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Backlash Against Common Core

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Photo Credit: James SarmientoCommon Core means government agencies will gather and store all sorts of private information on every schoolchild into a longitudinal database from birth through all levels of schooling, plus giving government the right to share and exchange this nosy information with other government and private agencies, thus negating the federal law that now prohibits that. This type of surveillance and control of individuals is the mark of a totalitarian government.

Common Core reminds us of how Communist China gathered nosy information on all its schoolchildren, stored it in manila folders called dangans and then turned the file over to the kid’s employer when he left school.

The New York Times once published a picture of a giant Chinese warehouse containing hundreds of thousands of these folders. That was in the pre-Internet era when information was stored on paper; now data collection and storage are efficiently managed on computers in a greater invasion of privacy.

Common Core is encrusted with lies. It is not, as advertised, “state” written; it is a national project created in secret without any input from teachers or state legislatures. It is not “internationally benchmarked”; that never happened.

The readings assigned in the CC English standards are 50 percent “informational” texts instead of great American and English literature and classics. The result is that CC standards are very political.

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DOJ Siezed Associated Press Phone Records in “Massive and Unprecedented Intrusion”

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Photo Credit: EspartaThe Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know,” Pruitt said.

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Obama Attacks Liberty-Minded Americans During University Commencement Speech (+video)

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Photo Credit: senorgloryIn an effort to infect another generation with his socialist views, Obama preached at Ohio State University’s Class of 2013, admonishing them to reject liberty-minded Americans who fight to “gum up the works” of government or who warn of impending tyranny.

He goes on to suggest that these bad people are actually fighting representative government because they really believe “self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.” Obama concludes that, fortunately, “we understand that this democracy is ours.”

Obama, of course, knows that the Ruling Class has supplanted the people as the power-brokers of the nation. And he also knows – and fears – that the liberty-minded patriots in this nation are seeking to return government to the Rule of Law and oversight of the People.

Obama and his elitist allies – in both parties – are doing everything they can to prevent this type of populist uprising in the next election cycle.

So how do people like Obama fight these threatening forces? You tell the biggest lie about them that you can: that they are enemies of the very liberty that they are trying to preserve.

Unfortunately, this type of dishonesty is exactly what we’ve come to expect from the political class:

[Transcript – Obama attacks liberty-minded Americans:

“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems.

Some of these voices also do their best to gum up the works.

They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner.

You should reject these voices.

Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted . . . we understand that this democracy is ours.”]

Poll: Almost One-Third of Voters Believe Armed Revolution May Be Necessary

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Photo Credit: leewrightonflickrAccording to a survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University, nearly a third of registered voters — 29 percent — believe an “armed revolution” might be necessary in the next few years in order to protect liberties.

The poll from the university’s PublicMind explored perceptions regarding Congress’ latest gun control push as well as the Sandy Hook mass shooting. That legislative push, launched in the wake of the Connecticut shooting, fizzled last month after the Senate blocked a bill that would have expanded background checks.

The poll showed 50 percent of voters still believe Congress should pass laws to protect the public from gun violence, while 39 percent say the opposite. But there is a huge partisan divide. Among Republicans, 65 percent don’t see new laws as necessary.

And the survey could help explain why applications for gun permits have hit record highs and retailers report ammo has been flying off the shelves. Not only are gun owners worried about new gun laws, but the poll suggests some voters think a revolution could be on the horizon.

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FDA Lowers Age for Buyers of Plan B Pill to 15

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Photo Credit: APIn a surprise twist to the decade-plus effort to ease access to morning-after pills, the government is lowering the age limit to 15 for one brand – Plan B One-Step – and will let it be sold over the counter.

Today, Plan B and its generic competition are sold behind pharmacy counters, and people must prove they’re 17 or older to buy the emergency contraception without a prescription. A federal judge had ordered an end to those sales restrictions by next Monday.

But Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration approved a different approach: Plan B could sit on drugstore shelves next to condoms, spermicides or other women’s health products – but to make the purchase, buyers must prove they’re 15 or older at the cash register.

Manufacturer Teva Women’s Health, which had applied for the compromise path, said it planned to make the switch in a few months.

The question is whether Tuesday’s action settles the larger court fight. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman of New York blasted the Obama administration for imposing the age-17 limit, saying it had let election-year politics trump science and were making it hard for women of any age to obtain emergency contraception in time for it to work.

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Greece Starts Firing Civil Servants for First Time in a Century

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Photo Credit: John KolesidisPushed by its European creditors amid its crippling economic crisis, Greece began this week to do something it hasn’t done in more than 100 years: fire public-sector workers en masse.

Following weeks of tough negotiations with its lenders – the “troika” of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the European Central Bank – the Greek government started laying off public-sector workers in an effort to implement the austerity that the troika has demanded. The first two civil servants were let go on Wednesday under a new law that speeds up the process – one, a policeman, for stealing debit cards, and the other for 110 days of unexcused absence.

