[UPDATE] Tennessee Backtracks On Decision To Replace “Mother” And “Father” With “Parent 1” And “Parent 2″…

The governing agency that oversees documentation for the entirety of the Tennessee state court system has reportedly reversed a controversial decision to remove “mother” and “father” from an official form in exchange for the more general terms “parent 1″ and “parent 2.”

The Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts reportedly backtracked on its initial decision to amend the “permanent parenting plan” form — a document that details arrangements between parents in the event of divorce — after receiving feedback from the public, according to a statement given to conservative commentator Todd Starnes.

“After receiving feedback regarding a recent change made to the permanent parenting plan form, the AOC has reviewed the procedures and determined that, before making any changes to the form, the AOC should consult with the Domestic Relations Committee of the Tennessee Judicial Conference,” read a statement from the office. “We have reverted to the previous form and the Committee has been notified.”

A screen shot of the permanent parenting plan form

A representative for the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts did not tell Starnes why the initial change was made and a request for comment have not yet been returned to The Blaze.

“This is political correctness gone absolutely amock,” said Kendra Armstrong, a family law attorney who brought the issue to Starnes attention. “It’s just ridiculous.”

It is unclear if the Domestic Relations Committee of the Tennessee Judicial Conference will green light the initial change or if “mother” and “father” will continue to be the standard for the form, though a change might be expected in the wake of gay marriage legalization.

(H/T: Todd Starnes)

Via: The Blaze

Continue Reading.....

[COMMENTARY] Contentions Trump Takes GOP Down the 14th Amendment Rabbit Hole

Last month the debate about illegal immigration shifted sharply against those who believed indifference or even resistance to attempts to enforce the rule of law. The murder of a San Francisco woman by an illegal immigrant who had been released by authorities acting on the authority of a sanctuary city law highlighted a serious problem. Liberals, including Hillary Clinton, found themselves on the defensive with no way to explain why Democrats had backed such clearly dangerous proposals. But today Americans woke up to a new immigration debate and the 14^th Amendment that has given the left back the moral high ground and put Republicans in the soup. Donald Trump has wrongly claimed credit for putting illegal immigration back on the nation’s front burner. But it must be acknowledged that he deserves all the blame for this one. By proposing an end to birthright citizenship and wrongly claiming that the courts have never ruled on whether it applies even to the children of foreigners born in the United States, he has led the GOP down a rabbit hole from which there may be no escape. Thanks to the Donald, Americans have stopped worrying about sanctuary cities or even how best to secure the border and instead are the astonished onlookers to a sterile debate about stripping native-born Americans of their citizenship and fantasies about deporting 11 million illegals.

The element of Trump’s plan to deal with illegal immigration that has gotten the most attention is his proposal to strip the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States of their citizenship. Doing so involves overturning an interpretation of the law that goes back virtually to the beginning of the republic. Moreover, contrary to the assertions of Trump and his backers, the Supreme Court has ruled on the issue when it decided in 1898 that the 14^th Amendment gave citizenship to all those born in this country even if their parents were foreigners.

Nevertheless, Trump’s idea has now spawned a growing debate principally on the right about whether that concept is firmly rooted in constitutional law. Some saw it can be ended by presidential fiat in the manner of President Obama’s extralegal executive orders. Others believe the Supreme Court can, if given a case on which a ruling might be based, overturn the precedent. Still others, more sensibly, point out that the best way to end birthright citizenship would be to pass a new constitutional amendment.

For those who like arcane legal arguments, this is great entertainment. But what those conservatives who have eagerly tumbled down the rabbit hole with Trump on the issue are forgetting is that we are in the middle of a presidential election, not a law school bull session.

It must be acknowledged that although Trump’s proposal about citizenship has as little chance of being put into effect as the deportation of all 11 million illegals, it is nevertheless quite popular in some precincts. Trump’s popularity rests in his willingness to articulate the anger that many Americans feel about injustices or the failure of government to deal with problems. If there are 11 million illegals in the country, they want them all to be chucked out. If they have children here, who are, by law, U.S. citizens, they say, so what? Chuck them out too.

