Common Core ‘Architect’ Deals Blow to Opponents with SAT Revamp

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Photo Credit: AP PHOTO/ TAMUG.EDUThe man known as the “architect” of Common Core has used his new job running the College Board to deal a devastating blow to critics of the national education standards.

The SAT was revamped to align with the Common Core Standards Initiative, the broad language and math standards adopted by 45 states despite growing complaints that it will result in nationalized control of K-12 curriculum. The announcement on Tuesday was made by College Board President David Coleman, who before taking the post in 2012, played a key role in designing Common Core.

Common Core supporters insist the program will ensure through testing a baseline level of learning throughout the nation, but critics say those tests will ensure a uniform curriculum springs up to prepare kids for the tests. Now, with the leading college entrance exam aligned with Common Core, critics acknowledge fighting Common Core could hurt students’ chances of getting into universities and even property values.

“It’s a roundabout way to put pressure on states that opted out of Common Core,” said Whitney Neal, director of Grassroots at Freedom Works. “If you are legislator from Virginia let’s say, this will put pressure on you obtain material to make your district more appealing especially to homebuyers. SAT averages are often included in realtor information and high school success rate is always a selling point.”

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Perry: ‘Time for a Little Rebellion’

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Texas governor Rick Perry broke through as a serious presidential hopeful Friday with a spirited speech to a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Perry brought the audience to its feet with a call to bring the successful conservative policies of red state governors to the national level.

Perry took jabs at targets including New York, California, and the Department of Education, noting that common-sense governance has been absent not only from blue states but from Washington, D.C.

“It’s time for a little rebellion on the battlefield of ideas,” the Texas governor said, paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson.

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States Give Criminal Exemptions to Union Goons

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Photo Credit: National Review By Alec Torres.

Labor organizers and union enforcers are exempt from important criminal laws in some of the country’s largest states. California, Illinois, and Wisconsin are among the states that allow union members to stalk, harass, and threaten victims — so long as they are putatively doing “legitimate” union business.

As National Review Online recently reported, one such state, Pennsylvania, is pushing to repeal exemptions that give union members freedom from prosecution for stalking, harassing, or even threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Other states have similar laws on the books, but unlike the Keystone State, they’re not even trying to fix this double standard.

California, for example, has a union carveout for stalking and trespassing. Those engaged in “collective bargaining, labor relations, or labor disputes” are also legally free to “willfully [block] the free movement of another person in a [public-transit] system facility or vehicle.” If an ordinary Californian did that, he or she would face a $400 fine and 90 days in prison.

The Golden State even exempts those “engaged in labor union activities” from prosecution for making “a credible threat to cause bodily injury.”

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsLittle-Known PA Law Shields Unions From Stalking, Harassment Charges

By Fox News Insider.

We heard an unbelievable story on Fox and Friends this morning about a Pennsylvania businesswoman who says she has been repeatedly harassed by union workers. And because of a little-known state law from the 1930s, nothing can be done about the menacing tactics.

The dispute between Sarina Rose and local Philadelphia union members started when her employer, Post Bros., hired some non-union workers to build apartments. The company refused to hire an all-union labor force for the job, and the resulting dispute led to daily protests at the site by union workers.

Rose says non-union workers were routinely harassed on their way to and from work and their vehicles were damaged as the behavior became more and more violent.

“In a couple of incidents, guys were chased with crowbars. Some were actually hit,” she explained to Steve Doocy this morning. But prosecutors are handcuffed by a clause in state law that protects parties in labor disputes from charges of stalking, harassment, and terroristic threats.

Rose said that many lawmakers she has spoken to about the exemption are “perplexed” about it.

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Poll: 67 Percent Would Vote Out All Current Lawmakers

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Photo Credit: APMost voters would oust all current members of Congress — including their own senators and representative — if given the opportunity, the latest Fox News poll finds.

By a 67-26 percent margin, voters would kick everybody on Capitol Hill to the curb and replace them with new people. That includes two-thirds of Democrats, Republicans and independents.

The result is perhaps not so surprising, given how voters feel about lawmakers these days: just 12 percent approve of the job Congress is doing, while 78 percent disapprove.

Congress received a record-low 9 percent approval rating in October 2013.

Democratic candidates hold a slim two-percentage point advantage when voters are asked about their preference for Congress this year.

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February: 223,000 More Unemployed Individuals

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Photo Credit: APThe number of unemployed individuals 16 years and over increased by 223,000 in February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In February, there were 10,459,000 unemployed individuals age 16 and over, which was up 223,000 from January…

In addition, according to the BLS, there were 91,361,000 Americans, 16 or older, who did not participate in the nation’s labor force in February, meaning they neither held a job nor actively sought one.

That brought the national labor force participation rate to 63%, which matched January’s participation rate.

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‘Suffocating Pressure’: Former ThinkProgress Writer Describes White House ‘Censorship’

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed Zaid Jilani, a former blogger with the left-wing think tank Center for American Progress, explained this week how the Obama administration frequently tries to censor the progressive organization’s content when it departs from the White House’s agenda.

