912 Patriots of Lower Bucks - Your Daily Updates ALL in ONE Place!
May 7, 2013
Quote:
"Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capacity, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence."
~ Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
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Even as the White House strove last week to move beyond questions about the Benghazi attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2012, fresh evidence emerged that senior Obama administration officials knowingly misled the country about what had happened in the days following the assaults. The Weekly Standard has obtained a timeline briefed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence detailing the heavy substantive revisions made to the CIA's talking points, just six weeks before the 2012 presidential election, and additional information about why the changes were made and by whom.
As intelligence officials pieced together the puzzle of events unfolding in Libya, they concluded even before the assaults had ended that al Qaeda-linked terrorists were involved. Senior administration officials, however, sought to obscure the emerging picture and downplay the significance of attacks that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The frantic process that produced the changes to the talking points took place over a 24-hour period just one day before Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, made her now-famous appearances on the Sunday television talk shows. The discussions involved senior officials from the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the White House.
The exchange of emails is laid out in a 43-page report from the chairmen of five committees in the House of Representatives. Although the investigation was conducted by Republicans, leading some reporters and commentators to dismiss it, the report quotes directly from emails between top administration and intelligence officials, and it includes footnotes indicating the times the messages were sent. In some cases, the report did not provide the names of the senders, but The Weekly Standard has confirmed the identities of the authors of two critical emails-one indicating the main reason for the changes and the other announcing that the talking points would receive their final substantive rewrite at a meeting of top administration officials on Saturday, September 15.
The White House provided the emails to members of the House and Senate intelligence committees for a limited time and with the stipulation that the documents were available for review only and would not be turned over to the committees. The White House and committee leadership agreed to that arrangement as part of a deal that would keep Republican senators from blocking the confirmation of John Brennan, the president's choice to run the CIA. If the House report provides an accurate and complete depiction of the emails, it is clear that senior administration officials engaged in a wholesale rewriting of intelligence assessments about Benghazi in order to mislead the public. The Weekly Standard sought comment from officials at the White House, the State Department, and the CIA, but received none by press time. Within hours of the initial attack on the U.S. facility, the State Department Operations Center sent out two alerts. The first, at 4:05 p.m. (all times are Eastern Daylight Time), indicated that the compound was under attack; the second, at 6:08 p.m., indicated that Ansar al Sharia, an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group operating in Libya, had claimed credit for the attack. According to the House report, these alerts were circulated widely inside the government, including at the highest levels. The fighting in Benghazi continued for another several hours, so top Obama administration officials were told even as the fighting was taking place that U.S. diplomats and intelligence operatives were likely being attacked by al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists. A cable sent the following day, September 12, by the CIA station chief in Libya, reported that eyewitnesses confirmed the participation of Islamic militants and made clear that U.S. facilities in Benghazi had come under terrorist attack. It was this fact, along with several others, that top Obama officials would work so hard to obscure.
The Benghazi scandal is back! Sunday CBS News used the word "cover-up" for the first time in its reporting on the scandal.
The Weekly Standard published an exchange of emails detailing the "heavy substantive revisions made to the CIA's talking points," stripping out all references to Al Qaeda, jihadists, Islamic extremists and terrorism. As more of this information is released, it is becoming virtually impossible to deny the obvious.
Rep. Stephen Lynch, a liberal Massachusetts Democrat, blasted the House GOP investigation, but conceded that the Obama Administration's talking points "weren't accurate." After further questioning by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, Rep. Lynch admitted that the talking points were "scrubbed" and were "totally inaccurate." Lynch added, "There's no excuse for that."
By the way, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said this morning on Fox & Friends, "No Democrat decided or elected to go" to Libya as part of the House investigation. Ignorance is bliss to House Democrats who don't want to cross Obama.
One of the Benghazi whistle-blowers who will testify this week is Gregory Hicks, the number two official at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli. CBS News reports that Hicks "took the frantic call" from Ambassador Christopher Stevens on the night of September 11, 2012, saying, "Greg, we are under attack." Hicks reportedly told House investigators, "everyone in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning."
You may recall that the preliminary House GOP report on Benghazi accused the Obama Administration of a cover-up, stated that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton misled Congress and that the White House misled the American people. This week, the American people will have the opportunity to hear from individuals who know what happened on the night when four Americans died and Obama did nothing.
Fox News is reporting the explosive charge that Hillary Clinton shut out "the department's own counterterrorism bureau" during the critical hours following the attack. This allegation comes from two top counterterrorism officials at the State Department, one of whom (Mark Thompson) will also testify this week.
Why would Clinton do that? No doubt she was running defense for Obama's reelection campaign, but she was likely worried about her place in history too, and her place in 2016!
On the stump, Obama had said repeatedly -- before and even after the Benghazi attacks -- that Al Qaeda had been "decimated" or "defeated." Benghazi proved otherwise. Worse, it proved the Obama Administration's incompetence.
Hillary knew the situation in Libya was tenuous at best. Almost a year prior to the attack, military assets were pre-positioned to protect her when she visited Libya.
Hillary and those close to her knew all of this and understood just how damaging the truth could have been, not only to Obama but to her as well. As The Weekly Standard article makes clear, it was the State Department's spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, who demanded that the CIA's talking points be watered down, warning that initial changes failed to "resolve all my issues or those of my building [the State Department] leadership."
Meanwhile In Syria...
Israeli forces launched massive airstrikes yesterday near Damascus, Syria. The bombings struck several military facilities, including one believed to be Syria's "main chemical weapons facility." But the real targets are believed to have been Iranian weapons bound for Hezbollah. There is some speculation that Israel may have been demonstrating its own ability to launch strikes against Iran's nuclear sites.
Regardless, Israel is doing exactly the right thing. The only stake we have in all of this is not to allow chemical weapons to start pouring out of Syria. I believe that it is too late now to remove the Assad regime without it being replaced by something far worse.
In fact, U.N. observers are warning that they have "strong, concrete suspicions" that chemical weapons may have been used by the Syrian rebels trying to overthrow Assad's government!
Does Obama Understand America?
President Obama delivered the commencement address at Ohio State University yesterday. During his remarks, Obama offered a predictable defense of big government. But he also mocked those who favor smaller government, saying:
"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. ...They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking around the corner. You should reject these voices."
Who are these "voices" warning us about big government? One undoubtedly was Ronald Reagan, who said in his 1981 inaugural address, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
But Reagan was not the only "voice" Obama has a problem with. America's Founders were deeply suspicious of big government and warned about slipping back into tyranny and oppression.
James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, "experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions" against government control. And Thomas Jefferson warned that as liberty yields, government gains ground.
The Founders and Reagan were right, but Obama despises Reaganism and does not seem to like the Founders either. After all, they were part of the 1% of their time!
My hope is that the students at Ohio State University will ignore Obama's advice and retain a healthy American skepticism about trusting government to safeguard our liberty.
Armed Revolution: Nearly One-Third Of Voters Say It Might Be Needed
But when a long train of abuses and usurpation's pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
According to a survey that has been put out by Fairleigh Dickinson University, nearly one third of voters believe an "armed revolution" might be needed in the next few years in order to protect liberty in the United States.
, indicated that Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Democrats say that Congress needs to pass new laws to protect the public from gun violence, but the views of Republicans are almost completely opposite: 65 percent don't think new laws are necessary. Overall, registered voters are divided over the need for new gun control legislation. Fifty percent agree it is needed, with 39 percent who disagree.Obviously there is quite a difference of opinion among voters about the role of guns in society, though the gun control advocates really are on the wrong side of the Second Amendment. However, this same poll found that 29 percent of Americans think that an armed revolution will be necessary within the next few years in order to protect the liberties, which are supposed to be protected under the US Constitution and upheld by those that swear an oath to support and defend it, but are failing to do so.
The Internet Tax aka "Marketplace Fairness Act" Passes Senate (See the Votes here) Posted by Darla Dawald, National Director on May 6, 2013 at 7:00pm in Patriot Action Alerts
But of course No New Taxes under Obama...do you remember that?
Let me refresh your mind....
Barack Obama's version of "read my lips NO NEW TAXES"
No nothing...
his words...
not mine!
Is the Marketplace Fairness Act a tax? Why yes it is!
This bill will now go before the House of Representatives. Hopefully it will die there. It's really uncertain at this time. Some of the GOP are in favor as it brings in money for their state.
Pennsylvania Responds to National Education Standards
Thank you for helping to stop Pennsylvania's implementation of national education standards known as Common Core. Things are moving quickly and gaining speed across the Commonwealth. Just this week, Truth in American Education moved Pennsylvania into their "Rejection Pending" category and revised their map to show us as a state that is "Fighting Back" and that is solely due to your efforts in contacting your legislators.
UNITEPA is hosting Emmett McGroarty of the American Principles Project and Dr. Peg Luksik of Founded on Truth to discuss Common Core at both the national and state levels.
If you are in the Lancaster area and would like to attend this meeting in person see details here, otherwise, click here to register to watch the event online. Once you register, an email will be sent to you two days prior to and again three hours prior to the actual broadcast with this Ustream channel link. Click here for more specific details.
New MUST READING to get you up-to-speed on the details concerning Common Core by Peg Luksik "Assessing the Common Core". It is a bit long, but provides the details you need to get a deeper understanding of this dangerous imposition of the top-down, one-size-fits-all regulations.
Please check out this excellent article written by our friend and western Pennsylvania native Matt Shipley who also served as Assistant Platoon Commander at SEAL Team EIGHT. Read: "Rotten to the Common Core"
Please continue to promote the Pennsylvanians Against Common Core on-line petition and Facebook page. We would like to be able to attend the May 15 Senate hearing with a petition with more than 10,000 signatures and we need your help in reaching out to your friends and contacts to make that happen.
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ATTENTION!
Meeting place for May 10 meeting has changed to PJ Ryans. This is an important meeting to wrap up plans and get going on our agenda for the coming months. Details below.
At the April meeting you did a great job of putting some good ideas out there on priorities and issues.
Some of the top issues that made our list were Voter Fraud, Common Core (education issues), Second Amendment, Right to Work, Agenda 21/smart meters, and 2014 Elections.
In May, let's finish the job. We'll finalize our issues and set up working groups to get things moving.
It is our belief and the belief of many members that we need to become a more action oriented group. We can discuss ways that we can move in that direction. One of these is our continuing and successful Legislative Visit Program headed up by Camille Heppard and Sonny Hofmann.
Bring your ideas and energy!
In June we plan to try a new meeting place that we think will work well IF we can iron out details. It is convenient and has on-site parking. You may bring food and drink as long as you clean up after yourselves. The Sr. Center does not serve food although there is a kitchen that we can pay to use. Maybe we'll do a Pot Luck dinner a couple of times a year.
Please stay tuned for additional information as there are still a few details that must be taken care of.
PLEASE PLAN TO COME! SEE YOU THERE.
VFP STEERING COMMITTEE
NOTE UPDATED TIME 2nd Amendment Preservation & Gun Control Protest Rally Saturday May 11 at 1 PM.
This PEACEFUL rally will start promptly at 1 pm on the Pennsylvania side of "Trenton Makes" Bridge. Please show up by 12:45pm. As previously noted, the rally will feature prominent speakers such as:
Larry Pratt- Gun Owners of America
Charles Heller- Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
Tracy Scarpulla- Author of CNN opinion about family responsibility and firearms
Sgt. Robert Mansfield- Decorated Iraq War Veteran and Patriot
Chief Mark Kessler- Frackville PA and Constitutional Security Force
Guest appearance by "The Bearded Flag Guys"
Once our program at the bridge is concluded, PLEASE remain as we will PEACEFULLY protest and be present as the anti-2nd Amendment/ anti-liberty crowd marches over from New Jersey to their event at the nearby Morrisville Willamson Park. We will PEACEFULLY go over to the anti-2nd Amendment Rally in Willamson Park. Please note the following about the event at Williamson Park:
Firearms are prohibited by Township ordinance. No concealed or open carry at Willamson Park
The anti-guners were very insensitive in holding their event at the same time and place as a major little league event at Williamson Park. It is unfortunate the kids will be distracted in general by their event, and hearing the hysteria and distortions from their speakers and participants.
