Abuse | Bookmark ]

Interesting read. Truman shut down the old WWII OSS. Then realized his problem and brought it back as the CIA. Then he saw what the CIA was becoming.

1 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 1:24:56 PM by RetiredArmy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: RetiredArmy
I haven't read the entire post but, what does he mean by "original assignment" ?What was the CIA supposed to do/be as opposed to what it became (at that time) ?

2 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 1:48:45 PM by knarf (I say things that are true .. I have no proof .. but they're true.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: RetiredArmy
I've always been interested by the presence of the AR-15 prototype.



3 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 1:50:56 PM by smoothsailing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: RetiredArmy
Re the Kennedy assassination: The real story has yet to be told and is quite a way from the BS that has been put out so far. Just like Benghazi, IRS,NSA etc.



4 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 1:51:33 PM by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: RetiredArmy
And there’s a new book that asks the question:

Who had the most to gain by JFK being dead, or the most to lose by him staying alive...

And je’accuse finger points directly to Lyndon B. Johnson...



5 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 1:57:53 PM by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: NFHale
Had family that said essentially the same thing.



6 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:04:59 PM by F15Eagle (1Jn4:15;5:4-5,11-13;Mt27:50-54;Mk15:33-34;Jn3:17-18,6:69,11:25,14:6,20:31;Ro10:8-11;1Tm2:5-6;Ti3:4-7)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: smoothsailing
There was a book published 15 or 20 years ago (forgot the title, but I have it at home) which claimed that at least one of Kennedy’s wounds was caused by an AR-15 round most likely fired accidentally by a Secret Service agent immediately after the first round from the Book Depository hit Kennedy.



7 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:05:37 PM by riverdawg
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: smoothsailing
M16. Just coming around for the military.



8 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:06:47 PM by RetiredArmy (I am proud to be a Christian and follower of my Lord Jesus Christ. Time is short for U to know Him!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: NFHale
The fellow who wrote the book on LBJ was on BookTV last weekend. I thought I knew a lot about the assassination but this fellow (Roger Stone, I believe is his name) had me convinced on some new details and charges against LBJ. looks like a good read.



9 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:09:08 PM by bunster
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: F15Eagle
Think the author is Roger Stone, and his new book has pretty strong evidence it was LBJ.

He was under indictment in his own state, JFK was going to drop him form the ticket for the second term, he had connections to Ruby, etc., etc.

Lays a pretty strong case. Heard the author interviewed on several radio shows. Very convincing...



10 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:09:50 PM by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: bunster
Yes, that’s the guy. He’s made a pretty convincing case of it for me, at least.

Thanks, friend!



11 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:10:43 PM by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: RetiredArmy
There’s no mistaking that high front sight...

Surprised they weren’t carrying Tommyguns on slings, with the shoulder stock removed under their sport jackets...

They were still around back then... or M3’s...



12 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:13:28 PM by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

To: RetiredArmy
“For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment,” Truman wrote. Lord have mercy. He would have an absolute coronary to see what the FBI, CIA and even Secret Service has morphed into. Not to mention so called "Homeland Security".

13 posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:13:49 PM by Altura Ct.



To: FJB who wrote (764010)1/15/2014 2:57:29 PM
From: joseffy2 Recommendations

Recommended By
Blasher
FJB

  Respond to of 1576601
 
CA Teacher Forces Student to Stop Talking About Bible
........................................................................
War on Christmas: The Aftermath
1.14.2014 .... by Paul Bois
truthrevolt.org

On December 19, a school teacher in Temecula, California told her first grade student, Brynn Williams, that she could not present her family's Christmas tradition of a star of Bethlehem at her school, according to local reports.

Brynn's class was assigned to do a 1-minute presentation about an object that best represents their family's Christmas tradition. When Brynn stood up to give her presentation, she began reciting a Bible verse just before the teacher interrupted and told her to ”go take your seat". She was the only student not allowed to finish her presentation.

"When this took place she was hurt," said Brynn's father Shane, "she felt that she had done something wrong and she was going to be punished."

Brynn's family has since sought legal counsel with Advocates for Faith & Freedom.

