A former Queens biology teacher who allegedly forced an underage student to repeatedly have sex and demanded she have two abortions skirted authorities after a prominent Catholic school quietly fired him, allowing him to work for years in city public schools, officials report.
Rodney Alejandro abused the 15-year-old girl at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens, and then went on to work for the Department of Education, a 2015 probe by the city’s Special Commissioner of Investigation charges.
First a city substitute in 1998-99, he worked from 2004 to 2010 at Robert Wagner Jr. Secondary School for Arts and Technology in Long Island City and was fired after his state license expired, officials said. He then went on to teach at a religious school in Georgia.
His reported victim, now 43 and living in Queens, declined to comment but confirmed to The Post horrendous details she published in a 2014 blog. The Post is withholding her name. (Read more from “Feds Hire Alleged Rapist Fired by Catholic School” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/AndrewHallClassroom.jpg12241632Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-08 21:23:412016-05-08 21:23:41Feds Hire Alleged Rapist Fired by Catholic School
Chicago Public Schools announced on Monday that students and staff must be granted unfettered access to intimate school facilities based on their chosen gender identity.
Put concretely, boys now have the “right” to undress in the girls’ locker room before gym class so long as they say they would feel more comfortable doing so. Kids and teens have many things to worry about as they grow into adulthood and get an education. But having to deal with people of the opposite sex in their bathrooms and showers shouldn’t be one of them.
This latest front in the bathroom wars proves that same-sex marriage was merely the start, not end, of the left’s LGBT agenda. As demonstrated by enforcement actions by the Department of Justice, private lawsuits, and court decisions, the radical left is using government power to coerce children into pledging allegiance to a radical new gender ideology over and above their right to privacy, safety, and religious freedom.
Here’s how it works. First, the left tried to elevate sexual orientation and gender identity to special protected status in law but failed repeatedly using the democratic process. Undaunted, the administration turned to lawmaking-by-rulemaking. Specifically, President Barack Obama’s Departments of Justice and Education issued diktats reinterpreting Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination in federally funded education programs to mean “gender identity discrimination.”
Of course, when Title IX was passed in 1972, “sex” referred then to what it still refers to now: the basic biological reality of being male or female. Nevertheless, having made their discovery to the contrary (over 40 years after the law was passed), the administration went around the country threatening schools with revocation of millions in educational funds if they did not allow kids unfettered access to the locker room of their choice.
Following this lead, Chicago Public Schools cites Title IX and sexual harassment policies to justify its new policies.
A law from the 70s designed mostly to protect girls and women from sexism and harassment in schools is now being used to grant boys the right to undress in the girls’ locker room (and vice versa), all in the name of psychological comfort and acceptance.
In a weak acknowledgement of the uproar this will cause, Chicago Public Schools says students that are not gender confused “should” be allowed access to alternative facilities. So, for example, if there are 50 girls who object to a boy undressing in front of them, it is the 50 girls, not the boy, who must go change in “single stall restrooms” elsewhere. Of course, the odds are high that school officials on the lookout for any sign of “bullying” will take careful note of which students leave the locker rooms, presuming they are allowed to leave at all.
To add to the confusion, the definition of gender identity changes about every three months, so the rules we are supposed to live by are constantly moving. But the latest definition, according to Chicago Public Schools, is that sex is merely “a label a person is assigned at birth” and that the reality lies in one’s internal “psychological knowledge” of their own gender “regardless of the[ir] biological sex.”
This includes “male/man/boy, female/woman/girl, trans/transgender, gender variant, gender nonconforming, agender, gender non-binary, or any combination of these terms.” Whatever bureaucrat or committee wrote this definition felt compelled to add that gender nonconforming also covers “gender expansive, gender variant, or gender creative,” apparently to cover all the bases, except they may have missed some because the latest count, according to the left and some corporations, is 60 possible gender identities.
Under this definition, the only possible way we can know a person’s gender identity is by asking them, and if they consistently answer the same thing, bingo, that’s their gender identity. If Chicago Public Schools or the Department of Justice simply required separate private facilities for the minuscule number of students who are not comfortable changing in front of people of their own sex, there would not be a national debate over bathrooms.