The question of what to do with illegals already here is a problem that vexes anyone that isn’t inclined, as President Obama and the Democrats are, to grant them amnesty and forget about it. Reasonable people can differ about possible solutions to the problem but there’s nothing reasonable or practical about a proposal that assumes the U.S. government is capable of capturing and deporting 11 million people plus the untold number of U.S. citizens to which they have given birth.

The notion that the American people will stomach such an exercise or pay what Politicoestimates (probably conservatively) the $166 billion it would cost to pull off such a horrifying spectacle is a pure fantasy.

What needs to be emphasized here is that wherever you stand on birthright citizenship or mass deportations, so long as it is these ideas that Republicans are discussing (as Trump did last night with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News), then they are losing the debate about immigration and very likely the next presidential election. No one is going to be elected president on a platform of depriving people born in this country of citizenship no matter who their parents might be. Nor, despite the cheers Trump gets from his fans, will the American people ever countenance the kinds of intrusive measures and the huge expansion of the federal immigration bureaucracy and police powers that would be needed to pull off a mass deportation.

Let’s be clear. This isn’t a matter of appeasing a Hispanic vote that is probably locked up for the Democrats even if the GOP nominates a pro-amnesty Hispanic. It’s about derailing a productive discussion about real-world solutions to problems into an ideological trap that will only convince moderates and independents, and probably some conservatives as well, that the Republicans are not ready for prime time.

These are the same voters who are likely to agree with Republicans when they say any immigration reform must only come after the border is secured by reasonable measures rather than by reconstructing the Great Wall of China or perhaps the epic ice wall from “Game of Thrones” on the Rio Grande that will be paid for by Mexico in Trump’s dreams. These voters were horrified by the murder of Kate Steinle and support efforts by the Republicans to pass a “Kate’s Law” that would penalize Democrat-run cities that flout federal authority to the detriment of the rule of law and the safety of citizens. They want the border to be secured and are disturbed by Obama’s efforts to circumvent the constitution to grant amnesty. But they aren’t likely to applaud Trump’s effort to ignore settled law or throw out American-born kids.

The point is, contrary to the conventional wisdom of the liberal mainstream media, a conservative stance on illegal immigration is a political winner for Republicans so long as they stick to points on which they have a clear advantage. But when they follow Trump into circular debates about birthright citizenship or fantasize about throwing all illegals out, including citizens or children raised here, they are losing the voters they need to win back the presidency.

Via: Commentary Magazine

Continue Reading.....

Obamacare is putting a big crimp in Wal-Mart’s lucrative pharmacy business

It was not an especially good quarter for Wal-Mart, and one pain point that will continue to hurt the company is a downturn in its large in-store pharmacy business in the US. On a media call yesterday (Aug. 18), executives in part blamed the company’s reduced profit outlook on a change in the way Americans are paying for drugs.

“We are seeing less cash and more reimbursements from insurers,” CFO Charles Holley said.

In other words, the rapid fall in uninsured Americans after passage of the Affordable Care Act has led to more drugs being paid for by insurers, and fewer being paid out of pocket. That squeezes profit margins, particularly for a company like Wal-Mart with one of the biggest drug stores in the country (it brings in about $19 billion in annual revenue).

In the US, full retail prices paid by the uninsured are substantially inflated compared to what private insurers reimburse. Unlike the average healthcare consumer, private insurers know the market, whether generic or cheaper options are available, and they have the leverage of scale to negotiate prices.

Government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which cover many Wal-Mart customers, are prohibited from negotiating on price with drug makers. But they are also legally required to only reimburse the drug maker a certain percentage over the average wholesale price.

Pharmacy benefit managers, which administer drug benefits for employers and insurers, have also consolidated (pdf), leaving three firms (ExpressScripts, CVS, and UnitedHealth) to cover most Americans. The bump in scale has boosted their negotiating power on drug prices.

Formerly uninsured Wal-Mart customers are also likely to be entering into lower-tier health insurance plans that don’t cover an ever-growing list of expensive drugs, instead favoring cheaper, clinically-equivalent alternatives.

Pharmacies that have overcome these changes, like CVS, have tended to focus on offering expensive and often high-margin specialty drugs that require extra service to administer (such as chemotherapy drugs and arthritis drugs).