In contrast, our side should be respectful of the kids and the little league event. We will have positive pro-2nd Amendment/ Pro-family signs for you to use. Or you can bring your own positive message sign.
We want to avoid yelling, any combative interaction or creating a scene. The anti-2nd Amendment group will be making enough of a scene with their disruptive presence in front of the little leaguers.
There will be law enforcement present. Go out of your way to thank them for their service and emphasize we are on the same side as them.
Directions & Map Our rally will be held at Bridge Street and Park Ave, on the bank of the Delaware River. Parking is some distance from our rally point, so make allowance for time to park the car and walk to the rally point.
Look forward to seeing you all on Saturday. Bring along friends and family.
Here is our chance to be heard!
Cable provider Comcast is actively supporting Obama's radical leftist agenda to fundamentally transform America.
The news programs at NBC and MSNBC, run by Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, reflect total agreement with the Obama agenda. These "news" organizations even adopted the Obama re-election campaigns "Forward" slogan. Is this what Comcast subscribers and American voters need?
Brian Roberts has close ties to Obama - he was selected to serve on the President's Jobs and Competitiveness Council, he hosted an intimate reception for the President at his vacation home in Martha's Vineyard during last year's election campaign, and he openly supports ObamaCare.
On May 15, Let's show up and protest Comcast at their annual shareholder's meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. If you've been waiting to tell MSNBC boss Brian Roberts that the government doesn't own your kids, like they claimed in a recent commercial, now is your chance! RSVP here to lend your voice.
When: May 15 starting at 8:00 AM Eastern
Where: The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts Perelman Theater 300 S. Broad Street Philadelphia, PA 19102
We will leave from the Doylestown Parking lot at 6am
If we get enough interest we will get a bus. Please respond to thekitchentablepatriots@gmail.com
BUCKS COUNTY TEENAGE REPUBLICANS
DICK MORRIS
LIVE IN DOYLESTOWN
THURSDAY, MAY 16TH, 7:00PM 115 N BROAD STREET $20.00 GET YOUR TICKETS NOW WWW.BCTARS.COM
Join freedom-loving activists in protesting the liberal agenda of Comcast outside of the Kimmel Center in Center City Philadelphia during the Comcast Shareholder Meeting!
May 15th 8:00 - 10:00 am
Protest outside of the Kimmel Center! Bring your signs and your voices! Let Comcast know you are not going to stay silent about their liberal agenda!
Comcast employees contributed nearly $80,000 directly to Obama for America and roughly $200,000 to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint account benefitting both the Obama campaign and Democratic National Committee, through the first half of 2011. President Obama has recently spent time with top Comcast executives, attending an intimate fundraiser at the home of Comcast executive vice president David Cohen in Philadelphia in June and a private "social reception" at the Martha's Vineyard estate of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts earlier this week.
Shalom ZOA Members, Friends and Supporters of Israel,
Philadelphia is having a parade to celebrate the 65th anniversary of Israel's re-establishment on May 19 and ZOA will be one of the groups taking part.
March with ZOA through the streets of Philadelphia. Display your Israel pride and ZOA pride. We will have special T-shirts for the occasion.
The parade will wend its way through the heart of Center City from the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, stepping off at 11 a.m.
This is a great opportunity for young and old - and all of those in between - to come out to celebrate Israel.
If you've always wanted to take part in a parade but never had an opportunity, this is your chance! Let's show Philadelphia that support for Israel is stronger than ever!
The annual Israel Independence Day Festival will take place after the parade inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center at 11th and Arch Sts. ZOA will have a booth at the festival, and we will need volunteers to help us.
Please RSVP about participating in the parade either by email or phone - 610-660-9466.
If you are able to volunteer during the festival from noon to 5 p.m. (for all or part of the afternoon) please let us know as well.
Thank you.
See you on May 19!
$25 OFF Bus if you register before April 22 $25 OFF Participation if you register before April 22
June 19 - 21 we will convene at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC for our fourth annual National Conference & Legislative Briefing.
And here's some really great news: This year's registration fee is only $229! Register by April 15th and you'll receive our "Early Bird" rate of just $189!
We also offer again this year special benefits for Patriot Eagle and Patriot sponsors.
We have some exciting new wrinkles planned for this year's event, and our list of confirmed speakers already includes:
Steven Emerson - Journalist, author, and the Executive Editor of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. A. M. Rosenthal, late-managing editor of The New York Times, described Emerson as "one of the nation's best national security correspondents."
John Guandolo - Former FBI agent and one of America's leading authorities on the Muslim Brotherhood and its inner workings in America. Guandolo spoke at our conference in 2011 and received rave reviews from conference attendees!
Ezra Levant - Canadian lawyer, author, newspaper columnist with Sun Media, and former publisher of the Western Standard. Hauled before a Canadian "human rights commission" because he published the Danish cartoons that satirized Muhammad, Levant's personal account of a politically correct government inquisition is something you won't want to miss!
The National Conference & Legislative Briefing will begin on Wed. evening, June 19th, and conclude on Friday, June 21st at noon, with additional optional training sessions Friday afternoon.
It will again feature our very popular Capitol Hill Awards Luncheon and our signature gala banquet-and of course, our Legislative Briefing, where Members of Congress will brief you on various issues and answer your questions.
So make your plans now to join us in our nation's capital for what promises to be our best National Conference & Legislative Briefing ever!
More details to come!
As Israelis celebrate their 65th Independence Day this year, we should all take time out to reflect on the miracle of Israel's independence. We must also ask ourselves the question, "What can I do to ensure that this miracle of Israel survives and thrives?"
We announced earlier this week that we'll be headed to New Orleans the first weekend in August for this year's RedState Gathering. As a member of our RedState family, we'd like to extend exclusive Early Bird registration and pricing to you (just use the promo code EARLYBIRD on the registration page).
The 2013 RedState Gathering will be held August 2-3 at the Westin Canal Place in New Orleans, LA. We'll have two full days of speakers and activities and you can expect a good mix of elected officials and potential candidates for the 2014 cycle (we'll keep you informed as additions are made).
The Gathering has always been a unique event, in that all speakers, even the most in-demand and influential, pay their own way and make their own travel arrangements. This helps keep our costs low, a savings we are happy to pass along to our conference attendees. Additionally, we strive to get you up close to the speakers, ask them to take your questions, and we take care of nearly all your meals during the conference. Bottom line: fewer frills, more thrills and access.
We are thrilled to once again be joined by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who will be hosting a reception for all attendees and appear at the Gathering podium as a keynote speaker. A huge hit in 2012, we're looking forward to Gov. Jindal playing an even larger role this year as he welcomes us to his home state.
Now, more than ever, true conservative activists must come together to exchange ideas and strategize for the future. That's what this year's Gathering is all about. We hope you'll join us.
P.S. Don't delay! You'll receive 20% off if you register today - just use the promo code EARLYBIRD. Click here.
From a trusted friend:
As some of you may know, I am associated with Coventry Christian Schools as a parent of a graduate (2010) and as member of the Board of Trustees. Last October we spent a wonderful evening honoring Mark Niehls at our revitalized Founder's Dinner and celebrated our shared heritage in the remarkable community that is Coventry Christian Schools. Our vision for future Founder's Dinners is to inspire and inform not only our alumni and current CCS families but to inspire and inform the Tri-County Area and even our region by hosting speakers and artists who can uniquely assist us in celebrating the heritage, core values, and mission of CCS while also lifting our vision for an even greater future built upon the foundation of our past. The caliber of our speakers and guest artists should provide us with wonderful opportunities to share our CCS story with new partners in Christian education. Proceeds from the dinner will be applied to our annual Coventry Kids Fund for CCS scholarships.
This year we are proud to announce that our distinguished guest and speaker is Dr. Benjamin Carson, and our dinner's theme is "Faith of Our Fathers: The Role of Faith in American Schools." Please join us as we welcome Dr. Carson to the Tri-County Area and celebrate the great things God is doing at CCS!
Dr. Carson is a highly regarded neurosurgeon and motivational speaker who has addressed various audiences across the country. He is one of the most honored and recognized physicians in the world and holds more than 60 honorary doctorate degrees along with hundreds of awards and citations. He is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. He is the author of five books and is the founder of the Carson Scholars Fund. The 2009 award-winning movie entitled Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Carson, premiered on TNT and is based on his memoir. Dr. Carson is an authentic disciple of Christ, has been married to his wife Candy for more than 37 years, and is the father of three sons.
The 2013 Founder's Dinner, which will once again be a part of our Homecoming festivities, will be held at the historic Sunnybrook Ballroom in Pottstown on Sunday, October 13th, 2013. Doors will open at 4:30pm, followed by dinner at 5:15. Dress will be business/professional. Tickets will be priced at $100 until May 15th, then will be $125, so reserve your tickets for the reduced price.
Due to Dr. Carson's international reputation and recent prominence in the media, including his recent speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, we fully anticipate that this event will sell out quickly once advertised to the public. Tickets go on sale to the public April 15. If you are interested in attending, tickets can be purchased online. I will send the link out to those who wish to go on April 15
th
. While online reservations are preferred because they facilitate efficient event planning, you may also complete a paper order form, which I can forward to you as well.
All of us at Coventry Christian Schools, look forward to sharing this very special evening with you and acquainting you with the school and its mission!
Blessings,
Christine Gordon
Sponsorships are available as well and are as follows:
Gold Sponsor $3,000
Two tickets at Speaker's Table
Two tickets at Headmaster's Table
Listed as sponsor on school website through 12 months post event
Listed as sponsor on pre-event print marketing
Mentioned by name at event
Full Page ad in Dinner Program
Silver Sponsor $1,500
Two tickets at Speaker's Table
Listed as sponsor on school website through 12 months post event
Half page ad in Dinner Program
Bronze Sponsor $500
Two tickets at Headmaster's Chairman's or Founder's Table
Listed as sponsor on school website through 12 months post event
·Quarter page ad in Dinner Program
Heritage Foundation weighs in on Common Core
By Rachel Sheffield April 11, 2013: Policy Analyst, The Heritage Foundation (courtesy of Citizens' Alliance of Pennsylvania)This coming school year, Pennsylvania public schools will begin implementing the Common Core education standards. Like many other states, Common Core standards are quickly making their way into the classroom. While proponents of the standards continue to champion their predicted benefits, there is significant cause for concern.First, the standards represent a massive federal overreach. The Obama Administration jumped on board from the get go, promoting national education standards, via policy and federal taxpayer dollars, as part of their education agenda. Billions of federal dollars have gone towards and are continuing to fund, the promotion and implementation of these standards nationwide. The federal government's involvement with the standards should be alarming. Pushing state and local leaders away from classroom curriculum is not only a breach in federalism but gives parents, teachers, and communities less say over what children learn in school. Education experts have also raised alarm over the quality of the standards. Sandra Stotsky, Professor of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, has particularly expressed concern over the English Language Arts. Common Core's ELA standards reduce emphasis on literature by promoting the study of "informational texts." Stotsky says
, "A diminished emphasis on literature in the secondary grades makes it unlikely that American students will study a meaningful range of culturally and historically significant literary works before graduation. It also prevents students from acquiring a rich understanding and use of the English language. Perhaps of greatest concern, it may lead to a decreased capacity for analytical thinking."
Common Core goes SOCIAL MEDIA!!! Please share with everyone you know and help us make this a huge success. MARK YOUR CALENDAR!!! Not a TWITTER person.....grab a kid and have some fun.
Parent-Led Reform (@ParentLedReform) will host a Twitter Rally on April 16, 2013 which will start will go from 12:00p-2:00p (EST). We will discuss how the Common Core State Standards effect your family, community and schools? We invite you to participate.
