Parents Warned: Big Brother Owns Your Children

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Photo Credit: WNDThe U.S. Constitution reserves the power of public education to the states and local governments.

But today in the United States, the long-time aim of many leftists to give the federal government control over the minds of the next generation is nearly a done deal.

“For decades liberals have tried to seize control of public school curriculum,” author and Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly warned the attendees of The Constitutional Coalition’s 25th annual Education Policy Conference in St. Louis, Mo., this weekend. “Now [President] Obama’s mighty pen can achieve that goal.”

Schlafly, referring to Obama’s recent boast that his “pen” can bypass Congress via executive orders, explained her warning to hundreds of assembled teachers, school administrators, parents and activists at the Educational Policy Conference, or EPC, this weekend. Piggybacking on what several EPC speakers contended through dozens of shocking examples, Schlafly warned that the federal “Common Core” standards for public education not only blatantly violate the Constitution, but also indoctrinate students in leftist thinking, violate personal privacy and pave the way for a socialist society.

Already 45 states have adopted the federal Common Core standards for English and math, with similar programs in the works for science and social studies, while the content of the Core standards is filtering down into standardized college entrance and advanced placement examinations.

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Philip Seymour Hoffman, Oscar-Winning Actor, Found Dead in NY Apartment

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Photo Credit: The Washington Post Philip Seymour Hoffman, the stage and screen actor who progressed from scene-stealing supporting roles to an Oscar-winning portrayal of writer Truman Capote in “Capote,” has died. He was 46.

Mr. Hoffman was found dead in his apartment in Lower Manhattan shortly before noon Sunday, and his death is being investigated as a possible drug overdose, said Detective James Duffy, a spokesman for the New York Police Department. The New York City medical examiner’s office is expected to perform an autopsy as early as Monday, and that examination will include a toxicology report.

Police said they received a 911 call about 11:36 a.m. Sunday. When they arrived at the apartment, they found Mr. Hoffman unconscious and unresponsive on the floor of a bathroom. According to an unnamed police official who was not authorized to comment publicly, Mr. Hoffman was found with a needle in his arm and several bags of what appeared to be heroin. The official said Mr. Hoffman was supposed to meet a colleague Sunday morning and did not show. An associate went to his home and found him there. Police were still at the scene Sunday afternoon.

In interviews, Mr. Hoffman acknowledged a history of drug abuse.

“I got sober when I was 22 years old” and went into a drug rehabilitation program at the time, Mr. Hoffman told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in 2006. Asked whether he abused drugs or alcohol, Mr. Hoffman said: “It was all that stuff. Yeah. It was anything I could get my hands on. Yeah. I liked it all.”

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Obama Won’t Take Executive Action to Remove Pot from Narcotics List (+video)

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Photo Credit: APPresident Barack Obama in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper said it is up to Congress to decide whether marijuana should continue to be classified as a Schedule I narcotic.

“What is and isn’t a Schedule I narcotic is a job for Congress,” Obama said when Tapper asked if he was “considering not making marijuana a Schedule I narcotic.”

“I think it’s the DEA that decides that,” Tapper interjected.

“It’s not something by ourselves that we start changing. No, there are laws undergirding those determinations,” the president responded.

According to the U.S. Controlled Substances Act, Schedule I drugs are described as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the U.S., and lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

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Harley Burial: Rider and Bike are Inseparable, Even in Death

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Columbus Dispatch, Jonathan QuilterA motorcycle-loving man’s family has fulfilled his dying wish — to be buried astride his beloved Harley-Davidson encased in a see-through casket.

But it wasn’t easy. The project required an extra-large cemetery plot to accommodate a Plexiglas casket for Billy Standley and his hulking custom-painted 1967 Electra Glide cruiser. Five embalmers worked to prepare his body with a metal back brace and straps to ensure he’ll never lose his seat.

Standley’s family said he’d been talking about it for years and liked to take people to the garage to show off the unusual casket his two sons had built for him. He told people he didn’t just want to ride off to heaven, he wanted the world to see him do it in the big see-through box.

“He was a quirky man,” daughter Dorothy Brown said. “But when it comes to us kids, he loved us, he raised us well and, of course, we wanted to help him.”

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Fox Sets May 5 Premiere for ‘24: Live Another Day’

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Photo Credit: Variety The clock starts again May 5 for Jack Bauer as Fox unveils its reboot of “24″ with a two-hour premiere episode.

“24: Live Another Day” will settle into its 9 p.m. Monday time period the following week for the rest of its 12-episode run. Fox is mounting a massive promo push for the return of the real-time drama thriller, the session for which will open Fox’s portion of the Television Critics Assn. press tour on Monday.

