Former L.A. schools chief calls iPad program illegal

A former L.A. schools superintendent has stepped forward to criticize a $1 billion effort to provide every student, teacher and campus administrator with a tablet or laptop computer. William J. Johnston, 87, did not object to the goal, but focused instead on using school-construction bonds to fund the project, which, so far, has involved purchasing iPads.

“I  believe the current purchase of iPads from school bonds is illegal,” Johnston wrote in a Feb. 6 letter to the committee that oversees the spending of the voter-approved funding. The bonds are paid back through increases in property taxes.

The letter was included in materials for the committee's Thursday meeting. 

“iPads are known to last for approximatey three years,” Johnston wrote. “New developments and technology will make them obsolete, requiring replacements. School bonds are designed to buy property, build schools, equip schools with lasting equipment. School bonds are paid for over a 25-year period.”

He added: “Voters approved the school bonds because they needed schools built, schools repaired, school equipment updated. They did not vote for iPads, a three-year consumable product.”

Johnston, who served as superintendent from 1971 to 1981, is hardly alone in his concerns, which the district recently addressed publicly. Officials have maintained that state law, over time, has been clarified to affirm that bonds can be used for technology. And bond measures specifically list funding for technology.

A Los Angeles Unified School District legal opinion asserts further that portable computers that can be taken home are a logical, updated extension of technology, which used to be available to students only in computer labs with bolted-down desktop devices.

Via: LA Times

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Pelosi says she's not done yet

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants everyone to know she's not done yet. 

After a recent wave of retiring veteran Democrats, the former House speaker assertively said Thursday that's no indication she would soon follow in their footsteps. 

"When it is [time], you'll know," Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol.

"They go at their pace, [and] I go at mine. We'll miss them — they're fabulous — but, again, it stirs the pot, and lots of people are very excited about the prospect of what comes next for them," said the Democratic leader. "It's a constantly reinvigorated body; that's what our founders intended."

Since January, a number of seasoned House Democrats, have announced that this year will be their last in Congress. The list includes many close Pelosi allies like Reps. George Miller (Calif.) and Henry Waxman (Calif.) and other longtime members such as Jim Moran (Va.), Rush Holt (N.J.) and John Dingell (Mich.), the longest serving member in the history of Congress.

While the number of retirements is not unusual and is so far less than in recent cycles, the veteran stature of the names and their relationships with Pelosi has only amplified the whispers that she, too, might be eyeing the door, particularly if the Democrats fail to take back the House in November.

Pelosi, for her part, has consistently dismissed such speculation, which has swirled ceaselessly since the Democrats lost control of the House in 2010's landslide elections.

She says her focus on passing Democratic bills and winning back the House — a tall order with the 17 seats her party needs to flip — doesn't allow the time to contemplate her longer-term plans. 

"I'm too busy," she said. "As long as there's 1-in-5 children in America who lives in poverty, what I do is get up every morning revved to the task."

Pelosi used the question about her future as an opportunity to attack a comprehensive tax reform bill introduced Wednesday by Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the head of the Ways and Means Committee. 

Pelosi said the proposal would pile $2,000 in additional taxes on single moms making the minimum wage. 

"I have enough to invigorate me, and everybody's timetable around here isn't everybody else's timetable around here."

Via: The Hill

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McCain: Reid's Blowing Smoke in Denying Obamacare Horror Stories

Sen. John McCain doesn't understand how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can say that all of the horror stories about Obamacare aren't true.

“It's such a bizarre statement that you wonder — you know out in that part of the country there's been a lot of legalization of certain substances,” the Arizona Republican said, chuckling, in an exclusive interview on “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV,

"I’m sure he hasn’t been" smoking pot, "but it’s impossible to explain away a statement like that," McCain said.

If Democrat Reid really believes the "thousand and thousands of stories" are untrue, he “is totally out of touch with reality and with the American people who overwhelmingly reject Obamacare and overwhelmingly want us to fix it." McCain said. "And that's what we Republicans are going to do if we get the majority, which I believe we have a chance of — a good chance of."