There will be an expert panel and several organizations that will discuss#StopCommonCore. So far I know the panel will consist of:
I'll update with a live link for the Twitter Rally (or you can just follow the hashtag #StopCommonCore) and as the expert panel is finalized.
Update: Be sure to RSVP with the Facebook event invite, this will help keep you up to date with pertinent info.
The whole story on Common Core
Read the sourced and footnoted response to the National Review Online and get all the facts you need to know about Common Core HERE. Compiled by American Principles project and Glenn's research team.
Common Core is the new set of federal education standards being pushed by the Obama administration and several leftist organizations but it's even seeing some support from some conservatives.
defending Common Core, and Glenn gave the definitive response on radio today."Common Core is something that we didn't really get for quite some time and again it's something we've learned from the 9/12 project and concerned parents all around the country that have been bringing this to our attention. When we started in on this work, we thought it was pretty bad. The more we do, the worse it becomes," Glenn said.
Below are some of the points made by the National Review Online in defense of Common Core, followed by Glenn's response.
Today on radio, Glenn gave the definitive response. See that and get all the sources to back it up HERE.
Students in some Albany High School English classes were asked to participate in the unthinkable this week as part of a persuasive writing assignment. The objective? Prove why Jews are evil and convince the teacher of their loyalty to the Third Reich in five paragraphs or less. See the actual lessonHERE.
A concerned parent tipped off TheBlaze to the disturbing fact that NY public schools are teaching the U.N.'s Socialist-leaning Universal Human Rights. We also discovered that the schools are delivering this indoctrination using videos made by the Church of Scientology. Learn what our investigation revealedHERE.
TheBlaze has been at the forefront in uncovering the disturbing details of the nationalized curriculum standard known as Common Core. One of the most troubling aspects of this federal program is that government bureaucrats are currently mining sensitive and highly personal information on children through Common Core's tracking system. Watch the powerful segments from The Glenn Beck Program HERE.
What information is being collected on your kids through Common Core?
TheBlaze TV subscribers can watch past episodes covering Common Core and CSCOPE. The March 14th episode focused on Common Core and the March 7th episode focused on CSCOPE. Not a subscriber? Sign up HERE.
Glenn has spent a lot of time over the past few weeks exposing some of the education initiatives in states across the country that are indoctrinating kids into the radical progressive agenda. Today, Glenn discussed an issue tied into Common Core that many people aren't aware of: data mining.
"We cover many important stories and topics on this program, but I don't think any could be more important than what we are covering tonight: the progressive takeover of America's schools,"
OK....when they look at you like you have a tin foil hat on your head......take some of this information with you. It is 126 pages. I have not read through the entire document (YET) but what I have read is enough to blow off the top of your head. I have highlighted some stuff. KIPP (Charter Schools) has a CHARACTER REPORT CARD on Page 39. So for now start on page 39 and work your way through to page 45. Remember FERPA laws were changed last year and I am sure not one parent is aware that permission to share information about our children no longer requires parental consent. Obama just slipped all these new changes in and I don't believe any parents were ever asked their opinions about these changes. And where was our Republican Congress when this happened???
AGENDA 21 is: The complete control and inventory of every human activity. After your friends read some of this information ask them if they still believe A21 is not real. Chapter 36 of A21 document is devoted to education.
Our government forgets there are still people alive that can think and see through their garbage.
Print this document and get a highlighter...........then start visiting your neighbors, school boards, elected officials and start screaming. GET COMMON CORE AND THE GOVERNMENT out of our class rooms. I think it is time to start a MASS movement for Home Schooling. I know Home Schooling will not be spared. This should be a movement to bring education back to the local level and DESTROY the Federal Department of Education. If our kids are not in school it will create an uprising at all levels. We should not settle for shutting down Common Core because they will masquerade it....they are already doing this in VA. VA supposedly never signed on to Common Core but GUESS WHAT........they ARE implementing Common Core and disguising it from the citizens in VA....of course they aren't doing a good job of hiding it and people in VA are catching on. Our schools have been in the process of a government take over (in earnest) for more than 20 years. If we don't shut down the Department of Education it will never stop. We have to cause a citizen uprising!!
Here is the U.S. Department of Education - Office of Educational Technology document:
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests"- Patrick Henry
To fix "THE SYSYEM" We must become "THE SYSTEM" - k. bracken "The change we seek has always required great struggle and great sacrifice." - Barack Hussein Obama "The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master." - Ayn Rand
America needs a history lesson
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Approximately 40 minutes in length, lectures will be released each Monday according to the schedule below. Once available, each week's materials can be viewed at your convenience.
The critically-acclaimed film, The Third Jihad - Radical Islam's Vision for America educates about the nature of radical Islamic ideology. Law enforcement agencies across the country have used the film in their counter-terror training.
Understanding the threats of terror is the first step in preventing deadly attacks.
Please consider supporting our efforts
"This fantastic documentary is both entertaining and educational" - Dove Foundation
Rev. C.L. Bryant's documentary Runaway Slave has been a runaway hit! The film recently won the Crystal Dove Seal, and has been making waves across the country.
Runaway Slave is the story of C.L. Bryant, a former NAACP Chapter president who realized that the Democrat Party and progressive movement was hurting Africa-Americans and keeping them stuck on the government dole. Rev. Bryant discusses the impact of progressivism on the African-American community and how freedom works with a host of leaders including Dr. Alveda King, Herman Cain, Allen West, Dr. Thomas Sowell, and many others.
The Crystal Dove Seal award is given to films that are family-friendly and provide wholesome, educational content. Runaway Slave is an important movie for all audiences, and it has a message that should be heard if we want to achieve a society where character is king.
Congratulations to Rev. C.L. Bryant and the Runaway Slave team on their achievement!
New NRA president Obama's gun agenda motivated by revenge
2013 NRA Annual Meetings: Taya Kyle
NRA Speech
Rush Limbaugh May Leave Cumulus in Huge Radio Shakeup
Rush Limbaugh poses with a bust of his likeness during a 2012 ceremony inducting him into the Hall of Famous Missourians.
Monday, 06 May 2013 07:34 AM
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The Rush Limbaugh Program may end its affiliation agreement with Cumulus Media at the end of this year - a huge radio shakeup that will move like a quake through the talk radio industry.
Politico and The New York Daily News reported that 40 Cumulus-owned radio stations would lose the rights to the most popular talk-radio program in the country if the move takes place.
The show, which is the gold standard in political talk radio, also may be picked up by competing regional radio stations in Washington, New York, Chicago, Dallas and other major markets. Limbaugh moving to another network is one of those once-in-a-generation events that will force competing hosts and stations to shake up their own lineups and pending contracts.
Sources told the News and Politico that Limbaugh is angry that Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey has blamed the company's advertising losses on Limbaugh's controversial remarks about Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student.
1.They Wouldn't Act This Way If Ted Cruz Weren't Putting Points on the Board
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board is upset with Ted Cruz for leading a filibuster against gun control.
John McCain tweeted out the Journal's editorial in a moment of wackiness.
Bill Richardson, the scandal plagued former Governor of New Mexico, says Ted Cruz can't be called hispanic despite being hispanic because Ted Cruz isn't a race baiter like Richardson.
And now Harry Reid calls Ted Cruz a schoolyard bully for Cruz objecting to Harry Reid trying to expand government in a bipartisan fashion.
Most interesting to me is this part of Harry Reid's statement of frustration:
"He pushes everybody around and is losing and instead of playing the game according to the rules, he not only takes the ball home with him, but he changes the rules that way no one wins except the bully who tries to indicate to people that he has won."
The US government has a spending problem.The nation is over $16 trillion in debt.Federal spending must be brought under control to reduce the deficit, reduce the size of the government, and move toward a balanced budget.The Obama Administration and the Democrat-controlled Senate are committed to higher taxes, higher spending, and the government taking an ever-higher share of the US economy.This has got to stop.The House Republican majority are the ones who can stop it.
The House Republicans must use the power of the majority to pass a Republican agenda that controls spending.We cannot let another opportunity slip by with no gain.We are running out of leverage.Now it's time to deliver. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
3.Robert Rector's Study: Open Borders + Welfare State = Disaster
We've noted many times throughout the debate over amnesty that you simply cannot legalize so many low-skilled people without reforming the welfare state.Some people don't like to hear it, but the reality of today's redistributive society is that the higher-skilled population transfers a tremendous amount of wealth to the lower-skilled population in the form of the tax code, entitlements, welfare, and social services.Do we really need to import so many new low-skilled illegal and legal immigrants over the next decade to exacerbate the current unsustainable dynamic?
That is the question Heritage's Robert Rector deals with in his cost study on amnesty today, at least in the case of illegal immigrants.And the answer is a resounding no.Under any amnesty plan, there would indeed be more people paying payroll taxes, but that revenue will never outweigh the cost of benefits they would inevitably receive.
According to Rector, "over a lifetime, the former unlawful immigrants together would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services and pay $3.1 trillion in taxes."That's a net cost of $6.3 trillion in combined federal, state, and local benefits. The annual net cost will be roughly $112 billion.The majority of expense will be the result of increased educational and welfare costs.. . . please click here for the rest of the post →
4.The FAA's Sequestration Blues
As lines grew at airports and passengers began to fume, Congress lumbered into action, holding hearings on furloughs and sequestration, and, ultimately tweaking the law to allow the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to add more manpower at the nation's air traffic control towers.The only silver lining to the whole calamity may be that some small part of the government actually had a real discussion about spending.Not that it solves the underlying problem or averts mounting complaints about flying.If Congress was serious about improving air travel, they would have moved forward with plans to modernize our aviation system with new technologies that would render many of the existing towers redundant and obsolete, while allowing private entrepreneurs to play a larger role in airport management.
Airlines were deregulated in 1978, saving consumers billions of dollars and opening air travel to a much larger public.But as anyone who has flown recently knows, air travel is far less enjoyable than it was in the days of regulation and pampered passengers.It's not just the TSA security checks; airlines have restructured their routes to keep flights as full as possible while trimming back on amenities.And airport facilities lag far behind the growing demand for air travel.In short, air travel is a no frills experience that leaves many passengers dreading the trip to the airport.. . . please click here for the rest of the post →
Heritage Hotsheet
Experts on the Day's Hottest News
Items for May 2, 2013
May 7, 2013
Today's Articles:
The Soul Abstracted from Life Daren Jonescu The modern American eduactionl system is not only wrongheaded, illogical, and mandacious, it is abjectly evil. More
John McCain: American Citizenship Is Pork John T. Bennett John McCain admits that there is "very little difference" between the current amnesty proposal and the 1986 amnesty, which Ted Kennedy said would "never again" happen. More
Shutting up the FBI Richard F. Miniter The FBI's recent fumbles regarding the Marathon bombing and the ricin letters are only the latest of a long line. More
Is Cruz Our Best Hope? Bruce Walker His name is not exactly a household word today, but Ted Cruz could become the most important political leader of the 21st century. More
Talk radio turmoil May 6, 2013 Rush Limbaugh is embroiled in a public spat with Cumulus Broadcasting, owner of 40 of the biggest stations on which his show currently appears More
Gregory N. Hicks is expected to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he thought it was a terrorist attack from the start...
Evil people seem to be those who have no meaning or pleasure in life than hurting others, causing them grievous pains, humiliations and excruciating death.
On the night of Sept. 11, as the Obama administration scrambled to respond to the Benghazi terror attacks, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aide effectively tried to cut the department's own counterterrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making.
Even as Boston buries its dead, just as they must do from Cairo to Thailand, Americans are instructed not to notice the inevitable progression from Islamic-supremacist ideology to aggression and murder.
Once upon a time there was a street fair. It had striped awnings and bright colors and from far and near, farmers came with wagons full of produce to sell at the street fair.
What is "obvious" to those embedded in the conventional, MSM/state-manufactured worldview is not the same as what is obvious to those outside the asylum.