Wal-Mart says it has no intention of selling off its pharmacy business. As for solutions, on its Aug. 18 earnings call it offered up only that it is taking a “number of actions to lessen the impact.”

Via: Quartz.com

Continue Reading.....

Money Manager David Kotok: Plunging Oil Could Fall to $15

Tumbling Oil Prices have hit six-year lows, and Cumberland Advisors' David Kotok predicts that could plunge even lower.

"We could go back to $15 or $20, this is a downward slope, we don't know a bottom," the influential money manager told Bloomberg TV. A year ago, oil was about $100.

U.S. oil prices hit their lowest in almost six and a half years on Wednesday after U.S. data showed an unexpected rise in crude stockpiles.

U.S. crude oil futures, also known as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), were down $1.20 at $41.42 a barrel by 1450 GMT, after touching a low of $41.18. The front-month, September, U.S. crude oil contract is due to expire on Thursday. North Sea Brent crude was down 90 cents at $47.91 a barrel.

Oil has tumbled more than 30 percent since this year’s peak close in June amid signs that producers are maintaining output even after a surplus pushed prices into a bear market.

A further decline to $15 a barrel would be huge. Oil hasn't traded that low since early 1999, when gasoline at the pump was selling for under $1 a gallon, CNNMoney reported.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has pumped above its 30 million-barrel-a-day quota for more than a year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Angola plans to ship 1.83 million barrels a day in October, the most since November 2011, according to a preliminary loading program obtained by Bloomberg. That compares with 1.77 million barrels a day from Africa’s second-largest crude producer in September.

Meanwhile, Iraq must increase oil output to meet the needs of its growing population and provide services, Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi said on his website. The nation’s production climbed to a record 4.18 million barrels a day in July, according to the International Energy Agency.

Via: Newsmax

Continue Reading.....

Leadership gap hinders federal drought response

WASHINGTON 

The federal response to the Western drought has been hindered by high-level vacancies, bureaucratic caution and political calculations that have thrown sand in the gears.

Put another way: With more than 70 percent of California now classified in a state of “exceptional” or “extreme” drought, Uncle Sam is floundering.

The 100th Meridian cuts through the Great Plains and divides America, wet from dry. To the east, annual rainfall averages more than 20 inches; to the west, less than 20. More than ever, in this time of drought, the 100th Meridian also separates how people think about water. This occasional serieswill look at the economic, environmental and political pressures behind the demand for water.

“We need leadership from the federal government,” pleaded Cannon Michael, a politically engaged farmer from Los Banos in California’s acutely dry San Joaquin Valley.

But so far, dynamic federal leadership has been lacking. Some of that is inevitable. Western water use poses too many inherent conflicts to unify all factions. Some people refuse to be led, and the drought is, at bottom, a state matter. Certain federal shortcomings, though, seem like self-inflicted wounds. Consider:

NATIONAL STRATEGY TO ASSIST CALIFORNIA AND THE WEST WITH THE DROUGHT.Dan Beard, former Bureau of Reclamation commissioner

– The Obama administration lacks confirmed leaders in key positions. Four top water-related jobs at the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality have remained vacant for months, at least in part because of resistance from Senate Republicans.

– Lawmakers remain mired in partisanship and power plays. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has passed three California water bills, each crafted by the GOP with minimal Democratic input. Republicans counter that Democrats won’t support anything that provides real relief.

– President Barack Obama has not used his bully pulpit to persistently drive a Western water agenda. He has visited California 28 times during his presidency, but his lone trip to the state’s San Joaquin Valley, ground zero for the drought, occurred 18 months ago.

“I think the Obama administration is missing a golden opportunity to provide leadership,” Dan Beard, a Democrat and former Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, said in an interview. “So far, we’ve had nothing but radio silence from them on the drought.”

542,000Acres of California farmland idled because of drought.

Some definite efforts are underway.

Via: McClatchy

Continue Reading.....

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article31523159.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article31523159.html#storylink=cpy

BORDER PATROL UNION RECOGNIZED FOR COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM: AUDIENCE REMINDED ‘#POLICELIVESMATTER’

The National Border Patrol Agents Council (NBPC) vice-president received a communications award from the nation’s largest employee union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). The award recognized the Border Patrol union’s “The Green Line” podcast. During his acceptance of the award at the AFGE national convention in Orlando, Florida, the NBPC executive reminded the audience that police lives matter.

