Teachers Get Permission To Carry Guns In Class

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Photo Credit: WND

It’s the law. Teachers in South Dakota can carry guns in the classroom. Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed the bill today.

It appears to be the first state law in the nation that specifically allows teachers to carry firearms. Other states have gun laws that could make it possible for teachers to carry arms, but the South Dakota law is apparently the first to directly allow it.

The law does not force teachers to carry guns, and it does not require school districts to arm teachers. The South Dakota law also does not specify that guns carried by teachers must be concealed, but it does require a valid permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Similar bills introduced in about two dozen states since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newton, Conn., have stalled. Supporters of the South Dakota law say it is particularly important in a rural state where emergency responders may be many miles away from schools.

The bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Scott Craig, R-Rapid City, says rural districts do not have the money to hire full-time law officers, so they want to arm teachers or volunteers.

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Godfather Doubles Down: Chicago May Expand ‘Gun Offender’ Registry

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Photo Credit: Ted CoxChicago’s gun offender registry needs to be expanded to include the names of people busted committing crimes with a gun, Ald. Ed Burke (14th) said Thursday. And Mayor Rahm Emanuel agrees. The powerful alderman wants to force anyone convicted of a violent crime with a firearm, including kidnapping, assault, robbery and vehicular hijacking, to end up on the list, which now has 584 names on it of those convicted of less serious gun violations.

Burke said he was shocked to hear the current list had so few names. “Clearly I felt that there are thousands of offenders that should have been added to the registry,” Burke said.

In July 2010, the City Council passed an ordinance establishing a “gun offender registry,” similar to a sex offender registry. But the law only requires those convicted of unlawful use of a weapon, which includes illegal possession of a gun among other charges, to register with police.

Burke’s plan to expand the list was approved at the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety hearing Thursday and is on the agenda in front of the full council Wednesday. “We believe the ordinance can be implemented and will help achieve the Mayor’s goal of reducing gun violence and illegal weapons in the city of Chicago,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office said in a statement.

Thomas Byrne, chief of the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Detectives, told the committee that the number of people that would be added to this registry is currently uncertain.

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Officials: 80 Percent Of Recent NYC High School Graduates Cannot Read (+video)

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Photo Credit: CBS New YorkIt’s an education bombshell. Nearly 80 percent of New York City high school graduates need to relearn basic skills before they can enter the City University’s community college system.

The number of kids behind the 8-ball is the highest in years, CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer reported Thursday.

When they graduated from city high schools, students in a special remedial program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College couldn’t make the grade.

They had to re-learn basic skills — reading, writing and math — first before they could begin college courses. They are part of a disturbing statistic.

Officials told CBS 2′s Kramer that nearly 80 percent of those who graduate from city high schools arrived at City University’s community college system without having mastered the skills to do college-level work.

Watch video here:

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Obamacare Requirements Will Drive Up Premiums

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner In 2007, candidate Barack Obama declared, “I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year.” As president, he signed national health care legislation that is formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. But according to a new report from Congressional Republicans, the law will actually cause premiums to more than double for some Americans.

The report, which is based on a compilation of independent studies on the effect of the law’s new regulations, finds that Obamacare could increase premiums by 40 percent on average and by as much as 202 percent for young adults living in Chicago.

There are several ways the health care law puts upward pressure on premiums. It requires insurers to offer coverage to everybody who applies, regardless of pre-existing conditions. It limits the amount that companies can adjust prices based on health status. It also requires that every American purchase a health insurance policy that meets federal specifications regarding the level of benefits covered. In addition, the law imposes $165 billion of tax increases on health insurance, drug manufacturers and medical device-makers. These policies work together to drive up the cost of insurance, especially on younger and healthier Americans.

It’s true that the law also offers subsidies to individuals to purchase insurance. But those subsidies are phased out for individuals earning more than $46,000. The report anticipates, “Even after receiving subsidies, Americans earning as little as $25,000 will still pay more.”

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Arkansas Adopts US’s Most Restrictive Abortion Law

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Photo Credit: Helga WeberArkansas soon will have the nation’s most restrictive abortion law – a near-ban on the procedure from the 12th week of pregnancy onward – unless a lawsuit or court action intervenes.

Lawmakers in the Republican-dominated Legislature defied Gov. Mike Beebe, overriding the Democrat’s veto. The House voted 56-33 on Wednesday to override Beebe’s veto, a day after the Senate voted to do the same.

