Photo Credit: John Moore/Getty Images The number of homeless students in U.S. public schools is at an all-time high, according to new data.
There were 1.2 million homeless students during the 2011-12 academic year, from preschool all the way through high school. That’s up 10% from last year and 72% from the start of the recession, according to the most recent data available from the National Center for Homeless Education, which is funded by the Department of Education.
Advocacy groups say continuing economic struggles are causing more students to end up homeless, meaning that they live in shelters, motels, or are staying temporarily with someone else because they have nowhere to live.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-25 01:58:152016-04-11 11:15:43Student Homelessness Hits Record High (+video)
Photo Credit: Breitbart Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC’s All In, has a favorite tactic–though not an original one: connecting today’s Republicans with the racist Democrats of the old South. In June, he rewrote history by casting George Wallace as a Republican–an error for which, to his credit, he later apologized. On Wednesday, he appeared to use a more subtle tactic to connect the Tea Party’s Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio to the Ku Klux Klan.
In a segment on possible Tea Party contenders for the Republican Party’s nomination in the 2016 presidential race, Hayes used a graphic (above) that portrayed Cruz, Paul, and Rubio as kings in a deck of cards–and that, rather conveniently, spelled out the initials “K K K.” (Hayes did not say the word “kings” during the segment.)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-25 01:54:302016-04-11 11:15:43Did MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Use ‘KKK’ Image for Cruz, Paul, Rubio? (+video)
Photo Credit: US Mission GenevaIn an interview with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta Tuesday night, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she won’t be enrolling in the problem-plagued health insurance system that she was charged to implement.
“I have created an account on the site. I have not tried signing up, because I have insurance,” she told Gupta.
But Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says government officials like Sebelius should be required to live under the same laws they impose on everyone else.
Paul is now plugging a constitutional amendment that states, “Congress shall make no law applicable to a citizen of the United States that is not equally applicable to Congress.” The amendment also contains two provisions that apply that same principle to the Executive Branch and Judicial Branch of the federal government.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-24 00:39:512016-04-11 11:15:44Sebelius: I’m Not Signing Up for Obamacare (+video)
Photo Credit: Wayne Tilcock, The Davis EnterpriseA former University of California-Davis police officer made famous after being filmed pepper-spraying seated activists during a Nov. 2011 protest has been awarded a $38,059 workers’ compensation settlement, The Guardian reports.
John Pike, a 40-year-old former lieutenant on the university police force, claimed he suffered from depression and anxiety after receiving death threats following the incident.
A judge approved the settlement between Pike and the university on Oct. 16, according to KCRA.
Photo Credit: WEBN-TVPresident Barack Obama didn’t know of problems with the Affordable Care Act’s website — despite insurance companies’ complaints and the site’s crashing during a test run — until after its now well-documented abysmal launch, the nation’s health chief told CNN on Tuesday.
In an exclusive interview with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta asked when the President first learned about the considerable issues with the Obamacare website. Sebelius responded that it was in “the first couple of days” after the site went live October 1.
“But not before that?” Gupta followed up.
To which Sebelius replied, “No, sir.”
Sebelius admitted that there is concern in her department and the White House over the technical debacle surrounding the website rollout, saying “no one could be more frustrated than I am and the president.” The site was supposed to make it simple for people to search and sign-up for new health care policies starting on October 1, but instead it’s been clunky and, at times, inoperable.
Photo Credit: AP/Charlie RiedelDespite a decision by the NFL to ignore the administration’s pleas to promote Obamacare, the Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens have decided to go all in — in exchange for a $130,000 contract, according to documents unearthed by a public watchdog group.
Judicial Watch told Secrets that the team was recruited by Maryland state officials to help it sell Obamacare, the new health care insurance program that has run into mammoth computer and bureaucratic troubles in its first three weeks.
The state previously announced its plans but the size of the check was not released. Judicial Watch received a copy of the agreement between the 2013 football champs and the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange.
Photo Credit: newsbusters.orgJohn Dickerson could not have been more blunt on Monday’s CBS This Morning about the political damage HealthCare.gov’s well-established technical difficulties is already causing President Obama: “It’s been far worse than a glitch. It’s been a total fiasco, as Senator McCain said. And the problem here is that the administration could get into, sort of, a credibility death spiral.”
The liberal political director, who is usually an Obama apologist, also surprisingly acknowledged that conservatives were right in their longstanding criticisms of ObamaCare: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
JOHN DICKERSON:
There has always been charges from the right that the President’s health care promises didn’t turn out to be true. But then, some of those charges turned out to have some merit. The President said, if you had your own health care plan and if you were satisfied with it, you’d be able to keep it. Well, that didn’t quite turn out to be true.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-22 00:47:062016-04-11 11:15:52CBS’s Dickerson: White House Risks ‘Credibility Death Spiral’ Over ‘Total Fiasco’ of ObamaCare Site (+video)
President Barack Obama delivered an Obamacare speech Monday that sounded a lot like hold music.
With a staunch defense of the law and a hint of outrage over its problems, Obama sought to buy time with Congress, potential customers and the public while his administration rushes to fix HealthCare.gov, the beleaguered website that threatens the viability of his signature domestic achievement.
But as congressional oversight committees circle, he has to hope that improvements to the website ramp up more quickly than do the calls for suspending or delaying enrollment.
“There’s no sugarcoating it. The website has been too slow,” Obama said in the White House Rose Garden. “People have been getting stuck during the application process. And I think it’s fair to say that nobody’s more frustrated by that than I am. Precisely because the product is good, I want the cash registers to work, I want the checkout lines to be smooth, so I want people to be able to get this great product.
It’s not the GOP that President Barack Obama has to worry about in defending his botched health care rollout, it’s fellow Democrats.
They voted for the law, sang its praises for three-plus years and still believe in the promise of health care reform. But now they face a conundrum: stay in lock step with Obama and risk their credibility as advocates for the law’s benefits or publicly criticize the administration for its recent problems — especially a failure to more quickly acknowledge, and rectify, the major malfunction of its Internet marketplace.
It’s a particularly vexing question for Democrats worried about their party’s chances in the 2014 midterm elections, and, increasingly, they’re opting for the latter strategy.
“What has happened is unacceptable in terms of the glitches,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on ABC’s “This Week.” “They were overwhelmed to begin with. There is much that needs to be done to correct the situation.” It was the second time in a week that Pelosi had gone public with her dismay over the implementation of a law that she carried to enactment by winning tough votes on the House floor in 2009 and ’10.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-22 00:43:272016-04-11 11:15:52Obama: Your Call is Important to Us (+video)
Photo Credit: MYFOXNY.COMSome couples in New Jersey had waited decades. At the stroke of midnight the moment arrived as New Jersey became the the 14th state to legalize gay marriage.
The celebrations came three days after the state Supreme Court rejected Gov. Chris Christie’s request to delay the start of the nuptials while he appealed a lower court’s ruling on same-sex marriage.
Weddings were held in several cities and towns across the state in the first minutes of Monday morning, as soon as a court order requiring the state to recognize gay marriage went into effect.
Peter Connell and David Calle have been together 13 years and were among those toasting their commitment at midnight. Now official they say the historic day was made even better when Christie announced Monday morning that he is dropping his appeal in the legal case.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-22 00:10:442016-04-11 11:15:56NJ Becomes 14th State to Recognize Gay Marriage (+video)