Except they require that if a boy says he is a girl, he must be treated exactly like a girl in every respect, otherwise it is psychologically traumatic and illegal discrimination. This means that portions of sex education classes reserved just for girls (so they can speak with less trepidation about sensitive topics, like menstruation) must include every boy that feels like a girl.
And therein lies the biggest affront from these new policies. Not only must government employees play along with a gender confused child’s every subjective wish, so must every other student. In fact, Chicago Public Schools specifies that students must address a gender confused child by whatever pronoun they wish, be it “they, their, ze, he and she.” Failure to do so “will result in appropriate consequences for offending staff and students,” in other words, discipline up to and including expulsion from school.
But many people of good will and faith conviction simply refuse to put aside their legitimate privacy, modesty, and safety concerns. Many children of good will resist being forced to say “she” when speaking of a boy they have known for years just as they would resist being forced to say “5” when asked “What does 2+2 equal?”
The left for years claimed that all it wanted was for LGBT persons to be left alone, but this was a lie. It is now clear that liberals and their enablers will not leave anyone alone and will use the full force of courts, lawsuits, and government to ensure any resistance to their new gender ideology “will result in appropriate consequences.” (For more from the author of “New Chicago Schools Bathroom Policy Proves Liberals’ Extreme Agenda” please click HERE)
With Mother’s Day around the corner, our moms are in many of our hearts, minds, and…Google searches.
In honor of the occasion, real estate site Estately did some research on the mom-related terms Americans most frequently Google. And, as it turns out, these terms are not the same throughout the country. When it comes to motherhood, different states have different preoccupations.
The site looked at which terms were most popular in each state compared to others — not which were most popular overall, or else many states would probably look the same — and found some pretty hilarious results.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Wild_Roses_for_Mothers_Day_495755710.jpg8811280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-07 01:51:272016-05-07 01:51:27The Most Googled Mom-Related Terms in Different States
The Alabama House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that would ban abortion clinics from operating “within 2,000 feet of the property or campus of a public school.” The bill is now on Republican Governor Robert Bentley’s desk and if he signs it, the law will be challenged by the ACLU and a Huntsville abortion clinic.
The bill, which passed 73-18, says that “the Alabama Department of Public Health may not issue or renew a health center license to an abortion clinic or reproductive health center that is located within 2,000 feet of the property or campus of a public school.”
The bill’s sponsor, Alabama State Senator Paul Sanford (R), said in March that his hope with the legislation is that no more abortion clinics in the state “would ever open that close to small children.”
Sanford has said his bill is not intended to close clinics, but would prevent schoolchildren from seeing the “chaos” that sometimes surrounds them, according to the Decatur Daily . . .
The Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville, which is located across the street from Edward H. White Middle School, would have to move if the bill becomes law. (Read more from “Alabama House Passes Bill to Keep Abortion Clinics Away From Schools” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/maxresdefault-7.jpg7201280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-07 01:51:022016-05-07 01:51:02Alabama House Passes Bill to Keep Abortion Clinics Away From Schools
The oft-repeated notion that Jews went willingly to the slaughter during the Holocaust is completely unfounded, a Holocaust commemoration activist told The Algemeiner on Thursday, citing a number of documents which were recently uncovered by his organization detailing eye-witness accounts of Jews fighting back.
Jonny Daniels, founder and executive director of From the Depths, which works with Holocaust survivors, Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and the Polish government to preserve the memory of the Holocaust, said that one of several projects he is engaged in includes translating first hand accounts that have sat untouched for years in Poland’s governmental archives.
Daniels said his organization has “uncovered remarkable documentation that shows thousands of accounts of ‘fighting back’ from eyewitnesses” throughout the Holocaust, which he is working on cataloging, translating and publishing . . .