Indeed, one current estimate concludes that al Qaeda affiliates and associates (i.e., groups, cells or operatives) are active in more than 30 countries (of some 190) on four continents.
On Monday, May 13th, 2013 the London Center for Policy Research will inaugurate its activities with a dinner honoring Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter.
Did you know that if everyone who visited our FSM website this year donated just $1, we would easily exceed our annual budget?
Your gift will be an investment in freedom.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, The Family Security Foundation relies upon the thoughtfulness and (tax-deductible!) generosity of visitors like you.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." ~ Ronald Reagan
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LibertyNEWS TV - "Benghazi Fallout...If Not Hillary, Who?"
How Obama Gets a 3rd Term
May 6, 2013 Compare and Contrast: What the State Department did, what Army leadership did You can't make this stuff up
On May 3rd, Newsmax reported that in 2012 the State Department hired a Libyan militia group that had obvious sympathies for al Qaeda (see story below, highlights added) to help protect our consulate in Benghazi!
In fact, the militia group"...prominently displayed the al-Qaida flag on a Facebook page for months before the deadly attack." File this under "you can't make this stuff up."
Contrast that State Department decision with what Army leadership did to Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley.
In 2012, Gen. Martin Dempsey publicly reprimanded Lt. Col. Dooley for teaching a course entitled "Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism" at the National Defense University.
In spite of Lt. Col. Dooley's sparkling record, Gen. Dempsey then ordered a negative evaluation of Lt. Col. Dooley and Dooley was reassigned.
But the travesty doesn't end there. Lt. Col. Dooley received an Outstanding Officer Evaluation report in his new assignment, but was slapped down again, this time by Gen. Lloyd Austin (see story here).
So while our State Department hires a militia group sympathetic to al Qaeda to "protect" our consulate, two generals go out of their way to destroy the career of a West Point graduate and highly decorated officer because he dared to point out the threat posed by radical Islam.
When government officials can't tell who is the enemy and who is a friend, we're in trouble.
Newsmax: US Hired Al-Qaeda-Linked Group to Defend Benghazi Mission
Newsmax Exclusive: US Hired al-Qaida-Linked Group to Defend Benghazi Mission
By John Rosenthal, Newsmax.com The Libyan militia group that the State Department hired to defend its embattled diplomatic mission in Benghazi had clear al-Qaida sympathies, and had prominently displayed the al-Qaida flag on a Facebook page for months before the deadly attack.
That organization, the February 17th Martyrs Brigade, was paid by the U.S. government to provide security at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. But there is no indication the Martyrs Brigade fulfilled its commitment to defend the mission on Sept. 11, when it came under attack.
The assault claimed the lives of four Americans: Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and former Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. Stevens was the first U.S. ambassador to be killed in the line of duty since 1979.
Several entries on the militia's Facebook page openly profess sympathy for Ansar al-Sharia, the hardline Islamist extremist group widely blamed for the deadly attack on the mission. The U.S. State Department did not respond to a Newsmax request for an explanation as to why the February 17th Martyrs Brigade was hired to protect the mission.
On April 23, House Republicans released an interim progress report on its investigation into the Benghazi killings. It cited "numerous reports" that "the Brigade had extremist connections, and it had been implicated in the kidnapping of American citizens as well as in the threats against U.S. military assets."
The report also stated that just a few days before Ambassador Stevens arrived in Benghazi, the Martyrs Brigade informed State Department officials they would no longer provide security as members of the mission, including Stevens, traveled through the city.
From June 2011 to July 2012, Eric Nordstrom, the Regional Security Officer for Libya at the time, documented over 200 security threats and violent incidents threatening to U.S. personnel in Libya. Some 50 of those incidents occurred in Benghazi.
Yet despite those threats, repeated requests for additional security from the mission went unheeded by the State Department, for reasons that remain unclear.
But perhaps the biggest question is why the State Department would hire a group that openly displayed its admiration for al-Qaida, and ask it to participate in the defense of its diplomatic mission.
Ahead of Wednesday's long-awaited hearings at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the Benghazi terror attack of Sep. 11, 2012, Democrats have a clear agenda: protect Hillary Clinton at all costs.
Clinton, the former Secretary of State and likely frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, could be severely damaged by testimony about the attacks, which occurred in part because of security lapses for which the State Department is primarily responsible.
That CBS' Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, of all people, nodded in agreement when Rep. Darrell Issa asserted on Schieffer's Sunday morning show that the administration had engaged in a cover-up regarding Benghazi is a huge sign that this scandal is finally being taken seriously by the most traditional establishment liberal media.
As information about the apparent Israeli strikes on targets inside Syria continues to pour in, it's easy to lose sight of the central fact: the two reported Israeli attacks are part of an ongoing war, the big war against the West.
No matter what happens with Darrell Issa's congressional committee meetings this week, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the Obama administration, and the cause is Benghazi. It's impossible to overestimate the blowback that has been gathering steam for the past seven months, now about to erupt with full force.
Martin Luther King, Jr., dreamed of the day that his children would "not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." The first part of that statement gets the most attention these days, but the last part is important, too. Isn't it stating an expectation, a hope even, that we will have standards and that we will judge people by them?
Happy Seis de Mayo! All at once, it feels like the wheels are coming off the wagon for the Obama administration.
The New White House Line: Maybe We Don't Care About Chemical-Weapons Use After All
Ladies and gentlemen, some unidentified White House official, within our government:
"How can we attack another country unless it's in self-defense and with no Security Council resolution?" another official said, referring to United Nations authorization. "If he drops sarin on his own people, what's that got to do with us?"
I realize that we're all tired of war, that we're tired of being asked to intervene in Arab countries, with their tribal loyalties and factionalism and blood feuds and cycles of revenge and seemingly endless reserves of cruelty and capacity for bloodshed. But if we don't see any purpose or value in attempting to prevent, deter, or punish the use of chemical weapons against civilians, we might as well close up shop. Every two-bit dictator and ruthless regime is watching the international response to Syria or lack thereof, and we've already sent the signal that you can probably escape serious consequence if your use of chemical weapons is hard to prove and on a small scale.
How soon they forget. According to the Times that line was uttered last August, not quite four months after Mr. Obama established his "Atrocities Prevention Board." In a speech on April 23, 2012 he said this at the Holocaust Museum:
And finally, "never again" is a challenge to nations. It's a bitter truth -- too often, the world has failed to prevent the killing of innocents on a massive scale. And we are haunted by the atrocities that we did not stop and the lives we did not save.
We may feel like the use of chemical weapons isn't enough to justify airstrikes, a no-fly-zone, a "safe zone" for refugees, or any other steps beyond a sternly-worded United Nations resolution, but other countries see their own interests in what happens in Syria, and they're acting. Also this weekend:
Israel launched airstrikes into Syria for the second time in three days, said Syria and its allies, targeting what it believes are stores of advanced missiles that could be transferred to the militant group Hezbollah, amid new concerns that the Syrian civil war could widen into broader regional conflict.
Surely a lot of factors go into the decision to use military force, but it's tough to ignore that the Israeli Defense Force suddenly got a lot more active in Syria just a couple of days after Obama said that crossing the red line meant . . . well, that we would "rethink the range of options that are available to us."
The Benghazi Hearings: This Week's Must-See TV
Jake Tapper offers a preview of what we can expect from this week's hearings on Benghazi, and everyone crying "oh, this is a partisan witch hunt" can go sit in the corner.
Greg Hicks, former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, told congressional investigators that the State Department internal review of the catastrophe at the mission in Benghazi "let people off the hook," CNN has learned.
The Accountability Review Board "report itself doesn't really ascribe blame to any individual at all. The public report anyway," Hicks told investigators, according to transcript excerpts obtained by CNN. "It does let people off the hook."
The board's report on the Benghazi attack, in which Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in September, is being reviewed by the State Department's Office of Inspector General.
Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Sunday on CBS that Hicks will testify Wednesday in a congressional hearing on the deadly attack in Benghazi.
"In our system, people who make decisions have been confirmed by the Senate to make decisions," Hicks told investigators."The three people in the State Department who are on administrative leave pending disciplinary action are below Senate confirmation level. Now, the DS (Diplomatic Security) assistant secretary resigned, and he is at Senate confirmation level. Yet the paper trail is pretty clear that decisions were being made above his level.
Whom might Hicks be referring to? He specifically mentions Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy.
"Certainly the fact that Under Secretary Kennedy required a daily report of the personnel in country and who personally approved every official American who went to Tripoli or Benghazi, either on assignment or TDY (temporary duty), would suggest some responsibility about security levels within the country lies on his desk," Hicks said.
In the interview, conducted on April 11, Hicks also makes clear that he immediately believed the September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi had been conducted by terrorists, though the White House and other officials in the Obama administration initially suggested that the attack was the result of an out-of-control demonstration against an anti-Muslim YouTube video.
"I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get-go," said Hicks, who was in Tripoli during the attack. "I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning."
Oh, Hey Look: Mark Sanford's Got the Momentum Down in South Carolina
Chris Cillizza: "Mark Sanford just might win. In conversations with Democratic and Republican strategists closely following the special election set for Tuesday in South Carolina's 1st congressional district, the consensus is that the former governor, not businesswoman (and sister of Stephen Colbert) Elizabeth Colbert Busch, is the candidate gaining momentum in the race's final 48 hours."
South Carolina Democratic Chairman Dick Harpootlian, imploring party activists Friday night to defeat this state's Indian-American governor, predicted next year's Democratic standard-bearer would "send Nikki Haley back to wherever the hell she came from."
Haley was raised in South Carolina and attended college here, but her parents were Sikh immigrants . . .
Asked what he meant by comment, Harpootlian wrote in an email: "Lexington County."
Riiiiiiiight.
Jazz Shaw, over at WarmerThanWarmAir.com, quips, "I realize that Harpootian has found himself in a bit of hot water, and people in such positions tend to scramble to find a way out. But as 'explanations' go, this has to be one of the weakest we've seen in a while. But on the plus side, the next time somebody makes a comment about where President Obama "is from" we can all just turn around and say, 'he was talking about Hawaii, dummy.'"
Democrats Must Be Seriously Wondering Why They Nominated McAuliffe Right Now
With the Virginia governor's race beginning like this, we can expect the Washington Post to go to red alert. Perhaps they'll prove me wrong, but I'll bet their coverage this year will make the previous cycle's coverage of George Allen's "macaca" outburst and McDonnell's thesis look restrained in comparison.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has an early lead over businessman Terry McAuliffe in their race for governor, a new Washington Post poll shows, even as most voters in the commonwealth have yet to engage in the nationally watched contest.
Six months before Election Day, Cuccinelli (R) has a slender 46 to 41 percent edge over McAuliffe (D) among all Virginia voters and a significant 51 to 41 percent lead among those who say they're certain to cast ballots in November. But those numbers may change before then: The poll found that barely 10 percent say they are following the campaign "very closely" and that nearly half of the electorate says they're either undecided or could change their minds.
As far back as early 2010, a group of investors that includes Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, announced an interest in buying International Paper Co.'s mill in Franklin. At that time, the plant was already in the midst of closing. The investors wanted to convert it into a wood-fired and biomass power plant. A company called Franklin Pellets was eventually formed.
A little more than three years later, there has not been any tangible evidence that Franklin Pellets is any closer to a groundbreaking. Within those three years, ST Paper, a subsidiary of TAK Investments, established a presence at the mill and became operational in 2012. International Paper, after shutting down the mill in spring of 2010, has since repurposed part of the mill, and began producing fluff pulp there last year. Enviva, which also makes wood pellets, identified a location in Southampton County in fall of 2011 and broke ground on its new facility in July 2012. The company anticipates beginning operations by mid-September.
Despite the lack of any publicly visible progress, some of the principals that were contacted, starting with McAuliffe, have assured The Tidewater News that Franklin Pellets can still happen.
"We are in serious negotiations. They are active and very close, and we hope to hear something in the near future," he told the newspaper Monday during a visit to Paul D. Camp Community College.