The mass layoffs were announced last week in a televised address by the Greek prime minister himself, Antonis Samaras. Despite the massive unemployment in Greece, the goal of the government has become the laying off of 180,000 civil servants by 2015. “This is not a human sacrifice,” said Prime Minister Samaras. “It’s an upgrading of the public sector and it’s one demand of Greek society.”

Samaras though, promised new positions to be created: “An equal number [of employees] will be hired on merit,” he added.

A century without layoffs

Civil servants’ jobs have been protected by a law that dates back to the 1880s, which became enshrined in the century-old Greek constitution. Until that provision became law, each newly elected government would sack the civil servants hired by the previous government to replace them with their own party members, creating civil unrest and a dysfunctional state.

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When Will Enough Be Enough America?

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Photo Credit: The Daily SheepleThe truth is that I cannot recall in my lifetime when our government has been so corrupt, so filled with lawless individuals who only think of themselves and not what is truly best for Americans.

America has a government that is slowly strangling the liberty out of its citizens and even though there are plenty of conservatives who rail against it, work to change it, and understand what is coming if we fail, the difficulty is that those in our government (aided and abetted by the media) do what they want to do anyway, often in total disregard for the rule of law. It’s not only maddeningly frustrating, but it goes against the very core of the Constitution.

America is a Constitutional Republic and I’m sure you know that. As such, we elect individuals who are duty bound to uphold and protect the Constitution upon which this country is founded. We do not elect individuals so that they will do what the perceived majority wants done. That kind of government is a Democracy, which America is not.

Even Obama gets this confused with his remarks about 90% of Americans wanting stricter gun control. First of all, he’s lying because that percentage is something he pulled out of the vapid environment in his head. Secondly, it does not matter if 100% of Americans wanted greater gun control measures to be enacted. That percentage has nothing to do with anything and he knows that, but simply refuses to acknowledge it. The Constitution clearly defines the 2nd Amendment as the right to keep and bear arms and it shall not be infringed. Simple. Clear. Definitive. Elected officials are supposed to do all in their power to protect, uphold, and defend the Constitution, not engage in every subterfuge they can think of to circumvent or overturn it.

We have a Congress that passed Obamacare without even reading it and now is secretly trying to exempt themselves (and their staffs) from it that very legislation they created. They couldn’t care less about us.

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Harry Reid: Tea Party Like Anarchists, Gov't 'Inherently Good'

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Photo Credit: APSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) believes the Tea Party is ideologically similar to anarchists and that government is “inherently good.”

Speaking on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Reid said he was frustrated that, “We have a situation where this country has been driven by the Tea Party for the last number of years.” He then insinuated Tea Partiers were like anarchists.

“When I was in school, I studied government and I learned about the anarchists. Now, they were different than the Tea Party because they were violent,” Reid said. “But they were anarchists because they did not believe in government in any level and they acknowledged it.”

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When will Republicans Understand Free Market Healthcare?

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Photo Credit: WND

Healthcare is one of the most complex policy issues. The lack of free market healthcare, engendered by endless government interventions (and secondary interventions to fix the original interventions), has made policy solutions even more cumbersome. But the overarching principle of any reform must begin with the understanding that federal intervention in the healthcare industry has inexorably driven up the cost of healthcare and health insurance. As such, no healthcare policy panacea can begin with growing government and further distorting the already grossly-altered healthcare market.

Instead of proposing more free market solutions, Republicans are offering pale-pastel versions of Democrat government intervention as solutions. Here are two examples.

Last week, Congressman Larry Bucshon (R-IN) introduced the Orwellian-named “Truth in Healthcare Marketing Act of 2013” (HR 1427) – a bill that forces optometrists to disclose all their licensing and qualifications in all advertising. It grants wide latitude to the Federal Trade Commission to regulate and penalize offenders. The bill is heavily backed by special interest hustlers like the AMA and American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). The ophthalmologist lobby doesn’t want competition from cheaper healthcare providers (optometrists), and they want to use the boot of the federal government to ensnare them in red tape.

It is this sort of anti-free market special interest legislating that has crowded out choice and competition from the marketplace. The reality is that there are already strict laws in most states to punish those optometrists who step outside of their scope of service beyond their qualifications. There is no reason, beyond special interest politicking, for the federal government to get involved. The bill was introduced on April 9, a day before the AAOs national meetings in DC commenced.

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Video: Home Depot Co-founder: Obamacare Will ‘Kill Off’ Small Business, Gov't is the 'Villain'

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Photo Credit: daysofthundr46

Retired Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus declared to Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview that “Obamacare is going to kill off small business.”

“If [employees] are thrown out of their medical plans now, where they’re covered in a good plan and thrown under the bus, they’re going to be destroyed,” Marcus said on Thursday. “If, in fact, they don’t stay as full-time employees but go to part-time employees, they’re going to be destroyed…

“People have to understand that the villain is not their employer; the villain is the U.S. government,” Marcus added. “Obamacare is the capper. That’s the bullet to the temple.”

Watch video here:

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