The Clyde M. Webber Award for General Excellence in Labor Communications was accepted by NBPC Vice-President Shawn Moran following the presentation by AFGE President J. David Cox. The award is the the AFGE’s top award for communications.

“I am just one union representative, one Border Patrol agent that gets to present our issues to the public,” NBPC Vice-President Shawn Moran told Breitbart Texas. “This recognition shows that people value the work of Border Patrol agents and honor the sacrifices that have been made. Now it is time to get the sacrifice of Javier Vega recognized as a line of duty death and to further help protect agents working hard every day against all threats.”

Citing a team effort, Moran stood before the AFGE audience and thanked the NBPC executive board for their support in carrying the message of the union to those they represent. He then shifted his comments to the members of his union. “But this job is not handled just by myself or by Thane, but by a team of Border Patrol agents who are out there every day doing what our mottos says: Protecting Those Who Protect Our Borders,” Moran stated. “Without them we would not be standing here on this stage today.”

Moran dedicated the award to fallen Border Patrol agents who have lost their lives in the line of duty since the last convention. Those were, “Border Patrol Agent Javier Vega, Jr., gunned down in front of his family by two previously deported illegal aliens, and our former Executive VP Rich Pierce who succumbed to cancer two years ago,” Moran said during his speech.

“I want to speak to an issue important to our union reps who are here today and to Border Patrol agents nationwide,” Moran continued. “We realize that LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers) are a minority in this federation and that our positions are not always popular. Police officers, Correctional officers, and Border Patrol agents are union members…your brothers and sisters…not the enemy or some faceless oppressor.”

“120 Border Patrol agents have made the ultimate sacrifice, they deserve respect not vilification,” he said. “I’d like to quote the guiding principle of the National Law Enforcement memorial in Washington DC:  It is Proverbs 28:1 ‘The wicked flee though no man pursues, but the righteous are bold as lions.’”

“This nation is one built on the rule of law,” he concluded. “Police Lives Matter.”

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading....

[VIDEO] Is Hillary Above the Law?

Hillary Clinton decided when she took the office of Secretary of State that she was above the law.

Hillary knew that she was supposed to use a secure government controlled server for email and other communications, but she believed that she was part of an elite class of people who are not subject to the same laws as average Americans.

The Clintons are the political equivalent of royalty and Bill proved that he was above the law.

The Daily Mail put together an excellent time line of events in this developing scandal. A Romanian hacker named ‘Guccifer’ exposed screen shots of Clinton’s longtime confidant Sidney Blumenthal’s AOL email account in March of 2013 that contained emails from the Secretary of State.

Since that date, evidence is mounting of a Clinton cover up.

According to the Daily Mail time line, in June of 2013, Hillary shifted control of email domain to IT contractor and sent her original server hardware to a data center facility in New Jersey where it was erased. Erasing, or wiping, the hard drive shows that Hillary did not want anybody to second-guessing the way she handled her email that likely contained, what most people would consider, classified information.

The Associated Press reported on June 30, 2015, “senior Obama administration officials knew as early as 2009 that Hillary Rodham Clinton was using a private email address for her government correspondence.” This implicates others like former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Obama confidant David Axelrod.

According to the AP “the newly released emails show Clinton sent or received at least 12 messages in 2009 on her private email server that were later classified ‘confidential’ by the U.S. government. Those emails were censored because officials said they contained activities relating to the intelligence community, or had discussed the production and dissemination of U.S. intelligence information. At least two dozen emails were also marked ‘sensitive but unclassified’ at the time they were written, including a December 2009 message from top Clinton aide Huma Abedin about an explosion in Baghdad that killed 90.” This is strong evidence that Hillary is lying about her emailing of sensitive information.

Via: Human Events

Continue Reading.....

Letter: Obama Administration Releasing Violent Illegal Immigrants Back into U.S. Towns

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been releasing illegal immigrants with violent criminal records back into local U.S. communities, where they have often gone on to commit violent crimes against American citizens, according to new disclosures by a leading lawmaker and local law enforcement agencies.

