Explicit Sex Ed Class Horrifies Texas Parents

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Hundreds of Houston-area parents are outraged over a new sex education program that teaches 12-year-old children about oral, anal and vaginal sex – and uses graphic curriculum to instruct students on how to use condoms.

“We don’t need the school district showing the kids how to put on condoms,” said parent Christine Kalmbach. “This is very alarming.”

Kalmbach’s son is a seventh grader in the Cy-Fair Independent School District, a suburb of Houston. She was one of many parents who attended a school board meeting this week to voice her concerns about the graphic sex classes.

The new curriculum is called, “It’s Your Game, Keep It Real,” – a program that includes real-life scenarios about condoms. School officials did not return calls for comment – but they told parents that the program was selected because it has a proven record.

District officails told television station KTRK that the curriculum was approved by a subcommittee made up of a group of parents — and the school board unanimously approved it during summer break — when many parents and students were on vacation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Media Bias Revealed in Astonishing Romney Photo

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It was a news photo that, as Gawker quipped, was “ripe for captioning.”

A pic of Mitt Romney bending over, while a seemingly astonished schoolgirl stands behind him, mouth agape.

The photograph, posted Monday by The Associated Press for all to see, has since surged across the Internet. The candidate riding a wave of confidence from last week’s debate performance was suddenly made, pardon, the butt of jokes.

So was it a cheap shot? Tim Graham, media analysis director at the Media Research Center, said absolutely.

“It’s unbelievable,” he wrote. “It honestly looks like a little girl is gaping at Romney from behind.”

A closer look appears to show the girl looking at something else to the right of Romney.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Polling Group Now Considers Florida, North Carolina and Virginia Safe for Romney, Leaving States

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In an amazing turn of events, Suffolk Polling is no longer polling Florida, North Carolina, or Virginia because they are now considered safe states for Romney.

This was confirmed during a Bill O’Reilly interview with the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center yeseterday:

This is yet another revelation this week that the polls are turning against Obama.

In another story this week, both Michigan and Pennsylvania were moved from Obama safe states to being in swing.

Videos: Obama’s Big Bird Ad Under Attack by Sesame Street Owners, Romney

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Yesterday, the Obama campaign released an ad starring Big Bird in an attempt to suggest that Romney believes that PBS subsidies are one of our nation’s most critical problems:

The Romney campaign quickly responded. At a speech yesterday, Romney stated that, “You have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about saving Big Bird.” He continued, “I actually think we need to have a president who talks about saving the American people and saving good jobs and saving our future”:

Fox News later reported that the owners of Sesame Street did not see the Obama ad as a laughing matter. in fact, the owners demanded that the ad be taken down:

Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns. We have approved no campaign ads and, as is our general practice, have requested that the ad be taken down.

Michigan, Pennsylvania Move from Obama-Safe States to Swing States

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In some of the first state level polls conducted since last Wednesday’s presidential debate, Michigan and Pennsylvania have moved from lean-Obama states to swing states. The Romney campaign had previously pulled their advertising from those states to concentrate on other states.

A Susquehanna Polling and Research poll of 725 likely Pennsylvania voters conducted Oct. 4-6 shows Obama’s lead down to only two percentage points (47 to 45 percent), which is within the plus or minus 3.7 percentage point margin of error. Four percent of those polled said they were undecided. When they were asked who they were leaning toward, they favored Romney three to one. Factoring this in, Obama’s lead is only one percentage point.

In Michigan, two new polls also show a tight race. A poll of 1,122 respondents conducted Oct. 5 by Foster McCollum White & Associates showed a 3 percentage point advantage for Obama (49 to 46 percent with a 2.93 percent margin of error. The poll did not screen for registered or likely voters.) An Oct. 5-7 poll of 600 likely Michigan voters conducted by EPIC-MRA had similar results. Obama leads by only three percentage points (48 to 45 percent), with a plus or minus four percentage point margin of error.

While Obama still shows a lead in those states and shows an advantage in the electoral college vote, the results could be important if subsequent polls show similar results. It would mean that the Obama campaign might have to spend resources which would otherwise be spent elsewhere to hold on to those states. Also, it would provide Romney a greater range of possibilities to achieve the 270 electoral college votes needed to clinch the presidency.