Over the weekend, McAuliffe tweeted, "We have to make sure we're preparing Virginia's students for tomorrow's jobs."
. . . "So they can then go work in Mississippi!"
ADDENDUM: Dang it, Mom gave her big scoop to the Washington Post this weekend.
Jumping into the 2016 race would mean Cruz is "trying to replicate Barack Obama," said Peggy Geraghty of Hilton Head Island, S.C. "I never agreed with Obama going for president so soon."
Geraghty said she's more interested in Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), but worries he might not have broad appeal. As for Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), another name often mentioned for president, she said she'll reserve judgment, but added: "He does have sparkle, so if you have to have the sparkle, I suppose he'd be good."
NRO Digest - May 6, 2013
Today on National Review Online . . .
MARK KRIKORIAN: The Gang of Eight immigration bill isn't what Marco Rubio promised it would be. The Rubio Amnesty
Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog19 Comments
The media coverage of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has one theme and one tack. Like 30 of the 31 men on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list, they were terrorists who just happened to be Muslim.
While the New York Times dispatched its best and brightest lackeys to Boston to write sensitive pieces on how hard it was for the two Tsarnaevs to fit in leaving them no choice but to bomb the Boston Marathon and then send LOL texts to their friends, it fell to a UK tabloid like The Sun to conduct an interview with the ex-girlfriend of the lead terrorist and learn that he wanted her to hate America and beat her because she wouldn't wear a Hijab.
There are all sorts of jobs that Americans won't do. Like pick lettuce, bomb the Boston Marathon and report honestly on the motives of the bombers. The only news network that operates outside the media consensus is owned by an Australian mogul who also owns The Sun.
Americans like to think of their press as freer, but it's only free in the sense that it voluntarily puts on its own muzzle. European tabloids get into bloody brawls with regulators. American newspapers have nothing to brawl about. They will gleefully report anything that undermines national security at the drop of a hat, knowing that they won't be touched, but there is a long list of subjects that they won't touch with a million mile pole.
In Europe, editors risked their lives to publish the Mohammed cartoons. In America, on the rare occasion that they were depicted, they were usually censored. CNN, which could show Kathy Griffin trying to molest Anderson Cooper, without the benefit of pixelation or a suicide button, blurred out Mohammed's face; assuming that Muslims would appreciate the sensitivity of treating their prophet's face like an obscene object.
The American media does not need to be censored. It censors itself.
We CAN handle the truth: Urge Congress to discover what happened in Benghazi
May 6, 2013
Dear ##FirstName[AFA Supporter]##,
The mission of the AFA is to restore America back to its moral foundations. According to Founder John Adams, these foundational principles include "[a] love of truth and a veneration of virtue." The American people deserve to know the truth about what happened in Benghazi on the night of September 11, 2012, when four Americans lost their lives.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a full hearing on this Wednesday, May 8 on what happened before, during and after the Benghazi terrorist attacks. The witnesses who will testify have information to present to the public that differs in significant ways from the propaganda the Administration has presented to the American people.
For instance, information has now surfaced that this Administration did in fact deny multiple requests for additional security at the compound that was attacked that night.
And evidence has come to light that contradicts the Administration's claim, including the claims of President Obama before the United Nations, that the attack was a spontaneous affair triggered by a YouTube video which simply tells the truth about Islam. It is now evident that the U.S. knew this attack was a terrorist attack launched by an al-Qaida affiliate in Benghazi and had nothing to do with a YouTube video at all.
What is worse, credible information is now surfacing that the Administration, including President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, knew this on the night of the attack. Even Democrat members of the Oversight Committee are admitting that the Administration's initial talking points, parroted by UN ambassador Susan Rice on five Sunday talk shows immediately after the attack, were "inaccurate, false (and) wrong."
Hillary Clinton angrily asked, "What difference, at this point, does it make?" The truth makes all the difference in the world. The truth about this affair may reveal things about the true nature of Islam and whether this Administration is willing to deliberately mislead the American people on matters of national security.
TAKE ACTION
Urge your Congressman to support every effort to get at and publish the truth about Benghazi.
Urge your Congressman to support every effort to get at and publish the truth about Benghazi.
It is very important that you forward this alert to your friends and family members.
Sincerely,
Tim Wildmon, President American Family Association
State Dept Hired Al-Qaeda To Defend Diplomatic Mission In Benghazi
Treason is a crime which is unforgivable. Americans died in Benghazi and we have received nothing but lies from this administration. Why would the Obama administration put money into the hands of those who proudly displayed the Al Qaeda flag on their Facebook page?
The Libyan militia group that the State Department hired to defend its embattled diplomatic mission in Benghazi had clear AL-Qaida sympathies, and had prominently displayed the AL-Qaida flag on a Facebook page for some months before the deadly attack.
That organization, the February 17th Martyrs Brigade, was paid by the U.S. government to provide security at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. But there is no indication the Martyrs Brigade fulfilled its commitment to defend the mission on Sept. 11, when it came under attack.
Abortion Horror Hits Michigan When Decapitated Head Found Left in Womb
By now you've seen and heard about the House of Horrors as it has been referred to in the news. Abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell of Philadelphia ran a clinic in the poorer area of the city and preyed upon thousands of young women who couldn't afford to go anywhere else. He has been charged with the death of one woman and four newborns, although reports from different sources clearly indicate that he has killed many more than four live born babies.
Last July we learned about 24 year old Tonya Reaves who went to a Chicago area Planned Parenthood clinic to have an abortion. Not only was her unborn murdered at the clinic, so was Tonya. She was hemorrhaging after the procedure but the staff at the clinic failed to call for help until several hours later. But by the time help arrived and she was transported to a hospital, it was too late. Her one year old son will never know his mother and it seems no one at the clinic was ever punished for their neglect.
Other women have died at the hands of abortion doctors and clinic workers, but that rarely ever makes the news. In fact, Tonya Reaves death at the Chicago Planned Parenthood clinic happened on the same day that James Holmes went into the theater in Aurora, Colorado and opened fire. We heard lots about that, but virtually no media covered the murder of Reaves because it would paint a negative image on abortion and they can't let that happen, can they?
Daily Email - May 6, 2013 Top StoryHow Obama Obstructs Justice in the Search for a Communist Terroristd By Cliff Kincaid | May 3, 2013 If the FBI wants to find Joanne Chesimard, who has just been added to the "Most Wanted Terrorists List," it could begin by wiretapping President Obama's friends, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and other members of the Weather Underground. AIM ColumnDon't Forget Misha By Bethany Stotts | May 3, 2013 The mainstream media are absent on the Misha story, preferring to let the discussion of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's possible mentor devolve into hearsay reporting rather than to delve in-depth into the background of this Islamist. Perhaps he undermines the narrative that this was a couple of self-radicalized kids who were just taking out their anger at [...] From the AIM Blogs NRA Supporters Gather in Houston, as Media Scrutiny Grows By Don Irvine | May 3, 2013 Guest ColumnThe Left's Sick Fetish for Cop-Killing Radicals By Michelle Malkin | May 5, 2013 There's a stomach-turning segment of the American population that sees surviving Boston bomber suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a romantic maverick. The New York Times mused about the accused jihadist's "Holden Caulfield-like adolescent alienation." Pop singer Amanda Palmer wrote a fan girl "Poem for Dzhokhar." An adoring "Free Jahar" movement thrives on social media. Fringe, you [...] AIM Newswire North Korea sentences U.S. aid worker to 15 years in prison
They attend schools whose faculties hate and fear the free market. They couldn't wait to run to the polls to vote for "Brother Barack." Once he was elected all of their troubles would be over and they could join him and his Party in rubbing the "oppressive" White majority's face in the dirt; or so the Black students at America's "historical Black colleges" thought.
Like virtually every other group that joined Barack Obama's coalition and worked to get him elected, Black students at America's Black colleges - which sport some of the worst graduation rates in the country - have been screwed by their Messiah.
Because the new system of doling out college loans is built on actual credit checks for locatable parents, many Black students are learning economics lessons without ever setting foot in a classroom.
A Sunday night POLITICO report claims Rush Limbaugh, host of the most listened to radio program in the country, is considering a major shake-up at the end of 2013. If the report is correct, a huge group of radio stations would no longer be able to carry the most listened-to radio show in the country. Get the detailsHERE.
A year to the day after kicking off his re-election campaign at Ohio State University, President Barack Obama returned to the college campus and told graduates that only through vigorous participation in their "democracy" can they right an ill-functioning government and break through relentless cynicism about the nation's future. Mr. Obama also urged the students to "reject these voices" that warn of the evils of government. Watch the commencement addressHERE.
A Washington DC-area financial journalist says there's something brewing within the Obama administration that will soon dwarf ObamaCare. He says this new development will affect not only your health care, but also your bank account... your investments... your retirement... your house... and your job.
Get the facts for yourself. Take a few minutes to check out his full analysis, free of charge, here...
Dan Sandini at Daylight Disinfectant recently posted videos from the "May Day" protests in Portland, Oregon. One of those videos shows an alarming scene of a group of young individuals dancing around a golden calf. From Sandini's post: Dressed as Egyptian belly dancers they then proceeded to sing and dance about it. You just can't make this stuff up folks. About three minutes 34 seconds of you life that you can't get back. Watch the video HERE.
The Wiki-Weapons project by Defense Distributed, which has been striving for months towards its goal of creating a fully functional 3D-printed gun, has succeeded in the first tests of a firearm created using only a 3D printer. See video of the gun in actionHERE.
A funeral director trying to find a cemetery to take the body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is going next to the city where Tsarnaev lived, but will run into another obstacle: It doesn't want him. The debate has spawned an obvious question, does the alleged terrorist deserve to be buried on U.S. soil? Read the story, take our Blaze PollHERE.
On Saturday, Rob Pincus, the owner of self-defense training company I.C.E., told the audience at his seminar on home defense that if they hear an intruder, their first instinct will be to run to their kids. Therefore, he argues, that's where their gun should be as well. Check out the clip and see the over-the-top reaction from many on the LeftHERE.
Atlanta police are investigating after a CNN anchor reported that her iPhone was snatched from her hand as she strolled down a street in the city's midtown section. Police tell WSB-TV that Carol Costello was talking on the phone while walking around 4:30 p.m. Thursday when two teenagers ran up behind her and grabbed the phone. Costello also claims that she lost a "chunk" of her hair in the attack. Get the full reportHERE.
FOR THE RECORD: EPISODE 2 -- BROTHERHOOD BACKLASH -- This episode takes an exclusive look inside Egypt exposes the truth about the Muslim Brotherhood's campaign to persecute and destroy an entire faith. Get firsthand accounts from brave men and women inside Egypt who risked their own safety to shed light on their government's brutal persecution of Christians and other non-Muslims. For The Record - Probing, Fair, but Unforgiving. -- Wednesday May 8 at 8pm ET or on TheBlaze TV.
In an exclusive backstage interview with TheBlaze on Sunday, NRA board member Ted Nugent savaged the "grossly unprofessional" and "sinfully biased" so-called journalism peddled by the mainstream media. Watch Ted 'just being Ted"HERE.
While time has finally taken Leopold Engleitner at the age of 107, the oldest-known male survivor of Nazi concentration camps leaves behind a remarkable legacy of standing up to oppression and the indomitable will to survive. Take a few moments today and read about this amazing manHERE.
Video: Beck To NRA: Radical Revolutionaries Now Run Government
May 06, 2013 01:45 pm
Radical revolutionaries in U.S. Government growing out of control Related posts: Beck Fights Back With Report On White House 'radical' Fox News host Glenn Beck last night continued reporting on... ABC Looks To Radical Southern Poverty Law Center As Expert On Anti-Government Militias! Last week, ABC's Diane Sawyer hosted dire warnings about the...
May 06, 2013 01:43 pm It's been a rough last few years for the Grand Old Party. From utter vilification during the Bush years to two consecutive presidential election defeats, the Republican Party could use a little pick-me-up. That's why it seems so baffling that the two most prominent and accomplished rising stars of the GOP, Ted Cruz and Rand [...]