Via: Newsmax

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BILL DE BLASIO RESCINDS APPROVAL OF THREE CHARTER SCHOOLS

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a "moratorium" on charter schools almost as soon as he arrived in office, and now he is making good on his promise to limit parents' choice of schools. The New York Post reports that de Blasio is blocking the opening or expansion of three schools in the area, leaving some students in limbo.

The Post reports that the Success Academy Charter school group had received approval from Mayor Mike Bloomberg to operate rent-free in city buildings for the 2014-2015 school year, but de Blasio pushed for a review of that approval that caused the Department of Education to rescind it. While some were in separate buildings, other school expansions were approved in buildings that housed non-charter public schools; de Blasio is forbidding them all.

What this means for students is still not fully clear, though some of the expansions were granted to schools already having too many students for their buildings. One school, the Success Academy Middle School, is losing permission to use government buildings to teach students. The fifth and sixth graders attending the academy will have to find a different location to go to school or be reincorporated into the public school system.

The move has outraged parents and charter school activists. Eva Moskowitz, the CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools, is threatening to sue the city to get the space back for her students. Noting that she expects the announcement of permission for the schools to be rescinded, Moskowitz decried the move as "tragic, unfair, and, we believe, illegal." She noted that the organization plans to "take the appropriate legal action."

Moskowitz is also organizing a trip to Albany for supporters of charters schools from New York City. Charter School support groups are expecting to rally in the state capital in support of school choice, and parents of students in the charter school system are encouraged to attend, perhaps to increase the tension between Albany and New York City.

Mayor de Blasio has clashed with fellow progressives on his approach to education multiple times in his short tenure. Having promised as a candidate a program that would allow for universal access to pre-kindergarten education for New Yorkers paid for by a tax increase on wealthier residents, de Blasio refuses to give up on raising taxes, even when the proposition is glaringly obsolete; Governor Andrew Cuomo has offered to use state plans to implement the program and spare the city a tax increase, but de Blasio has not backed down.

De Blasio's move against charter schools today is a continuation of his approach to school choice since the beginning of his tenure. At the beginning of this month, de Blasio proposed charging charter schools rent to use public buildings they were already using to teach students. Charter schools have been sharing resources with public schools to keep the costs low for taxpayers; an elimination of school choice might result in the need for a tax increase to pay for all the new students being shuffled in from a defunct charter school.

Via: Breitbart

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[VIDEO] Liberal Prof.: Obama Has Brought Us To ‘Constitutional Tipping Point’

During testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, liberal constitutional professor Jonathan Turley said that the growth of executive power is “accelerating” and that the growth of such power has brought us to a “constitutional tipping point”.

“I believe we are now at a constitutional tipping point in our system,” Turley, who teaches law at George Washington University, said. “It’s a dangerous point for our system to be in, and I believe that your response has to begin before this president leaves office. No one in our system goes it alone.”

Turley noted that while he agrees with the President on most of his policies, it still “does not alter the fact that I believe the means he is doing is wrong” and that the continued acceleration of executive power can be “a dangerous change in our system."

Via: WFB

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Study: Only 48% of Democrats Know Earth Revolves Around The Sun, 61% of Republicans Know It…

Note the smartest group is conservative Republicans. Wait, I thought we were supposed to be knuckle-dragging hicks?

Via Northwestern University study:

Via: Weasel Zippers

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Russian moves raise stakes in Ukraine conflict

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine, Ukraine (AP) - Masked gunmen stormed the parliament of Ukraine's strategic Crimea region as Russian fighter jets screamed above the border, while Ukraine's newly formed government pledged to prevent a national breakup with the strong backing of the West - the stirrings of a potentially dangerous confrontation reminiscent of Cold War brinksmanship.

Moscow reportedly granted shelter to Ukraine's fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, who was said to be holed up in a luxury government retreat and to have scheduled a news conference Friday near the Ukrainian border. As gunmen wearing unmarked camouflage uniforms erected a sign reading "Crimea is Russia" in the provincial capital, Ukraine's interim prime minister declared that the Black Sea territory "has been and will be a part of Ukraine."

The escalating conflict sent Ukraine's finances plummeting further, prompting Western leaders to prepare an emergency financial package.