Rep. Matt Salmon (R., Ariz.) and law enforcement officials petitioned the Obama administration on Wednesday to end a policy that enables illegal immigrants with criminal records to be released back into the United States.

Arizona law enforcement officials announced on Tuesday that three illegal aliens with violent criminal records had been released by DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) back onto the streets, where they went on to commit crimes including kidnapping and murdering an infant.

The ongoing release of criminals from countries such as Iraq, Sudan, and Russia prompted Salmon to petition DHS “to stop freeing violent criminals who are in our country illegally,” according to a copy of letter sent to the department and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

At least three illegal aliens released by DHS in recent weeks have been charged with serious crimes, including the beating of a 7-week-old baby and immolation of a person, according to local law enforcement and Salmon.

“Despite the repeated attacks on American citizens by illegal aliens released from our jails, DHS refuses to stop freeing violent criminals who are in our country illegally,” Salmon wrote in his letter to DHS. “Just today, we learned of three more individuals set free on law-abiding Arizonans by the Department of Homeland Security. Their crimes included the beating to death of a seven-week-old baby and the stabbing, beating, and immolation of a police informant.”

One of those released is accused of kidnapping and murdering a police informant “by taking him to a wilderness area where he beat, stabbed, and lit his gasoline-soaked body on fire,” according to Salmon.

“Instead of immediately deporting them to their country of origin, ICE released these criminals into Arizona and … chose not to inform local law enforcement before the release of these criminals was completed,” Salmon wrote.

Salmon and officials in Arizona law enforcement are demanding DHS do more to prevent such releases.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under current law can no longer legally hold the three individuals,” ICE press secretary Gillian Christensen said. “To further promote public safety and transparency, ICE notified local law enforcement agencies of the release of the individuals.”

“To be clear, the backgrounds of the individuals in question would generally make them enforcement priorities for ICE,” Christensen continued. “However, ICE has no legal basis for continuing to hold these individuals.”

Christensen said one individual is a lawful permanent resident and the other two were released due to a Supreme Court decision.

“ICE has been releasing these criminal illegal immigrants into local communities, that we as Sheriffs are sworn to protect,” the Arizona Sheriff’s Association (ASA) warned in a statement issued Tuesday. “You don’t have to be the Sheriff or a uniformed patrol deputy to realize that these dangerous criminals will reoffend and victimize our Arizona families.”

Just last week, ICE began to notify local law enforcement agencies of the release of violent illegal aliens. The implementation of this notification system comes after years of pressure from local law enforcement officials.

ICE notified Arizona law officials that three violent illegal aliens had been released back into the community.

“This first such notification of three dangerous criminal illegals has Arizona Sheriffs angry and concerned for the public’s safety,” the ASA said in its statement.

The issue has long plagued local law enforcement agencies, which have found themselves struggling to protect local communities after the Obama administration frees criminal illegal aliens.

In 2013, ICE freed 36,007 illegal aliens with criminal convictions across the nation, according to statistics compiled by Arizona law enforcement. At least 193 of those aliens released were convicted of homicides, 426 were convicted of sex crimes, and 303 convicted of kidnapping.

“The releases typically occurred without formal notice to local law enforcement agencies and victims,” according to the ASA.

In 2014, federal authorities released another 30,558 illegal aliens with criminal records.

“By simply notifying Sheriffs of the release of dangerous criminals doesn’t address the core problem that these dangerous criminals remain in America,” the ASA said.

Salmon says he is seeking a larger fix to the problem.

“Our Department of Homeland Security needs to focus more on securing our homeland, not on cornering the market as a transportation option for illegal aliens in the United States,” he wrote to DHS. “Americans need protection from violent criminals and an explanation for why DHS has been so miserably failing at their primary task.”

“How many more Americans must be murdered by illegal alien criminals before this administration begins taking the safety of Americans seriously?” the lawmaker asked.

Salmon went on to note that in one instance a illegal alien released by ICE was later apprehended and charged with “kidnapping, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, sexual abuse, and child molestation.”

“Obviously this is a direct result of this administration’s dangerous policy of releasing tens of thousands of criminal illegal aliens onto our streets and into our communities,” Salmon said.

Salmon has championed several pieces of federal legislation that would end the policy of “catch and release” and also establish mandatory minimum prison sentences for illegal aliens.