Hints Of Explosive Testimony In New Benghazi Hearings
May 06, 2013 01:40 pm The new round of Benghazi hearings are starting to look positively explosive. One way you can tell is that the mainstream media feels compelled to pay attention to them. That's a lot easier now that Obama has been re-elected, of course, and his palace guard can take off their blindfolds and earmuffs, but the sea [...]
CBS Protects the Regime Related posts: Obama Tried To 'Exploit' Newtown Tragedy 'Within Minutes' This should come as no suprise for the President that... 'Fast And Furious' Whistleblower 'disappointed' One Year Later GREENVILLE, SC - More than a year after ATF Special...
May 06, 2013 01:30 pm Photo Credit: kjarrett (Creative Commons) They attend schools whose faculties hate and fear the free market. They couldn't wait to run to the polls to vote for "Brother Barack." Once he was elected all of their troubles would be over and they could join him and his Party in rubbing the "oppressive" White majority's [...]
Involuntary Part-Time Workers Up By 278,000 Related posts: "One Nation Under Obama" Is this One Nation Under God? Or under Obama? Can't... Watch What Happens When A Nation Bans Guns "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those...
Multiple Obama Birth Certificates Surface In Alabama Eligibility Case
May 06, 2013 01:20 pm Not that we are surprised, but now there are multiple copies of Barack Hussein Obama's "real" birth certificate that are surfacing and they are clearly indicating fraud. In a rare move, the Alabama Democrat Party has submitted an amicus brief in the McInnish Goode v Chapman Appeal case. The reason being is most likely because [...]
Congressman Trey Gowdy: "That's Not the way Leaders Lead" Related posts: When Can The U.S. Target Alleged American Terrorists Overseas Vs On American Soil? This is a good question posed by Congressman Trey Gowdy... Congressman Corners DHS On Why They Are Releasing Felons Congressman Trey Gowdy presses DHS: Where could DHS have cut...
May 06, 2013 01:10 pm The almost bone jarring contrast of Obama's speech at Planned Parenthood freezes every normal sense of credulity in unbelief. The story of one baby born alive in the Pennsylvanias' Gosnell horror mill is that the child was swimming in a toilet trying to get out. It was pulled from the toilet only to have [...]
Video: South Carolina Legislature: A Crime To Implement ObamaCare
May 06, 2013 01:05 pm
States Take Stand Against Socialized Health-Care Related posts: South Carolina Bill Declares Obamacare "Null And Void" The South Carolina state House would like you to know... States May Be FORCED To Implement ObamaCare So far, 26 states have opted against building ObamaCare exchanges,...
May 06, 2013 01:00 pm Dr. Thomas Sowell is an advanced thinker of the first order. According to Professor Sowell, "It is amazing how many serious issues are not discussed seriously, but instead simply generate assertions and counter-assertions". On television talk shows, talking heads on opposite sides often just try to shout each other down. Many who want to argue [...]
Heritage: Amnestied Illegals Will Get $9.4T In Benefits; Increase Debt $6.3T
May 06, 2013 12:55 pm (CNSNews.com) - Granting amnesty to illegal immigrants would cost $6.3 trillion, according to a new report by the Heritage Foundation. "Unlawful immigration and amnesty for current unlawful immigrants can pose large fiscal costs for U.S. taxpayers," states the report by Robert Rector and Jason Richwine, Ph.D. Not only would the federal deficit increase, but the [...]
May 06, 2013 12:50 pm Consider what Obama told the graduating class at Ohio State on May 5, pretending he is a reincarnation of JFK. Obama proclaimed: " . . . as citizens, we understand that it's not about what America can do for us, it's about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but [...]
May 06, 2013 12:45 pm One of the most seductive parts of President Barack Obama's political message (and the message of progressive Democrats in general) is sympathy for the poor and a willingness to talk about the disparities of capitalism - about the rich being too rich and the poor being screwed. In some ways, it's the predominant message of [...]
May 06, 2013 12:40 pm There are two power centers in the Senate Republican Conference. One is the official leadership under Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The second is the Tea Party Troika of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Rand Paul. It's not that there are two Republican parties. Nor is there a chasm running along ideological lines. The new dynamic [...]
Video: Obama Blames U.S. For Gun Violence In Mexico
May 04, 2013 07:58 pm
"Most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States," President Obama said during a speech at Mexico's Anthropology Museum. Related posts: Allen West Blames Barack 'Jimmy Carter' Obama For Mideast Violence Rep. Allen West rightly blames the Obama Administration's perceived weakness... The Myth Of 90 Percent: Only A [...]
May 04, 2013 07:48 pm On May 1st 2013, Obama proclaimed this day to be National Loyalty Day. But Obama is not a King, nor should he be regarded as one. We as a people owe our allegiance to: first, the community where we live; second, to our State; and lastly, the Constitution. Admittedly, this springs from the trials of [...]
These guys will be testifying next week in Congressional hearings... Related posts: Obama: 'Not Familiar' With Benghazi Whistleblowers Being Threatened Wrong answer, Mr. President...... Continue to Post... Rep. Mike Kelly: We Let Down Our Brave US Diplomats In Benghazi From yesterday's Congressional hearings...... Continue to Post...
May 04, 2013 07:33 pm Thanks in part to the mainstream media, more Americans seem to be open to big government today than ever before. But do they really understand where it could lead? Apparently, we haven't learned from the historic, epic failures of socialism throughout the world. Have the promoters of these policies ever been asked by the media [...]
It is clear that the natural-born issue is not settled... Related posts: 'Birther' Lt. Col. Terry Lakin To Be Court-martialed An Army doc who refuses to go to Afghanistan until... Donald Trump Claims Barack Obama Bombshell Donald Trump said Monday that he will reveal "very big"...
Share Your Faith To Become An 'Enemy Of The Constitution?'
May 04, 2013 07:25 pm Only days after Barack Obama coined the phrase 'self-radicalized,' along comes anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation with a bone-jarring proposition to make criminals and worse out of any military servicemen who share their faith in Christ with others in their ranks. Adding a new category to the ever-burgeoning list [...]
Indiana Reconsiders Common Core By Brittany Corona
This past weekend, Indiana legislators approved a proposal to halt the implementation of Common Core until after preliminary hearings and an in-depth analysis are conducted. The bill now rests on Governor Mike Pence's (R) desk awaiting his signature.
In February, the Indiana state senate voted 38-11 in favor of anti-Common Core legislation. And Indianans and local business owners have petitioned Pence to halt the Common Core implementation. In early April, Pence stated that Indiana may reconsider Common Core, saying that leaders in the state would "take a long, hard look" at the standards.
Now, the move to put Indiana on a track of reversing the Common Core State Standards rests with Pence.
"Education decisions should be made by Hoosiers and not ceded to unelected bureaucrats many miles away."
-State Sen. Scott Schneider (R-IN)
Don't Miss
Girl Scouts "Tag Along" with Common Core
Thin Mints and Tagalongs might be a little hard to swallow now for those concerned with centralization of education.
The Girl Scouts of America now boasts that every merit badge is fully aligned with the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
About The Heritage Foundation Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute -- a think tank -- whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
Amnesty Cost to Taxpayers $6.3 Trillion, Heritage Report FindsNews conference set for 11:30 a.m. ET, conference call at 2 p.m.
Granting amnesty to an estimated 11 million unlawful immigrants will cost taxpayers at least $6.3 trillion, according to a new report by Heritage Foundation scholar Robert Rector. The highly anticipated report, released today, becomes available as a Senate committee is set to mark up a "comprehensive immigration reform" bill May 9.
"No matter how you slice it, amnesty will add a tremendous amount of pressure on America's already strained public purse," said Rector, Heritage's senior research fellow in domestic policy studies.
The vast majority of the fiscal costs examined by Rector are long-term - including costs associated with Obamacare, Social Security and other entitlements, plus more than 80 means-tested welfare programs. Among Rector's major findings:
Over the course of their lives, former unlawful immigrants together would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services and pay $3.1 trillion in taxes, for a lifetime "fiscal deficit" - at minimum -- of $6.3 trillion (total benefits minus total taxes).
The typical unlawful immigrant is 34 years old, has a 10th-grade education, and already receives $14,387 per household in government benefits in excess of taxes paid. After the bill's "interim" period of 10 years, when former unlawful immigrants become eligible for welfare and Obamacare subsidies, that "fiscal deficit" would jump to $29,500 per household.
After amnesty, the typical unlawful immigrant will receive government benefits for 50 years, meaning his household would receive $592,000 more in government benefits during his lifetime than he would pay in taxes. At retirement, he would draw more than $3 in Social Security and Medicare for every dollar he paid in FICA taxes.
Heritage President Jim DeMint will join Rector to outline the findings of the report at a news conference set for11:30 a.m. today in The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium. Joining them will be Derrick Morgan, Heritage's vice president for domestic and economic policy.
For out of town reporters, Rector and Morgan also will discuss further details in a conference call for reporters set for2 p.m. Join them by calling 866-469-3239 (code: 21052823). Experts:
Senior Research Fellow, Domestic Policy
Vice President, Domestic and Economic Policy
Senior Policy Analyst, Empirical Studies
Vice President, Marketing
Vice President, Communications (available for Spanish-language media)
The immigration debate is about to get a lot more concrete.
Lawmakers need to be honest about the cost of their proposed immigration plans-and a new study due out today from The Heritage Foundation calculates the cost to taxpayers of granting amnesty to unlawful immigrants.
Yesterday on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Heritage President Jim DeMint said:
The study you'll see from Heritage this week presents the staggering costs of another amnesty in our country and the detrimental effects, long-term, that that will have. There's no reason we can't begin to fix our immigration system so that we won't make this problem worse. But the bill that's being presented is unfair to those who came here legally; it'll cost Americans trillions of dollars; it'll make our unlawful immigration system worse.
DeMint previewed the study, conducted by Heritage senior research fellow in domestic policy Robert Rector, who studied the cost of amnesty under a similar proposal in 2007. DeMint said:
The way that we calculated the cost, and I read the study over the weekend, I don't think anyone can argue with it. If you consider all the factors related to the amnesty-and believe me, this is comprehensive, that it will have a negative long-term impact on our gross domestic product. We just want Congress for once to count the cost of a bill. They are notorious for underestimating the cost and not understanding the consequences.
Heritage's Jason Richwine, the senior policy analyst in empirical studies, says the new report will be a "resounding rebuttal to the claim from amnesty supporters that a long waiting period between the initial amnesty and citizenship will eliminate any major costs to taxpayers."
This window of ineligibility for many government services has led supporters to argue that an amnesty will not be costly. There are two problems with this argument. First, households headed by illegal immigrants today consume some government services and pay far less in taxes....The second problem with the view that amnesty would not be costly because of the waiting period is rather obvious: After the waiting period is over, lifetime costs will be substantial.
To make sure that costs are counted accurately, Richwine says, "The estimates for the final period in our research will be calculated beginning 14 years after the initial amnesty, which is the point at which recipients could become naturalized citizens."
Heritage's cost analysis is unique. DeMint dismissed the idea that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) could be trusted with calculating the bill's costs, because it is bound by the way that Congress asks it to add the numbers. He said:
CBO said Obamacare wouldn't cost us anything-they're basically puppets of the Congress and the assumptions that they put in the bill. Heritage is the only organization that has done an analysis of the cost. Unlawful immigrants make up about 2 percent of our GDP, and they consume most of that. If you consider all the factors of amnesty and unlawful immigration, the cost will be in the trillions of dollars over the lifetime of these unlawful immigrants.
DeMint said that Members of Congress must read the Gang of Eight immigration proposal to make sure they know what is on the table.
"I think if people read the bill, that it will be blocked," he said. "Because once you get into it, just like Obamacare, it is not the way it's being advertised."