The votes come less than a week after the Legislature overrode a veto of a separate bill banning most abortions starting in the 20th week of pregnancy. That bill took effect immediately after the final override vote, whereas the 12-week ban won’t take effect until this summer.

Abortion rights proponents already have said they’ll sue to block the 12-week ban from taking effect. Beebe warned lawmakers that both measures would end up wasting taxpayers’ money with the state defending them in court, where, he said, they are likely to fail.

The measures’ supporters, who expected court challenges, were undaunted. “Not the governor, nor anyone else other than the courts, can determine if something is constitutional or unconstitutional,” Rep. Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Hot Springs, said in urging his colleagues to override Beebe.

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Yale Hosts Workshop Teaching Sensitivity To Bestiality

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Photo Credit: Campus ReformOn Saturday afternoon, Yale hosted a “sensitivity training” in which students were asked to consider topics such as bestiality, incest, and accepting money for sex.

During the workshop, entitled, “Sex: Am I Normal,” students anonymously asked and answered questions about sex using their cell phones, and viewed the responses in real time in the form of bar charts.

The session was hosted by “sexologist” Dr. Jill McDevitt, who owns a sex store called Feminique in West Chester, Pa.

Survey responses revealed that nine percent of attendees had been paid for sex, 3 percent had engaged in bestiality, and 52 percent had participated in “consensual pain” during sex, according to an article published in the Yale Daily News on Monday.

Event director Giuliana Berry ’14 told Campus Reform in an interview on Monday that the workshop was brought to campus to teach students not to automatically judge people who may have engaged in these sorts of activities, but rather to respond with “understanding” and “compassion.”

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Obama Admin Wants to Deport Christian Homeschoolers

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Photo Credit: TownhallThe Romeike family fled their German homeland in 2008 seeking political asylum in the United States – where they hoped to home school their children. Instead, the Obama administration wants the evangelical Christian family deported.

The fate of Uwe and Hannelore Romeikie – along with their six children – now rests with the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – after the Dept. of Homeland Security said they don’t deserve asylum. Neither the Justice Dept. nor the Dept. of Homeland Security returned calls seeking comment.

“The Obama administration is basically saying there is no right to home school anywhere,” said Michael Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association. “It’s an utter repudiation of parental liberty and religious liberty.” The Justice Dept. is arguing that German law banning home schooling does not violate the family’s human rights.

“They are trying to send a family back to Germany where they would certainly lose custody of their children,” Farris told Fox News. “Our government is siding with Germany.”

Farris said the Germans ban home schools because “they don’t want to have religious and philosophical minorities in their country.”

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California Woman Dies After Nurse Refuses To Perform CPR (+video)

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A California retirement home is backing one of its nurses after she refused desperate pleas from a 911 operator to perform CPR on an elderly woman who later died, saying the nurse was following the facility’s policy.

“Is there anybody that’s willing to help this lady and not let her die,” dispatcher Tracey Halvorson says on a 911 tape released by the Bakersfield Fire Department aired by several media outlets on Sunday.

“Not at this time,” said the nurse, who didn’t give her full name and said facility policy prevented her from giving the woman medical help.
At the beginning of the 7-minute, 16-second call on Tuesday morning, the nurse asked for paramedics to come and help the 87-year-old woman who had collapsed in the home’s dining room and was barely breathing.

Halvorson pleads for the nurse to perform CPR, and after several refusals she starts pleading for her to find a resident, or a gardener, or anyone not employed by the home to get on the phone, take her instructions and help the woman.

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Time For Colleges To Have Skin In The Game-They Need To Guarantee Student Loans

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Photo Credit: Irish Central America’s student loan debt is in excess of 1 trillion dollars; it is believed this will be our next huge financial crisis as these loans go into default.

One of the reasons people are having a difficult time repaying their student debt, is that they can’t find jobs as newly minted college graduates. See the 10 worst college degrees by Forbes.

Granted the economy is in the doldrums and good jobs are hard to find. But a college education was sold to these students by the education industry as their ticket to a good paying job.

Let’s use some outcome based education for a change. If you are going to let a student burden him/herself with a huge debt in order to graduate from your school, you should have some skin in the game. Colleges should have to guarantee these loans, instead of laying that debt off onto taxpayers if the student defaults. Perhaps there would be a change in admissions, stricter standards and heavier counseling.

Right now colleges and universities have the best of all worlds. Many are in receipt of government funding, many have endowments and almost all are the recipients of an unending stream of government guaranteed tuition. There is no incentive for them to see if the student loans ever get paid back.