Daniels shared the story publicly for the first time with The Algemeiner:
A group of Jewish boys blockaded themselves in a building inside the ghetto and were shooting at Nazis walking past. One of the little known ways the Nazis would enter the buildings of the ghetto was by using a human shield, a Jew. One of the survivors told of the time that while blockaded inside the room, they suddenly heard a knock on the door. Sitting quietly, the boys heard the sweet old voice of an elderly Jewish man calmly call out to them in beautiful, poetic Yiddish: ‘My children, the time has come. I am knocking on this door asking for safe passage. Alas, behind me stands a group of Amalek (evil people). Shoot me and then kill them. Better I die by the bullet of Jewish heroes then by the bullet of evil.’ The young men did just that. By giving his life, the old pious Jew saved those young Jews fighting, allowing them to live another day.
(Read more from “Head of Holocaust Research Group Reveals New Shocking Testimony From Warsaw Ghetto” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/hqdefault-6.jpg360480Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-06 00:14:412016-05-06 00:14:41Head of Holocaust Research Group Reveals New Shocking Testimony From Warsaw Ghetto
A group of 50 families whose children attend a high school in Illinois filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday, attempting to reverse a policy that allows a transgender student to use girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-specific facilities.
The families are challenging a policy at Township High School District 211 that was mandated by the U.S. Department of Education to accommodate the transgender student, who was born male but identifies as a female.
“It’s an organic group of parents and students who came together and said, ‘We have to do something about this—we can’t just roll over and allow the federal government to force our school to commingle the sexes in locker rooms,’” said Jeremy Tedesco, a lawyer representing the families.
The suit, which challenges the Education Department’s authority to redefine the term sex in Title IX of U.S. law to include gender identity and to enforce it against schools, is the first of its kind, Tedesco told The Daily Signal.
The president of the group filing the lawsuit, Students and Parents for Privacy, said she and other Cook County parents with children in the school district decided legal action “was the only thing we could do at this point.”
“We tried,” she said, adding:
We did everything we could to work with the school district, and we were really hoping they would do the right thing and protect the privacy of all students, but when they chose not to, we felt we had no choice in order to protect the girls in the locker room.
The group’s president asked that her name not be published because of the sensitive nature of the case.
The issue began in December 2013, when Student A filed a complaint with the Education Department against Township High School District 211, based in the village of Palatine, Ill.
The complaint alleged that District 211 had discriminated against the transgender student on the basis of sex.
After completing an extensive investigation, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights said on Dec. 2 that Township High School District 211 was in violation of federal law for refusing to grant Student A full access to the girls’ locker room.
The school had granted Student A some accommodations, including changing the student’s name on official records, allowing the student on the girls sports teams, and granting the student access to the girls’ bathrooms. But District 211 drew the line at providing Student A unrestrained access to the girls’ locker rooms because of the privacy concerns of other girls using them. Instead, the school offered a private facility to Student A.
Daniel Cates, superintendent of District 211, said in an October newsletter:
The goal of the district in this matter is to protect the privacy rights of all students when changing clothes or showering before or after physical education and after-school activities, while also providing reasonable accommodations to meet the unique needs of individual students. Our responsibility is to provide an environment conducive to learning for all its 12,000+ students.
According to the Education Department’s investigation, the student felt “crushed” by the school district’s decision not to allow access to the locker rooms, “which she said indicated that the school did not accept her as a female.”
After the Education Department had completed its investigation, it ordered District 211 to grant Student A full access to the girls’ locker rooms and install privacy curtains inside those locker rooms, or else be at risk of losing federal financial assistance.
Thomas Petersen, director of community relations at Township High School District 211, said the school “could potentially lose up to $6 million in federal funding.”
Now, the 130 parents and students who are members of the group Students and Parents for Privacy are suing, arguing the Education Department lacks the authority to redefine sex in Title IX of U.S. law to include gender identity.
The parents and students also are asking for an injunction against the Justice Department, which has enforcement authority under Title IX, and an injunction against Township School District 211 from carrying out the Education Department’s demands.
The Christian legal aid group Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the parents and students, along with local support from lawyers at the Thomas More Society.
“What we’re attempting to do in this case is stop the Department of Education from redefining sex in Title IX to include gender identity,” Tedesco, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal. “It has no authority whatsoever to do that.”