Early in the race the Romney campaign appeared to want to compete for Michigan and Pennsylvania. Romney campaigned and ran television ads in both states. Romney was raised in Michigan and his father, George Romney, served as governor there. After continued poor showings in the polls, though, his campaign appeared to give up on those states. The newest polls, therefore, could shift the Romney campaign strategy.

Read more from this story HERE.

Recession Wiping Out Black Middle Class

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For months, the presidential candidates have been trying to court the middle class, extending offers of tax cuts, lower gas prices and better schools. The message: America does well when the middle class does well. The corollary: We feel your pain.

But much less attention has been given to the black middle class, which since the recession and slow recovery has suffered massive decreases in wealth and high rates of home foreclosures. Blacks overall are experiencing a 13.4 percent unemployment rate, according to figures released Friday, much higher than the national rate of 7.8 percent.

The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project recently released a report projecting that 68 percent of African-Americans reared in the middle of the wealth ladder will not do as well as the previous generation.

In August, the National Urban League’s State of Black America 2012 report found that nearly all the economic gains that the black middle class made during the last 30 years have been wiped out by the economic downturn.

“This is a very dire situation,” said Valerie Rawlston Wilson, an economist with the National Urban League Policy Institute. “Even for blacks who have college degrees, we’ve seen a doubling of their unemployment (rate) between 2007 and 2010.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Gallup: Romney’s Win Over Obama in Last Week’s Debate Was Unprecedented, Now Leading in Polls

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Gallup: Romney’s Win Over Obama in Last Week’s Debate Was Unprecedented

By Jeffrey M. Jones. An Oct. 4-5 Gallup poll finds roughly two in three Americans reporting that they watched the Oct. 3 debate, similar to what Gallup measured for each of the three 2008 presidential debates. Those who viewed the debate overwhelmingly believe Romney did a better job than Obama, 72% to 20%. Republicans were nearly unanimous in judging Romney the winner. But even Democrats rated Romney as doing a better job than Obama, 49% to 39%.

These assessments are based on interviewing conducted Thursday and Friday after the Wednesday night debate, and may reflect the impact of news stories and media commentary — which mostly declared Romney as the debate winner — as well as personal reactions to the debates as they unfolded.

Gallup has assessed opinion on who did better in most past presidential debates; some of these polls were conducted the night of the debate with pre-recruited samples of debate watchers immediately after it concluded, and some were conducted with more general samples of Americans in the days that followed the debate. Across all of the various debate-reaction polls Gallup has conducted, Romney’s 52-point win is the largest Gallup has measured. The prior largest margin was 42 points for Bill Clinton over George H.W. Bush in the 1992 town hall debate.

Romney’s debate performance is also notable from the standpoint that U.S. debate watchers judged Obama the winner of all three 2008 debates with John McCain. Read more from this story HERE.

Romney Now Leads Obama by Four Points in National Polling

By Steven Ertelt. A new CNN poll conducted by the Pew Research Center finds Mitt Romney now enjoys a four percentage point lead among likely voters, topping pro-abortion President Barack Obama 49-45 percent.

The debate played a huge roll in providing the bounce for Romney in the Pew poll, where he trailed during the month of September.

“Mitt Romney no longer trails Barack Obama in the Pew Research Center’s presidential election polling. By about three-to-one, voters say Romney did a better job than Obama in the Oct. 3 debate, and the Republican is now better regarded on most personal dimensions and on most issues than he was in September. Romney is seen as the candidate who has new ideas and is viewed as better able than Obama to improve the jobs situation and reduce the budget deficit,” Pew reported. Read more from this story HERE.

US Military Overwhelming Favors Romney Due to Character, Economy

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The professional core of the U.S. military overwhelmingly favors Mitt Romney over President Obama in the upcoming election — but not because of any particular military issues, according to a new poll of more than 3,100 active and reserve troops.

Respondents rated the economy and the candidates’ character as their most important considerations and all but ignored the war in Afghanistan as an issue of concern.

The Military Times Poll is a secure email survey of active-duty, National Guard and reserve members who are subscribers to the Military Times newspapers (see How We Did It, below).

This population is older and more senior than the military population at large, but it is representative of the professional core of the all-volunteer force.