It’s a one way street in the higher education system and it’s time to make some changes. . These easy government backed student loans are correlated to rising costs. Colleges have every incentive to raise costs knowing the loans will be adjusted upward to reflect those costs.

Colleges should have job placement programs for the students they graduate. There needs to be some responsibility from the higher education system and some accountability.

Should taxpayers be put on the hook for a college graduate with a liberal arts degree who can’t find a job? Or if the jobs available with those degrees are low paying and will never be able to justify the student loan amount?

Additionally, let’s face it, many of those attending college aren’t college material and should be learning a trade or craft. Skilled craftsmen make on average far more than many college graduates. Why aren’t colleges and universities offering these types of educations?

The country has a problem supplying the manpower needs of our high tech sector, so much of a problem, that special laws are being created to allow foreign workers into our country that have the math and engineering skills necessary to work in this environment.

We should be proactively pushing students to get educations in the sectors the country desperately has a shortage in, even offering discount tuition, etc. Perhaps even using a hybrid of the voucher system that the Friedman Foundation is promoting for public school choice and introduce some competition.

If a student wants a degree in ethnic/gender studies, music appreciation, law and a whole host of liberal arts that don’t necessarily translate into lucrative careers, then there should be an agreement between the college and the student over how the tuition gets paid. Let colleges aid the student in finding scholarship help, etc.

We saw the problem that unfulfilled promises academic institutions made to students when our cities were clogged with Occupy Wall Street. Many of these young people expressed anger at their inability to find a job, a good paying job with the liberal arts degrees they possessed. They felt they were lied to by their education institutions…in a way they were.

There is also growing unrest among students who are seeing their ever increasing college tuitions rise, while chancellors and educators don’t take a hit and in fact get raises.

Here is an excerpt from an excellent expose’ by JosephPalermo in the California State University system:

“Last year, CSU executives were paid between $240,000 and $400,000 in salary alone. On top of that, each executive is allotted $12,000 per year as an auto allowance. Campus Presidents and the Chancellor each receive either state-owned homes or housing allowances of $50,000 or $60,000 per year. Other perks available to executives include special retirement packages such as lifetime employment as a tenured professor.”

Looking at the above salaries you can see these educators are insulated from the realities that many graduates face after they leave their institutes of higher education. Instead of raises, many of them should be fired. Let’s get some accountability into education

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The Rich Get Richer: Obama-Style Crony Capitalism

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Photo Credit: Brendan SmialowskiFor most Americans, Friday was not a very good day. Sequestration kicked in amid a drumbeat of reports about the pocketbook hits that we would take and the illegal immigrants released because of the cuts, the Commerce Department announced that personal income took its biggest hit in 20 years, and the Performance of Manufacturing Index reported a drop. Oh, and earlier in the week, fourth-quarter GDP growth was revised to a paltry 0.1 percent. Unemployment has remained up, the ranks of the poor have swelled, existing small businesses are staggering, and few new ones are being created.

But, for the privileged few at the high-end of President Obama’s coalition, things look far less bleak. The stock market yawned at sequestration and then rose. The S&P is near a five-year high and is up by 10 percent over the past 12 months.

How concerned is Obama by the bad news and the sequester cuts that on Friday he termed “dumb,” “unnecessary,” “arbitrary,” and “inexcusable”? Not very, one would think, since his own 2012 budget forecast projected the very cuts in discretionary spending that the president now abjures, and described them in glowing terms. As Columbia’s Jeffrey Sachs recently pointed out. “the level of spending for fiscal year 2013 under the sequestration will be nearly the same as Mr. Obama called for in the draft budget presented in mid-2012.” Indeed, the White House budget forecast boasted that it would “bring domestic discretionary spending to its lowest level as a share of the economy since the Eisenhower administration.”

For some reason, none of this feels like government by or for the people, and it isn’t. Rather, it seems as though “crony capitalism” is the watchword for this administration. Strip away Obama’s showmanship and scolding, and the president has done just fine in protecting the interests of the top 1 percent, especially among those who were his contributors and the right kind of 1 percenters.

Take green energy, the holy grail of the high end of the president’s base. Solyndra, the now-bankrupt manufacturer of solar panels, received more than half a billion dollars in government-guaranteed loans. One of the company’s key backers was billionaire George Kaiser, a 2008 Obama fundraiser—small world.

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