“Simply, put, there is no excuse for ICE to be releasing violent, criminal illegal aliens back onto our streets and into our communities,” Salmon wrote.

Via: WFB

Continue Reading....

‘Black Lives Matter’ activist Shaun King REVEALED to be a FAKE BLACK GUY!!

For a few weeks now there has been a topic of debate online about whether Shaun King, the outspoken “black lives matter” activist, is a FAKE black guy. Today the story BLEW UP with new accusations. Shaun King has tried to refute them on his Twitter, citing a vast right-wing white supremacist conspiracy!

The Blaze piece says that a racial attack on Shaun King as a teenager that he mentions often is disputed by the police report and some witnesses:

…three of the statements provided to police indicate the assault was over a dispute King had with a girl. The girl, whom TheBlaze has chosen not to name because she too was a minor at the time of incident, told authorities that the fight was a result of King confronting her over $8 she allegedly owed him after knocking over his bag and breaking a CD two weeks prior. She said King initially told her she wouldn’t have to pay him back because it was an accident, but that two weeks later, he confronted her and asked for the money immediately.

The assailant, the girl’s ex-boyfriend, told police the incident stemmed from King demanding the money. Another individual made the same claim.

“The reason I hit Shawn [sic] is because he pushed my x-girlfriend up against the wall yesterday and threatened to break her neck over $8 dollars she owed him and I care for her and she was scared yesterday because she thought he was going to hurt her and I didn’t want to see her get hurt,” the assailant, who was cited with fourth-degree assault, told police. “I know it was wrong but I couldn’t stand him threatening a girl like that.”

Shaun King denies the claims, but the importance of getting the facts straight on this is that he claims it was a racial attack, while the witnesses say race had nothing to do with it.

But IF he is not mixed, but full white, then that means he lied to get into Morehouse College, a historically black school, and also lied to the African-American divinity Oprah Winfrey!!

You in trouble now, King:

Notice – he doesn’t really say what he IS, just what people know him AS. Kinda weird, huh?

He prattles on and on about some white supremacist conspiracy, but then The Daily Beast drops this BOMB and Nakasakis him:

Prominent Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King said for years that he is biracial, because he was born to a white mother and a black father, but Kentucky public records reviewed by The Daily Beast show that King’s father is white. Jeffery Wayne King, born Nov. 11, 1955, is listed as Shaun King’s father on his birth certificate. Criminal records identify Jeffrey King’s ethnicity as white. After Breitbart News questioned King’s race, the activist tweeted that he “did not concoct a lie” about his race.

Uh oh!! Is Shaun King the male Rachel Dolezal?!?

The Right Scoop

Continue Reading.....

Democratic Dissidents

Campbell Brown and Kirsten Powers take on the leftist establishment

Democrats are known for many things, but chief among them is the relentless determination to maintain a rigid progressive orthodoxy within their ranks. Bucking that orthodoxy requires character and conviction because those who do can expect a certain level of contempt directed their way from their oh-so-tolerant brethren. Campbell Brown and Kirsten Powers are two women who have demonstrated a willingness to take positions decidedly at odds with the progressive establishment.

Brown’s Democratic roots can be traced back to her father, Louisiana Democratic State Senator and Secretary of State James H. Brown Jr. Although James Brown is Presbyterian, Campbell was raised as a Roman Catholic, which she remained until converting to Judaism following hermarriage to Republican strategist and Fox News analyst, Dan Senor.

Brown worked her way up through the ranks of television reporting, winning an Emmy award for her reporting on Hurricane Katrina while working at NBC. She followed an 11 year career at that network with a stint at CNN. She began in 2008 as an anchor for CNN’s “Election Center,” renamed “Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull” and ultimately “Campbell Brown.” 

During the 2008 election cycle, she engaged in a controversial interview with John McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, questioning Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin’s executive bona fides. That interview earned her accusations of bias from the McCain campaign, who accused her of going “over the line.” In 2010 CNN released her from her contract due to low ratings.