Debate Over Title IX
Title IX is the federal law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program. Whether or not Title IX applies to transgender students is an issue that has been vigorously debated, with courts ruling on both sides.
Most recently, a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled that a transgender high school student who was born female but identifies as a male has the right to pursue discrimination charges against a school district for blocking access to the boys’ bathrooms.
The judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit cited the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX in issuing their 2-1 decision.
The Obama administration stated in a 2014 document that “Title IX’s sex discrimination prohibition extends to claims of discrimination.”
Tedesco called the ruling in Virginia a “complete outlier,” arguing that other courts have ruled the opposite way:
There’s been several courts that have addressed the question of whether Title IX applies to and protects against gender identity discrimination, and all those courts up to the 4th Circuit’s decision have said it does not.
If Americans want to add additional protections for gender identity, Tedesco said, it’s the job of Congress—not the Education Department—to make those changes. He said:
If Congress wants to redefine sex to include gender identity—if they want to add gender identity as a protected class under Title IX—they can do that through the regular lawmaking process. But Congress has rejected it several times, so the Department of Education just comes in and makes it up and adds it to the law. That’s something they have no authority whatsoever to do. And now they’re running around the country and forcing essentially what is a new Department of Education rule against schools across the country.
Since 2010, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., has proposed that Congress pass a measure that would provide protections for students from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Thus far, that legislation has failed.
Township High School District 211 is the first school in the nation that the Education Department found in violation of Title IX over transgender issues. Now, it’s the first school in the country to face a lawsuit of this kind.
The Path Forward
In December, six female students attempted to explain to the District 211 school board why they were uncomfortable with allowing Student A into their locker room.
“Although we will never fully understand your personal struggle,” the girls said, addressing the transgender student, “please understand that we, too, all are experiencing personal struggles that need to be respected.”
The president of Students and Parents for Privacy said she supports accommodations for Student A that balance the student’s interests with the rest of the student body.
“We understand why Student A doesn’t want to be in the boys’ locker room,” she said. “We get it. But the girls’ locker room isn’t the answer either. We believe in accommodation, but we don’t believe in an accommodation that hurts other students.”
Student A, who is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an earlier press release that using a separate locker room “stigmatized me, often making me feel like I was not a ‘normal person.’”
At the December school board meeting, one speaker called the old policy “institutionalized segregation.” Others brought up the high rates of suicide and depression for transgender men and women.
The head of the privacy group, who has children in the school district, said the group cares about Student A but is asking for fairness. She said:
We truly do care about these children who struggle with gender identity, and these children are welcome in my home. All I ask is that the respect go both ways. That’s what we’re not seeing. We’re just seeing demands.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, hinges on the idea that the school can and should make accommodations for Student A, but those accommodations shouldn’t violate the privacy and safety rights of other students.
Absent the lawsuit, Tedesco suggested, there’s little chance of finding middle ground.
“The reality is, the folks driving this agenda on the other side from us won’t accept anything other than full access to the opposite-sex restroom and locker room as the solution,” the families’ lawyer said, adding:
And what happened at District 211 is proof positive of that. They gave Student A accommodation after accommodation after accommodation, and ultimately the [Education Department] said no, full access is the only thing that’s going to solve the issue.
(For more from the author of “50 Families Sue Over Illinois High School’s Transgender Bathroom Policy” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Sensor-operated-urinals1377p.jpg8161232Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-05 02:07:342016-05-05 02:07:3450 Families Sue Over Illinois High School’s Transgender Bathroom Policy
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have just launched an anti-tobacco campaign focused on young adults who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.
The new campaign, “This Free Life,” costs $35.7 million that was collected from the tobacco industry.
According to the FDA, the campaign “uses authentic and credible messages from members of the LGBT community encouraging other members to be tobacco-free.”