The 3,100 respondents — roughly two-thirds active-duty and one-third reserve component members — are about 80 percent white and 91 percent male. Forty percent are in paygrades E-5 through E-8, while more than 35 percent are in paygrades O-3 through O-5.

Almost 80 percent of respondents have a college degree — including 27 percent with a graduate degree and more than 11 percent with a post-graduate degree — while an additional 18.5 percent have some college under their belts.

And they are battle-hardened; almost 29 percent have spent more than two cumulative years deployed since 9/11, while a similar percentage has spent one to two cumulative years deployed.

Read more from this story HERE.

DHS Now Pursuing Minitiarized Drone Technology for Domestic Surveillance

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There was a time when the Department of Homeland Security wasn’t enthusiastic about its drone fleet. Unmanned flying surveillance ‘bots had the potential to freak out the public, top DHS science and technology officials worried. That time has evidently passed — particularly for smaller flying spies.

In the coming months, Fort Sill, Oklahoma will become a proving ground to learn what small surveillance drones can add to “first responder, law enforcement and border security scenarios,” according to a recent solicitation to the country’s various drone manufacturers. Each selected drone will undergo five days’ worth of tests as part of a new program from DHS’ Science and Technology directorate, called Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety or, gloriously, RAPS.

Like many in the military experimenting with drone miniaturization, DHS is thinking small. The drones it wants to bring to Fort Sill will ideally be launched by hand, like the Army and Marines’ Raven. They should weigh under 25 pounds. Assembly should take a matter of minutes, and training for their remote pilots and technician a matter of days. DHS isn’t looking for drones that can loiter over an area for a long time: just 30 minutes to two hours, a hint that the department doesn’t foresee drones becoming a primary surveillance tool. “Law enforcement operations, search and rescue, and fire and hazardous material spill response” are some of the potential drone missions the RAPS program envisions.

Still, it’s something of a turnaround for DHS. Back in January 2011, Ruth Doherty, a DHS science & tech official, expressed skepticism about using drones to patrol for signs of terrorism or to protect big public events like the Super Bowl. “A case has to be made that they’re economically feasible, not intrusive and acceptable to the public,” Doherty told Danger Room at a D.C. conference. In addition to the potential public outcry, drones have been a headache for DHS at times. A DHS ground station in 2010 lost communications with one of the first Predators it used to surveil the southern U.S. border, and the department has had trouble finding enough pilots and technicians to operate its initial drone fleet.

Read more from this story HERE.

Head of Ruthless Zetas Cartel Arrested, Linked to Falcon Lake Shooting of US Citizen

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By Catherine E. Shoichet. For more than two years, details about the investigation into who killed David Hartley have been as murky as the waters where his body disappeared.

His grieving widow told police that attackers shot him in the head on a lake that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border. She said she was forced to flee and leave his body behind.

Some blamed her for his death. Then the severed head of the case’s lead investigator was delivered in a suitcase to a Mexican military post.

The trail seemed to go cold until Monday, when Mexican authorities said they had arrested a leader of the ruthless Zetas drug cartel and linked him to the Falcon Lake killing.

Salvador Alfonso Martinez Escobedo also is a suspect connected to the slaying of the Mexican state police investigator who was heading the investigation into Hartley’s killing until he turned up dead himself nine days later, the Mexican navy said in a written statement. Read more from this story HERE.

Reuters Reporting that Head of Zeta Cartel May Have Been Killed by Mexican Marines

By Michael O’Boyle. Mexican marines may have killed the leader of the brutal Zetas drug cartel in a gun battle in northern Mexico, in what would be one of the biggest victories yet in the government’s six-year war on organized crime.

The Navy said late on Monday there was “strong evidence” Heriberto Lazcano had been killed in a firefight with marines in the northern state of Coahuila on Sunday afternoon.

If the death of Lazcano, alias “The Executioner,” is confirmed, he would be the most powerful capo to fall in President Felipe Calderon’s military offensive on the gangs.

The Zetas, considered one of the two most powerful drug gangs in Mexico, have perpetrated some of the most sickening acts seen in the country’s drug war that has killed about 60,000 people during Calderon’s term.

Two suspected Zetas gang members who attacked the marines with grenades from a moving car were killed in the gunfight and initial forensic tests suggested one of the bodies was the former soldier Lazcano, the Navy said in a statement. Read more from this story HERE.