DeMint, Rector, and Heritage Vice President for Domestic and Economic Policy Derrick Morgan will host a news conference at 11:30 a.m. ET to present the new Heritage study. You can watch that news conference here.
The Heritage Foundation has released its long awaited study of the cost to American taxpayers of legalizing the current population of illegal immigrants. The study, available here, estimates the cost at $6.3 trillion, at a minimum.
Andrew Stiles at NRO does a good job of summarizing the study's methodology and findings:
The study seeks to calculate the total amount of taxpayer-funded benefits and services illegal immigrants would, if given legal status, consume over their lifetimes, compared with the amount they would contribute in taxes. The various benefits and services taken into account include direct benefits such as Social Security and Medicare, means-tested welfare programs such as food stamps and public housing, public education, and other services such as police and fire departments.
The study shows that, in 2010, the average illegal-immigrant household received $24,721 in government benefits and services while paying $10,334 in taxes, creating a fiscal deficit (benefits received minus taxes paid) of $14,387 that must be borne by other taxpayers. That figure "would soar," the study says, if those illegal immigrants were given legal status, and therefore made eligible for federal welfare programs, which even immigrant households here legally are more likely to receive than U.S.-born households. Under the Gang of Eight's proposal, the average illegal-immigrant household would produce a net fiscal deficit of nearly $600,000 over the course of a lifetime, the study found.
The study analyzes costs during three phases:
During the ten-year "interim phase" after the bill is passed, in which illegal immigrants would be given legal status but would be ineligible for means-tested welfare programs and Obamacare, the average fiscal deficit for their households would fall to around $12,500 a year because of increased tax payments. Following this initial period, however, government spending would "increase dramatically" - once formerly illegal immigrants become eligible for those programs, average fiscal deficits would rise to about $29,500 per household. During retirement, when former illegal immigrants, now permanent residents or citizens, would be eligible for Social Security and Medicare benefits, the net cost to taxpayers would remain high, at around $22,700 per retiree per year.
Because the average illegal immigrant is about 34 years old, restricting access to benefits during the interim phase would have only a "marginal impact" on the long-term aggregate cost. The study found that, under current law, illegal-immigrant households produce a combined fiscal deficit of about $54.5 billion per year. After legalization, that number would fall to $43.4 billion, but would climb to $106 billion once households become eligible for welfare benefits, and would increase still further to around $160 billion during the retirement phase.
The bottom line is that current illegal immigrants would receive around $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services over the course of their lifetimes, and would pay about $3.1 trillion in taxes. Hence, a net fiscal deficit of $6.3 trillion.
Moreover, this is a conservative estimate, according to the study authors Robert Rector and Jason Richwine. They say that it likely undercounts the total number of illegal immigrants that would ultimately be legalized and as a result would become eligible for welfare and medical benefits.
The Heritage Foundation study received plenty of preemptive criticism from supporters of amnesty, who knew what its methodology would be based on a similar Heritage study from 2007. Critics claim that the cost of amnesty should be calculated through "dynamic scoring," which, of course, grants the studier lots of room for manipulation.
The Heritage Foundation shouldn't be treated as the gospel, and we'll attempt to report on the debate it precipitates. But I suspect that the study's authors are right in concluding that "those who claim that amnesty will not create a large fiscal burden are simply in a state of denial concerning the underlying redistributional nature of government policy in the 21st century."
Mark Krikorian shows how the Schumer-Rubio immigration reform bill falls short of what Sen. Rubio promised when he touted it in advance on conservative Talk Radio. Here are some of the particulars Krikorian presents:
1. Rubio emphasized that to gain legal status, immigrants would have to pay their back taxes. But the bill Rubio helped write requires only that applicants "satisfy any applicable federal tax liability" that has previously been "assessed" by the IRS. Krikorian points out that a tax is "assessed" only after a tax return has been submitted or after the IRS has conducted an audit. Since neither of these things happens with illegal immigrants working off the books, there aren't any back taxes to be paid.
2. Rubio spoke often about requiring immigrants seeking legalization to learn English. Under his bill, however, illegal aliens can earn legal status without learning English. The language requirement comes into play only after illegal immigrants receive amnesty and seek to upgrade to full green-card status. And even then, the bill requires only that they enroll in a class, not that they demonstrate actual proficiency.
3. Rubio touted, and continues to tout, an exit tracking system designed to help the government figure out who has overstayed their visa. But, says Krikorian, the system provided for in the legislation would have to be in place only in airports and seaports, even though most foreign visitors cross land borders.
Moreover, Congress has already mandated an entry-and exit-tracking system at all border points. So the Schumer-Rubio legislation offers only a watered-down version of something the law already calls for.
4. "Securing the border with Mexico" is at the heart of Rubio's pitch to conservatives. His bill purports to achieve border security by setting up benchmarks of surveillance of 100 percent of the border and apprehension of 90 percent of attempted infiltrators.
But the 90 percent apprehension figure is a joke. As we have discussed and Ted Cruz forced Janet Napolitano to admit, the government has no idea how many people are crossing the border without being apprehended. Therefore, it is impossible to determine whether we are apprehending 90 percent of those who attempt to infiltrate.
In addition, the 90 percent standard applies to just three of the nine sectors along the Mexican border. They are the so-called "high risk" sectors. The Schumer-Rubio legislation likely will lead to a shifting of enforcement resources to these sectors, at which point some of the other six sectors will become "high risk."
5. Rubio claimed that if border security isn't achieved for the three "high risk" sectors in five years, "it goes to a border commission made up of people that live and have to deal with the border and they will take care of that problem." As we have noted, this isn't true. The border commission is made up mostly of Washington-appointed members and has only the power to make recommendations.
Rubio purports to be the conservative ambassador to the Gang of Eight. But, as Krikorian concludes, he clearly has become the Gang of Eight's ambassador to conservatives. And, in my view, an untrustworthy ambassador, at that.
"Dictatorships and Double Standards" is of course the title of Jeane Kirkpatrick's famous Commentary article about how "human rights" liberals of the time were hard on our allies who had less than stellar human rights records, but supine in the face of totalitarians like the Soviet Union and its allies such as Cuba. (Because, as we all know, Cuba's literacy and universal health care are more important than bourgeois rights like free speech, etc.)
Niall Fergsuon
It's time for an update, with reference to the juxtaposition of the treatment of Niall Ferguson and Dick Harpootlian, which shows liberal double standards at work once again. (Repeat the old joke here, if liberals didn't have double standards. . . etc.) Ferguson, as you've likely heard, decided to tempt the PC gods by speculating at an investment conference last week that John Maynard Keynes's economic philosophy-or at least his famous comment dismissing the long-run effects of his deficit-spending formula that "In the long run we're all dead"-might have some relation to his homosexuality and lack of children. This is not a brand new idea about Keynes, as Jonah Goldberg reviews here, but liberals have reacted as if Ferguson had questioned the saintliness of Gandhi or something. And while the idea that attachment to posterity through our children is far from being outré, it does seems a stretch to reduce Keynes's layered views to this sole anthropological dimension. After all, lots and lots of heterosexuals with children believe in unsound economic and social theories, too. What was Ferguson thinking? Did he think, "Gee-I'd really like to see what it's like to emulate Larry Summers?" (Ferguson is the Tisch professor of history at Harvard.)
Gov. Nikki Haley
Meanwhile, Dick Harpootlian is the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party who remarked last week that voters there should "send [GOP Governor] Nikki Haley back to wherever the hell she came from," which comes on top of remarks he made about Haley last summer, as reported by Politico:
At last year's national Democratic convention, he compared Haley to Adolph Hitler's mistress, saying the governor "was down in the bunker a la Eva Braun."
Harpootlian's remarks, for which he has refused to apologize, have received a little coverage in the media and no outrage among sensitive liberals, while Ferguson has provoked the usual DefCon1 response from the sensitivity police. Ferguson has issued an abject and unqualified apology, unlike Harpootlian. Anyone think this will reduce the uproar about Ferguson at Harvard? He's likely about to find out just how far today's PC dictatorship extends.
James Pethokoukis notes how this episode will be used to defend Keynesian economics, which is an odd mirror image of Ferguson's blunder.
I have gone back and forth with Senator Rubio's office as to whether the Gang of Eight's bill is fatally flawed because of the vast discretion it gives federal bureaucrats, including the Department of Homeland Security, in implementing the act. On the subject of DHS discretion, Rubio's office said to us:
I'd disagree with your description of the discretion given to the Administration as "vast discretion", but the waivers & discretion that we do give is worth closer inspection, and we're looking to address in the amendment process.
So this is obviously a key point. Today Senator Jeff Sessions' office sent out this commentary on the scope of discretion that the bill gives DHS to ignore criminal behavior, among other things, in making decisions as to who stays in the U.S., and who is admitted to the U.S. under the act. It is lengthy but well worth your time, as in this case, like so many, the Devil is in the details:
Not only does the Gang of Eight's bill allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to decide for herself whether weak, undefined enforcement measures ("triggers") are met, but it grants her unprecedented discretion in determining whether an alien is allowed to enter the country, whether future illegal aliens can be removed from the country, and who is eligible for amnesty in the bill. The net effect of these waivers and discretionary authority is to permanently hamstring and undermine law enforcement and create a new, endless bureaucracy surrounding immigration proceedings. These provisions, carefully crafted by special interest immigration attorneys, serve only one purpose: to weaken current law and make future enforcement impossible.
* For instance, this bill would allow the Secretary to overlook convictions for crimes related to gang activity, child abuse, domestic violence, and drunk driving in determining whether an individual is eligible for admission to the country if the person's admission serves "humanitarian purposes," "ensure[s] family unity," or is in the "public interest." These standards are so broad as to render most current legal restrictions meaningless.
* S. 744 would also grant the Secretary of Homeland Security and Immigration Judges enormously broad discretion to block the removal of any future legal and illegal aliens-including convicted criminals-where such a removal is not in the "public interest" or would result in mere "hardship" to the alien's U.S. citizen or permanent resident parent of a child, spouse or child.
* The bill would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security, when determining whether an individual is eligible for amnesty, to overlook that individual's convictions for the following types of offenses that would otherwise render the alien inadmissible to the United States: a crime involving moral turpitude (which could include theft, child abuse, domestic violence, and a variety of other serious crimes); a controlled substance (non-trafficking) offense; and multiple drunk driving offenses (which, interestingly, is added as a ground of inadmissibility elsewhere in the bill), if the Secretary determines that granting the individual amnesty would serve "humanitarian purposes," "ensure family unity," or is in the "public interest."
* In reviewing an application for the amnesty provided in the bill, the Secretary is explicitly barred from considering: document forgery, skipping court-ordered removal hearings, making false statements to authorities, multiple illegal re-entries, or felony arrests that did not result in convictions.
* Even those who have been deported are eligible to apply for amnesty under the bill. Current law requires the Attorney General to automatically remove an alien who re-enters the U.S. after being deported. Under S. 744, however, this would no longer apply to future deportees who re-enter the U.S. before reaching 18 years of age. It would also no longer apply to any deportee-regardless of age-whose removal the Secretary determines would not be in the "public interest" or would result in "hardship" to the alien's U.S. citizen or permanent resident parent, spouse, or child. For instance, under this bill, an alien who was removed after committing a deportable offense-such as assault or a crime involving moral turpitude-and returns before the age of 18 is no longer deportable, as he would be under current law.
* S. 744 provides that an alien is ineligible for amnesty if he has been convicted of three or more misdemeanor offenses on different dates, other than minor traffic offenses (a term which is not defined). That means that an alien is eligible for amnesty even if he or she has been convicted of two misdemeanor criminal convictions, or even a theoretically unlimited number of misdemeanor criminal convictions, as long as the convictions occurred on the same date. That also means that an alien who committed a serious felony offense but had his charges reduced to a misdemeanor as the result of a plea bargain is eligible for amnesty. Despite these already lax requirements, the Secretary is given authority to waive the bar for even those with multiple convictions.