"The disapproval and hostility that Christian students have come to experience in our nation's public schools has become epidemic,” said Robert Tyler, general counsel for Advocates for Faith & Freedom, "I hope that (the school district ) will take the lead role in adopting a model policy to prohibit this abuse that has become all too common place for religious-minded students."

The Temecula Valley School District released only the following statement:

The Temecula Valley Unified School District respects all students' rights under the Constitution and takes very seriously any allegation of discrimination. Due to the fact that District officials are currently investigating the allegations, it would be inappropriate to provide further comment at this time.

This story broke shortly after advocates for religious freedom picked up on another controversial incident in a West Covina school district where another teacher prevented her student from bringing on campus "candy canes with a religious message".




To: FJB who wrote (764010)1/15/2014 4:16:33 PM
From: joseffy2 Recommendations

Recommended By
FJB
TideGlider

  Respond to of 1576601
 
Allen West: Obama 'abjectly despises' whites
........................................................................................
'How long will it be before you people realize'
...................................................................................................................

Bob Unruh
wnd.com


War hero and former Republican congressman Allen West is asking how long it will take for “you people” – white Americans – to realize that their president “abjectly despises” them.




In a commentary posted Tuesday on his website, West, who represented Florida in Congress after an extended career in the U.S. military, confronted the issue of racism.

Citing Obama Attorney General Eric Holder’s warning that schools must drop policies that “disproportionately punish minorities,” West asserted it’s not racist to punish blacks more when they are causing more trouble.

“I taught high school for one year in Deerfield Beach, Fla., and in the end, it was such an enjoyable experience breaking up fights daily, that I decided to return to the combat zone of Afghanistan,” West wrote. “Teachers are already disrespected and attacked, not feared. There were students at Deerfield Beach who steered clear of the lunchroom for fear of being picked on or engaged in a fight.”

West said the violence on campus “was perpetrated eight out of 10 times by black students, male and female, but it had nothing to do with racial disparity.”

“It had everything to do with a lack of discipline and control,” he wrote.

He said Obama’s and Holder’s advocacy for leniency for those who cause trouble essentially makes them racist.

“This is my clear and succinct message to white Americans. How long will it be before ‘you people’ realize you have elevated someone to the office of president who abjectly despises you – not to mention his henchman Holder. Combined they are the most vile and disgusting racists – not you,” he wrote.

Read all about those who advise, mentor and operate behind the throne of the 44th president, Barack Obama, in “Barack Obama and the Enemies Within.

The commentary was prompted by Holder’s recent demand that schools “rethink ‘zero tolerance’ disciplinary policies” because they “disproportionately punish minorities.”

A Hill report on the issue said “alarming numbers of young people are suspended, expelled or even arrested for relatively minor transgressions like school uniform violations, schoolyard fights or showing ‘disrespect’ by laughing in class, Holder said during a speech.”

West said the accompanying new federal guidance from the departments of Justice and Education “encouraging (i.e. threatening) schools to adopt disciplinary policies that are ‘fair, nondiscriminatory, and effective’” is a threat from the Department of Justice.

“So now [the department] … will use its power to enforce ‘civil rights protections’ in school disciplinary actions. In fact, the DOJ and DoEd are putting schools on notice that they are prepared to use their authority to investigate the claims of racial disparity in the punishment of students,” he wrote.

“Not to be outdone by Holder in the ‘stuck on stupid’ category, Education Secretary Arne Duncan stated, ‘Positive discipline policies’ can actually foster safer school environments. … Schools also must understand their civil rights obligations and avoid unfair disciplinary practices,” West said.

“When a young man took a swing at me while I broke up a beat down that he and three others were giving a young man already on the ground, it had nothing to do with civil rights. It had everything to do with a criminal behavior which does not belong in a learning environment – and he was expelled. Now imagine under these new guidelines and rules, DoJ and DoEd would initiate an investigation.”

Read more at wnd.com


HomeMailHotSubjectMarksPeopleMarksKeepersSettings
Terms Of UseContact UsCopyright/IP PolicyPrivacy PolicyAbout UsFAQAdvertise on SI
© 2025 Knight Sac Media.  Data provided by Twelve Data, Alpha Vantage, and CityFALCON News