Jiliani was reacting to two on-air protests by journalists opposed to Russia’s invasion of southern Ukraine. The two worked for Russia Today (RT) — an English-speaking media outlet funded directly by Moscow — and felt their bosses were trying to censor their opinions.

In a post titled, ”How Working in Washington Taught Me We’re All A Little Like RT America,” Jilani explained how the White House frequently played the part of the Kremlin — leaning on management to push their writers in a particular direction, and punishing them if they strayed from the party line.

“I’m writing this post to explain how working in Washington taught me we’re all a little bit like the good folks who work at RT America,” Jilani explained, “struggling against editorial censors, doing our best to follow our conscience despite sometimes suffocating pressures from our publishers and sponsors.”

The blogger never assumed he would agree with everything pushed by the Center for American Progress’s Action Fund when he joined the 501(c)(4) nonprofit to write about national security in 2009. But he soon discovered that one topic in particular was entirely shielded from criticism — the war in Afghanistan, which President Obama was then in the process of escalating.

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Larry Kudlow Retires from CNBC’s ‘The Kudlow Report’

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller Free market-oriented reporter Larry Kudlow is retiring from his 7 PM time slot on CNBC, the second major name to leave the business news network in the last two months.

TVNewser reports that Kudlow’s 12-year career as a CNBC host will finish at the end of March, though he will remain a contributor for the network.

“Larry expressed his love of the network and personal pride in what had been accomplished on his program over the years but now wanted to slow down just a bit,” network president Mark Hoffman said in a note to staff.

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Cruz: Conservatives Can Listen Timidly to DC Consultants, or Stay True to Core Values

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Photo Credit: Reuters By Tony Lee.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has the lead among Tea Partiers in nearly every 2016 GOP presidential primary poll, opened CPAC on Thursday. Cruz said that conservatives can win elections when they draw a clear and sharp contrast between corrupt Washington and the American people, in a way that the GOP establishment has not been able to do.

The potential 2016 presidential candidate noted that Washington is the wealthiest region in the U.S. and blasted the “corrupt interlocking system” of lobbyists, lawyers, and consultants that are “suckling off of Washington.”

Cruz said conservatives can choose to listen to D.C. consultants who want Republicans to be timid, or they can stay true to their core values.

“If you want to lose elections, stand for nothing,” Cruz said.

Read more this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: mailonline.comConservative firebrand Ted Cruz launches political convention with crowd-pleasing demand to abolish the IRS

By David Martosko.

Ted Cruz, the rock-ribbed conservative Texas senator who figures to be a factor in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, told thousands of conservatives Thursday morning that the IRS should go the way of the dodo.

‘We need to abolish the IRS,’ he said, calling instead for a flat income tax rate and a user-friendly tax return that can be filed on a postcard.

That verbal gauntlet, thrown as much at a near-century of tax collection as at the Obama administration, was Cruz’s biggest applause line.

‘By virtue of your being here today,’ he jokingly cautioned the nation’s largest annual gathering of politically conservative activists, ‘tomorrow each and every one of you is going to be audited by the IRS.’

On Wednesday the former IRS official in charge of vetting nonprofit groups that seek tax-exempt charitable status refused, for the second time, to tell a congressional committee what she knew about the scandal.

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Amnesty is a Vote-Killer for GOP, Says WashPo Poll

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller A new poll by the Washington Post shows that amnesty is a vote-loser for GOP legislators.

The poll of 1,002 adults shows that pluralities of independents and moderates oppose candidates who support amnesty, which was euphemistically dubbed “a path to citizenship” by the poll designers.

The poll showed that 41 percent of independents and 37 percent of moderates were less likely to vote for an amnesty-backer.

Only 28 percent of independents and moderates said they were more likely to vote for a candidate who backs amnesty.

The poll showed legislators’ support for amnesty inflicted a 12-point penalty from registered voters, 28 points from white people who did not go to college, 14 points from middle-class people who earn between $50,000 and $100,000, and even a few points from college grads, people who earn over $100,000 and people who earn less than $50,000, the poll also showed that the GOP’s opposition to amnesty doesn’t lower their one-in-four support among Latinos.

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Bill to Make the Fine $0 for Violating the Individual Mandate Passes by 90 Votes

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The House of Representatives passed legislation Wednesday afternoon to make the fine/“tax” for violating Obamacare’s individual mandate $0 for this year, and it did so by the wide margin of 90 votes (250 to 160). That’s 83 more than the 7-vote margin (219 to 212) by which Obamacare passed the House four Marches ago. Moreover, 27 Democrats voted for today’s legislation—27 more than the number of Republicans who voted for Obamacare when it passed. In all, 223 Republicans voted for today’s bill, while only one—Paul Broun of Georgia—voted against it. Here’s the member-by-member tally for the vote.

Earlier today, the Obama White House released a 3-paragraph statement on the legislation, noting that Obamacare “helps millions of Americans stay on their parents’ plans until age 26”—which, of course, has nothing to do with the individual mandate or the fine/“tax” for violating it—and saying that if President Obama were presented with the legislation, “he would veto it.”

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