Brown moved on to writing opinion pieces that indicated such bias was a figment of John McCain’s imagination. In 2012 she penned two pieces for the New York Times. In one, she insisted a “paternalistic” Barack Obama should stop “condescending to women.” In the other she criticizedPlanned Parenthood’s self-destructive strategy of embracing “blind partisanship” that was costing the organization supporters. In 2013 she urged Daily Beast readers to keep the shooting in Newton, CT off the “culture war battlefield. Yet it was a piece for the Wall Street Journal that same year indicating where she was going with her post-TV career: Brown began challenging the left’s cherished nexus between the Democratic Party and the unionized education establishment, taking the New York City teachers unions to task for protecting sexual predators.

Via: Canada Free Press

Continue Reading....

REPUBLICANS: TAKE THE ESA PLEDGE

Donald Trump and all GOP candidates should pledge to authorize education savings accounts.

The mainstream press and political pundits are bombarding us with a stream of warnings that Donald Trump and the other Republican candidates are driving minority voters away from the Republican Party by their “extreme” proposals and rhetoric. Whether or not one believes there’s any truth to this, Trump and every other Republican candidate can prove the dire predictions wrong with one simple act — sign a pledge that they support education savings accounts (“ESAs”) for all families and will work to pass legislation authorizing ESAs. No single policy proposal will do more to attract low-income black and Hispanic voters than treating the dreams and aspirations that those voters have for their children to be as important as those of families who can afford to move to the right zip code or pay private school tuition.

Mr. Trump and the other Republican presidential candidates should agree to sign the ESA pledge at the beginning of the CNN debate scheduled for September 16 at the Reagan Library. Nothing would be more fitting than for the leaders of the current Republican Party to honor the legacy of Ronald Reagan by signing this pledge in his library and before his wife, 32 years after the publication of A Nation at Risk. This Reagan initiative issued the alarm that “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.” In its words, “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war….” The authors of the report began with a restatement of a fundamental premise of the American Dream:

All, regardless of race or class or economic status, are entitled to a fair chance and the tools for developing their individual powers of mind and spirit to the utmost. This promise means that all children by virtue of their own efforts, competently guided, can hope to attain the mature and informed judgment needed to secure gainful employment, and to manage their own lives, thereby serving their own interests but also the progress of society itself.

Unfortunately, in 2015, we still do not give all children a fair chance since we only allow it to those with the economic means to segregate themselves in public schools in the right zip code, or in private schools. Mr. Trump and his fellow candidates would, by taking the ESA pledge, honor President Reagan’s beliefs, expressed at a White House briefing in January 1989, when he said:

Choice represents a return to some of our most basic notions about education. In particular, programs emphasizing choice reflect the simple truth that the keys to educational success are schools and teachers that teach, and parents who insist that their children learn.… And choice in education is the wave of the future because it represents a return to some of the most basic American values. Choice in education is no mere abstraction. Like its economic cousin, free enterprise, and its political cousin, democracy, it affords hope and opportunity.

Americans today still fundamentally support Reagan’s belief in the inherent right of parents to make the best choices for their children with as little interference from the government as possible.

For a more recent example of the power of parental choice, the Republican candidates should look to Nevada, where in January 2015 Republicans took joint control of the Nevada legislature and governor’s mansion for the first time since 1929. Less than six months later, Nevada Republicans passed a ground-breaking law allowing universal school choice for the first time in the history of the United States. The power of ESAs can be seen by the fact that those families whose children aren’t currently eligible for the program because their children attend private schools are clamoring for an amendment to include them. Nearly every poll shows that, regardless of political persuasion, economic class, or race, two of every three Americans support school choice. As Deborah Beck, a Democratic pollster put it, in announcing the results of her January 2015 poll showing 70% support for the concept:

“The poll clearly shows widespread support, among both political parties, for school choice. Any public official — or potential candidate for President — who ignores these numbers does so at their own peril.”

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and his fellow Republicans, by following the beliefs of President Reagan and authorizing ESAs, made it possible for families all over America to legitimately ask Mr. Trump and every political leader: If Nevada trusts its parents to make the right choice, why can’t my children have the same freedom and opportunity? As Assemblyman Ira Hansen said, when one of the bill’s opponents questioned whether parents are skilled in making the right choices for curriculum and instruction: “I think we need to have more confidence in our parents…”

Via: American Spectator

Continue Reading.....