“This Free Life will challenge the perception that tobacco use is a necessary part of being LGBT and show that living tobacco-free is an important factor in leading a long and healthy life. This Free Life uses a variety of integrated marketing tactics including paid media, engagement through multiple digital platforms, and outreach at the local level,” the FDA campaign material says. (Read more from “FDA Launches $35.7 Million LGBT Anti-Smoking Campaign” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/smoking-397599_960_720.jpg640960kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2016-05-04 00:26:512016-05-04 07:08:38FDA Launches $35.7 Million LGBT Anti-Smoking Campaign [+video]
The state of Kansas is likely to permanently prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal family planning funds administered within the state.
A bill to prevent the abortion provider from accessing that revenue stream passed both houses of the state legislature: 87-34 in the House and 32-8 in the state Senate.
Although such funds have been cut off by annual budgets dating back to 2011, the new measure would make the prohibition an ongoing state policy not requiring annual reauthorization.
A second bill also approved on Sunday night would make it illegal for midwives “to perform, induce or prescribe drugs for an abortion.” It passed the Senate unanimously, 40-0, and cleared the House by a vote of 115-7.
Some had said the prohibition was unnecessary, since midwives do not usually perform abortions. However, Kansans for Life noted legal language that could be interpreted as giving midwives such ability. Current state law defines a midwife as someone who provides services “associated with a normal, uncomplicated pregnancy.” (Read more from “This State Just Passed a Bill to Permanently Defund Planned Parenthood” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/maxresdefault-115.jpg7201280kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2016-05-03 01:01:502016-05-03 01:01:50This State Just Passed a Bill to Permanently Defund Planned Parenthood
The biotech firm StemExpress is refusing to turn over all documents to Congress related to its purchasing and reselling of body parts from aborted babies sold to it from Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses.
Chairman Marsha Blackburn has sent a letter to Cate Dyer, CEO of StemExpress, requesting full cooperation with the Select Investigative Panel’s efforts to obtain all business and accounting documents from the fetal tissue procurement organization.
“Over the last several months, we have made numerous attempts to acquire business and accounting documents from StemExpress that are necessary to complete our work at the Select Investigative Panel,” Blackburn wrote in the letter.
It continues: “All of these requests have been met with verbal and written objections from your attorneys. In light of recent public comments you have made and the consensus reached by witnesses at our April 20 hearing on The Pricing of Fetal Tissue that a complete review of StemExpress business and accounting documents was necessary, I am writing to personally request you turn this information over to our investigators.”
The letter says StemExpres is failing to turn over all of the documents the investigating committee has requested. (Read more from “StemExpress Refuses to Turn Over All Documents on Purchase of Aborted Baby Parts” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/3166520949_b31875c53b_b.jpg7681024kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2016-05-03 00:55:292016-05-03 00:55:29StemExpress Refuses to Turn Over All Documents on Purchase of Aborted Baby Parts
A 1981 New York Times item quotes Democratic Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as saying he doesn’t “believe in charities,” an outlook that one expert says is common in socialism and would destroy civil society.
In September 1981, the Times reported on comments then-Burlington Mayor Sanders made at a charity event:
“For the kickoff of the 40th annual Chittenden County United Way fund-raising drive in Burlington, Vt., the sponsors considered themselves fortunate to have as guests Mayor Bernard Sanders of Burlington and Gov. Richard Snelling of Vermont,” reported the Times . . .
“‘I don’t believe in charities,” said Mayor Sanders, bringing a shocked silence to a packed hotel banquet room. The mayor, who is a socialist, went on to question the ”fundamental concepts on which charities are based” and contended that government, rather than charity organizations, should take over responsibility for social programs,’” the article stated.
Joe Loconte fiercely disagrees. Loconte teaches Western civilization and American foreign policy at The King’s College in New York City. He has also held positions with the Heritage Foundation and the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. From 2001-2003, he was an informal adviser to the George W. Bush administration’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. (Read more from “Bernie Sanders: ‘I Don’t Believe in Charities'” HERE)
The state of Kansas is likely to permanently prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal family planning funds administered within the state.
The biotech firm StemExpress is refusing to turn over all documents to Congress related to its purchasing and reselling of body parts from aborted babies sold to it from Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses.
A 1981 New York Times item quotes Democratic Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as saying he doesn’t “believe in charities,” an outlook that one expert says is common in socialism and would destroy civil society.