Fox is giving “American Idol” launchpads to two other midseason series, family comedy “Surviving Jack” and gritty cop drama “Gang Related.”

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Where Does Your State Rank? Gallup’s Most Conservative to Most Liberal

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Photo Credit: APThe percentage of people living in Washington, D.C., who call themselves liberals is far greater than the national percentage, and significantly greater than the percentage in any of the fifty states, according to polling data released today by Gallup.

Nationally, 23 percent of American adults call themselves liberals, according to Gallup, and 38 percent call themselves conservatives.

But in Washington, D.C., 38.1 percent call themselves liberals–65.6 percent more than in the nation as a whole.

After D.C., Vermont is the most liberal jurisdiction, with 32.4 percent of people there calling themselves liberals.

The top five most conservative states are: Wyoming, Mississippi, Idaho, Utah, and Arkansas.

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Chris Christie Attacks N.Y. Times, David Wildstein

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Photo Credit: APNew Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, after a low-key initial response to Friday’s explosive allegations about his involvement in a bridge-closing scandal, mounted an aggressive defense late Saturday afternoon, attacking The New York Times and a former political ally in an email to friends and allies obtained by POLITICO.

“Bottom line — David Wildstein will do and say anything to save David Wildstein,” the email from the governor’s office says, referring to the former appointee who reignited the controversy.

A letter from Wildstein’s lawyer, Alan L. Zegas of Chatham, N.J., asserted Friday that “evidence exists … tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the Governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference.”

The subject line of the 700-word email from the governor’s office is: “5 Things You Should Know About The Bombshell That’s Not A Bombshell.” It offers a harshly negative portrayal of Wildstein’s character and judgment.

The Christie camp begins by criticizing The Times for its initial characterization of the Wildstein letter: “A media firestorm was set off by sloppy reporting from the New York Times and their suggestion that there was actually ‘evidence’ when it was a letter alleging that ‘evidence exists.’”

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Video: Yukon Quest’s Dog Sled Race of a Thousand Miles Begins with the First, “Mush!”

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The 31st annual Yukon Quest dog sled race started Saturday morning in Fairbanks, Alaska, and thousands from around the world came out to witness it. Eighteen teams, primarily from the United States and Canada, are competing in the race that takes mushers on about a thousand mile journey between Fairbanks and Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory of Canada.

According to the official Yukon Quest website, where you can track the sled teams’ progress in real time, the trail follows historic Gold Rush and mail delivery dog sled routes from the turn of the 20th Century.

The teams are made up of 6 to 14 dogs.

Every year the start and finish locations alternate, so each community gets the opportunity to experience both. This year, due to the unseasonable warm weather (a mystery, I’m sure, to those in the Lower 48), both the start in Fairbanks and the finish in the Yukon Territory had to be modified. In Fairbanks, rather than starting on the normally frozen solid Chena River, earth-movers brought in tons of snow Friday night for the teams to launch down 2nd Avenue Saturday. In Canada, the race will not end with the sled drivers mushing up the frozen Yukon River into Whitehorse, but rather in Takhini Hot Springs, located about 18 miles north of town.

Because of the change to the finish and others along the course, the usual thousand mile journey will be closer to 900 miles, and the winner will likely be pulling into Takhini Hot Springs by next Sunday, or so. The record time set last year, also on a shortened course, was 8 days, 18 hours, 39 minutes.

D’Souza Responds to Allegations, Tells Hannity He Got ‘Under Obama’s Skin’ With Film (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News Conservative filmmaker and author Dinesh D’Souza was recently indicted for alleged campaign finance violations. But is he being unfairly targeted by the Obama administration due to the content of his successful film “2016: Obama’s America?”

D’Souza discussed the allegations with Sean Hannity tonight, but made it clear that he was “undeterred,” and said that he is determined to continue his work. “I’m marching full-speed ahead,” said D’Souza.

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Keystone Opponents Vow Civil Disobedience, Vigils Starting Monday

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Photo Credit: REUTERSEnvironmentalists and other opponents of the Keystone XL Pipeline are ramping up their opposition to the project following the release Friday of a largely favorable State Department report — vowing to hold vigils, jump into the November elections and even perform acts of civil disobedience.

The report raising no major environmental concerns bolster the hopes of the oil industry, some union groups, congressional Republicans and others that President Obama will soon approve the $7 billion project, after a roughly five year wait.

They say the Canada-to-Texas pipeline will create tens of thousands of jobs and make the United States less dependent on foreign oil.

However, within hours of the release of the report, opponents were pressing forward with a lawsuit to challenge the project, public protests and an effort to inject the issue into this fall’s elections.

Among the critics is a coalition of landowners and environmentalists that says there is still cause for denying a federal permit.

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