* S. 744 also provides that Immigration Judges have the authority to appoint attorneys to illegal aliens at government expense. The appointment of an attorney at government expense is unprecedented outside of the criminal court context.
Rather than enhance border security and ensure future enforcement of the law, S. 744 rewards illegal aliens with criminal records, and creates an incentive for people to illegally enter the United States in the future. In essence, if S. 744 passes as currently drafted, the following scenario is not at all unlikely: An individual who has previously been convicted of a crime and subsequently removed from the United States illegally crosses the border at one of the six sectors not addressed by S. 744. The United States Border Patrol apprehends that individual, and rather than simply expediently removing him from the United States, places that individual into removal proceedings before an Immigration Judge. The Immigration Judge appoints an attorney for the alien at taxpayer expense. The attorney assists the alien in demonstrating that any future removal would cause mere "hardship" to a qualifying relative. The Immigration Judge terminates the case and permits the individual to stay in the United States-presumably indefinitely.
Quite opposite from creating the "toughest" enforcement in history as the proposal sponsors' promised, this legislation would devastate enforcement and officer morale and disastrously undermine the rule of law for years to come.
The Founders warned against the tyranny of the majority. They knew that unconstrained majorities were the bane of liberty. Up through their time, history had shown all known democracies to be "incompatible with personal security or the rights of property." They formulated the Constitution to protect the rights of citizens against the tyranny of the majority. Publius put it this way in Federalist 10:
The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations.
The Founders had in mind the kind of man who presents himself as a tribune of the people - somebody who talks this way to the graduating students of Ohio State University (White House video here):
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 same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny 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.
When he says "we can't be trusted," he means "he can't be trusted," and those voices are right. You could look it up!
MONDAY BRIEF
Economic Recovery Still Lags
May 6, 2013
The Foundation
"How prone all human institutions have been to decay." --James Monroe
Government
"US job growth in April beat economist expectations as nonfarm payrolls rose 165,000, and the jobless rate fell to a four-year low of 7.5%. But the report contained worrisome signs that President Obama's health care reform law is hurting full-time, high-wage employment. While the American economy added 293,000 jobs last month, according to the separate household survey, the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons -- 'involuntary part-time workers' as the Labor Department calls them -- increased by almost as much, by 278,000 to 7.9 million. These folks were working part time because a) their hours had been cut back or b) they were unable to find a full-time job. At the same time, the U-6 unemployment rate -- a broader measure of joblessness that includes discouraged workers and part-timers who want a full-time gig -- rose from 13.8% to 13.9%. ... The labor force participation rate was dead in the water. If it were back to January 2009 levels, the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.9%. ... Only 53.9% of private industries added jobs last month, the second lowest of the labor market recovery, according to JPM. ... If the economy continues to add jobs at the 2013 pace of 196,000 a month, the labor market would return to pre-recession employment levels in seven years and ten months, according to the Hamilton Project's 'jobs gap' calculator." --American Enterprise Institute's James Pethokoukis
For the Record
"9.5 million Americans have left the workforce during the presidency of Barack Obama, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In April, the total number of Americans counted as 'not in the labor force' declined for the first time since December, but that number was still near a record high at 89,936,000. Those not in the labor force declined by 31,000, from a record high of 89,967,000 in March. That broke the recent record of 89,304,000 not in the labor force in February of this year. Since February 2009, the first full month of Obama's presidency, 9,549,000 people have left the labor force. There were 80,387,000 Americans not working that month, compared with 89,936,000 not working or looking today, according to the latest economic release from BLS. ... In the 50 months since Obama has been in office, the number of people counted as not in the labor force has declined 16 times." --CNSNews' Elizabeth Harrington
President Barack Obama told reporters at a Mexico City press conference Thursday that he is "very comfortable" with the emergency contraceptive pill Plan B being made available on easy-to-access store shelves for girls as young as 15
Planned Parenthood is much in the news lately. And they can't be happy about it. The trial of House of Horrors abortionist Kermit Gosnell is putting killing babies in a bad light.
My days are brighter knowing that I no longer have to witness abortion and the abuse done to the mothers, not to mention all of the illegal activities done in the clinic.
Blacks accounted for 35.4 percent of abortions performed in 2009, despite representing, according to the 2010 census, just 13.6 percent of the US population.
Tell your Senators that $6.3 TRILLION is too high a price to pay for Gang's amnesty
A few minutes ago, Heritage released the results of its exhaustive study of the NET COSTS OF GIVING AMNESTY to 11 million illegal aliens.
We knew it would be big. But the total costs -- AFTER subtracting every form of tax they are likely to pay over that time -- are startling.
The Heritage Foundation reports that the $6.3 trillion is probably the lowest possible net cost to the federal government over the lifetimes of the amnestied illegal aliens. It could end up being much higher.
Force Senators to Fact Facts
Many senators are doing everything possible to pretend there would be no price tag for making some 80 federal welfare programs plus all entitlements available to millions of mostly low-education, low-skill illegal aliens.
The Senators have heard from lots of billionaires and special-interest lobbyists who stand to make money off the cheap-labor aspect of the amnesty.
Today, each Senator needs to hear from thousands of taxpayers who say NO to subsidizing that "cheap" labor with $6.3 trillion of taxpayer funds.
Please make sure your Senators' fax machines are full of messages of urgency to stop an amnesty th at is sure to plunge the nation deeper into a debt crisis.
You can call your Senators using this toll-free number that goes to the Senate switchboard. Just ask for your Senators by name.
1-888-978-3065
If you have trouble getting the Switchboard to answer your call (because of high traffic), click the red phone button above and use the Phone Note on your Action Board which has talking points and also direct numbers to your Senators' offices in D.C. and in the state.
Rector is just now at the press conference noting that the costs are predicted primarily by the education level of the illegal aliens. The study assumes, for example, that amnestied illegal aliens with only a high school degree will have roughly the same net costs to government as American citizens with only a high school degree.
Because 75% of illegal aliens have no more than a high school degree and because the average education level of illegal aliens is 10th grade, the income levels simply won't come close to paying taxes that are as large as the services they will receive, Rector says.
The $6.3 trillion number is so high that it may be difficult to contemplate the extraordinary magnitude of it. But it amounts to an incredible financial liability tha t this Congress would hang around the necks of our children and grandchildren to pay for this amnesty the rest of their lives.
Senators who support the amnesty will hide behind the trick of most of the costs of the amnesty being pushed beyond the first 10 years. They tend to talk about the first 10 years when the bill forbids use of most welfare and entitlements. In fact, Rector says, the net costs will go down to about $50 billion a year the first decade as many illegal aliens start working ON the books.
But Rector says the costs will explode around the 13th or 14th year and grow worse over the decades, especially as the amnestie d illegal aliens start collecting medicare and Social Security.
BASED ON NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES METHODOLOGY
Rector says he used the methodology developed by the National Academy of Sciences and that all the variable costs are pulled from official government studies.
KIDS OF AMNESTIED ILLEGAL ALIENS COULD NEVER PAY BACK COSTS OF THEIR PARENTS
Some critics of the Heritage numbers claim that maybe the amnestied illegal aliens will cost a lot of money but that all of their kids will make a lot more money and pay taxes to cover the costs of their parents.
Rector says he studied that and found that the children are likely to have better education and be less costly to the government. But he says all data suggests that the children of illegal aliens will also be a net cost to government over their lifetimes.
In fact, he says, if every single child of an amnestied illegal alien were to get a college degree, they wouldn't be a cost to the government, but their net tax additions still would not come close to paying back the $6.3 trillion price tag for their parents.
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Senate Continues to Examine Amnesty Bill, Begins Amending Legislation Thursday
Despite the addition of two last-minute hearings, the Judiciary Committee still intends to begin amending the roughly 850-page bill the morning of Thursday, May 9 at 9:30 a.m.
As the public outcry against the Gang of Eight's amnesty legislation grows, Sen. Marco Rubio, who once called the group's 844-page bill the "toughest immigration bill in U.S. history," is now admitting it may not be so tough after all.
Tech Companies' Heavy Spending Rewarded by Gang of Eight
The high-tech industry has significantly increased its lobbying in 2013 to influence "comprehensive" immigration reform. In the first three months of the year, seven technology companies and a software association spent a combined $13.8 million lobbying Congress...
Health and Human Services Unprepared for Immigration Reform Impact
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified that HHS has its "hands full" with implementing Obamacare and is unprepared for the Senate "comprehensive" immigration reform bill's impact on health insurance costs.
Oregon Grants Driving Privileges to Illegal Aliens
On Wednesday, May 1, Governor Kitzhaber signed SB 833, a law that provides four-year, modified Oregon driver's licenses, a so-called "driver's card," to illegal aliens that have lived in Oregon for at least one year.
Enemies Foreign and Domestic By Rich Galen The issue of "enemies foreign or domestic" has raised its ugly head in Boston, in Damascus, and in Benghazi. Obama's second term is off to a very, very rocky start and the Ship of State is tippy because of the incompetence of Obama's own people.
Not surprisingly, the media missed the boat on the main point of Glenn's NRA speech. If you missed the speech over the weekend, Watch Glenn's speech HERE and get a full text copy HERE.
Obama tells students: Government tyranny? As if!
President Obama spoke to graduating students in Ohio and one line in particular jumped off the page - he told those in attendance to 'reject' anyone warning against government tyranny. Obama was clearly trying to marginalize the NRA convention that was being held at the same time and it only served to further divide America. Glenn reacts on radio today.
For The Record: Glorious revolution in Egypt? Not for Christians
The second episode of For The Record is premiering Wednesday at 8pm and it deals with an issue surrounding the Egyptian revolution that virtually every media outlet has ignored. Despite initial claims that the Arab Spring was merely comprised of loving freedom seekers, Christians in the region are being targeted and wiped out in an alarming genocide. Glenn previews the episode HERE.
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OWS dances around golden calf
It's almost like the left is trying to taunt God into a response. They encourage abortion, they stand against Israel, and now they're dancing in the streets bowing down to a golden calf. It was quite a scene and one that really hammered home just how far off course America is heading. Glenn has more on radio today.
First fully 3D gun printed, fired
Trying to get ahead of the inevitable gun restrictions coming in America, entrepreneurs are pushing the technology envelope to see if they can produce weapons that don't fall under legislation. With the advent of 3D printers, replicating almost anything is possible. Glenn talks about the first fully 3D printed gun to actually fire - check out the video and get Glenn's reaction HERE.
Information is power. Those without it have nothing.
Tragedy has led many to believe that guns are the enemy and restricting your rights will somehow solve everything. They're wrong. Gun control is about much more than just guns - it's about controlling us. Reclaim the debate with Glenn's new book CONTROL. Order a copy online now or pick one up in bookstores nationwide.
Haters gotta hate: Left slams Deion Sanders for taking photo with Glenn
Deion Sanders probably didn't know what he was in for when he sent a shout out to Glenn via Twitter - immediately the supposedly loving left jumped all over the Hall of Fame NFL star. Twitchy recorded some of the attacks hurled at Deion - all for merely saying something nice about Glenn. See Glenn's reaction on radio today.
Amb. Stevens' Former Deputy: Special Forces Were Told 'You Can't Go' To Benghazi During Attack: MORE
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Thank you for helping to stop Pennsylvania's implementation of national education standards known as Common Core. Things are moving quickly and gaining speed across the Commonwealth. Just this week, 
OK....when they look at you like you have a tin foil hat on your head......take some of this information with you. It is 126 pages. I have not read through the entire document (YET) but what I have read is enough to blow off the top of your head. I have highlighted some stuff. KIPP (Charter Schools) has a CHARACTER REPORT CARD on Page 39. So for now start on page 39 and work your way through to page 45. Remember 
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a full hearing on this Wednesday, May 8 on what happened before, during and after the Benghazi terrorist attacks. The witnesses who will testify have information to present to the public that differs in significant ways from the propaganda the Administration has presented to the American people.
And so it begins: Glenn's NRA speech 