Yanukovych, whose approach to Moscow set off three months of pro-Europe protests, finally fled by helicopter last weekend as his allies deserted him. The humiliating exit was a severe blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had been celebrating his signature Olympics even as Ukraine's drama came to a head. The Russian leader has long dreamt of pulling Ukraine - a huge country of 46 million people considered the cradle of Russian civilization - closer into Moscow's orbit.

(AP) Pro-Russian demonstrators march with a huge Russian flag during a protest in front of a local... Full Image

For Ukraine's neighbors, the specter of Ukraine breaking up evoked memories of centuries of bloody conflict.

"Regional conflicts begin this way," said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, calling the confrontation "a very dangerous game."

Russia has pledged to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity. But the dispatch of Russian fighter jets Thursday to Ukraine's borders and drills by some 150,000 Russian soldiers - almost the entirety of its troop force in the western part of the country - signaled strong determination not to lose Ukraine to the West.

Via: My Way

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Revenge: Obama's Targeting of Standard and Poor's

The federal government’s lawsuit against ratings agency Standard and Poor’s has been hit by a potential bombshell. In January, the Wall Street Journal reported that Harold McGraw III, Chairman and CEO of S&P’s parent company, testified that after the agency downgraded the nation’s triple-A credit rating, he received a telephone call from then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner saying the ratings agency would be “looked at very carefully.”

On Monday, the Wall Street Journallearned that the call between Geithner and McGraw occurred only five minutes after Geithner met with President Obama in the Oval Office.

S&P, which garnered the information by examining Geithner’s public schedule, included it as part of a filing in federal court in the Central District of California. They contended that the timing of the Obama-Geithner conference could support the idea that they were singled out for retaliation, rather than the government’s claim they are guilty of fraud. Unsurprisingly, the Justice Department is accusing the agency of a “fishing expedition” and is urging U.S. District Judge David Carter to deny them access to the records.

In the January affidavit, McGraw submitted a sworn statement to the court, describing an unsettling chain of events that began with S&P’s U.S. debt downgrade, issued on August 5, 2011. He contends that on August 8, he was informed by an official from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that Geithner “was very angry at S&P.” Geithner who had previously run the New York branch of the Federal Reserve, allegedly called McGraw. When McGraw returned the call, Geithner allegedly “expressed anger at the downgrade.” An argument ensued, with former Treasury Secretary contending that S&P had made an error in their assessment. McGraw countered that the agency had relied on official statistics provided by the Congressional Budget Office. According to the affidavit, Geithner continued to insist that S&P had made an error. “You are accountable for that,” he allegedly warned McGraw.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Obama's Minimum Wage Ruse

President Obama's newfound enthusiasm for the minimum wage is the political equivalent of a ruse of war.

With an eye on the approaching midterm elections, the Demagogue-in-Chief hopes to lure his Republican enemies into a discussion on his ideological home turf so he can pound away at them mercilessly and distract from his own political problems.

As his approval rating slides, Obama has heartily embraced the red herring as the cornerstone of his public relations strategy.  Bearing his by now familiar deer-in-the-headlights look, he officially knows next to nothing about what his administration is doing and is constantly on the lookout for scapegoats and other distractions.

Democrats, as well as those leftists not disillusioned with Obama, desperately want to recapture the House and hang onto the Senate in the hope of imposing even more destructive progressive policies on the populace before a new president takes over in January 2017.  The November congressional elections give these left-wingers their last kick at the legislative can during the Obama presidency.  It is Obama's final opportunity to drop-kick America over the cliff and into the bottomless socialist abyss.

Obama promises that 2014 will be "a year of action."  The president plans to keep the chattering classes busy blathering on endlessly about stuff that doesn't matter to normal people.  He knows dragging voters to the polls in an off-year election is hard, so he wants to excite his base.

Obama is pushing a minimum wage increase, an otherwise marginal issue voters place well down on the list of national priorities, because he needs to get left-wing voters emotional.  Even though under 3 percent of all workers in the nation (and an even lower percentage of full-time workers) earn the minimum wage, Obama knows that whipping up indignation over the issue gets voters to the polls.

Obama's former employer and legal client ACORN, the huge community organizing network that went bankrupt in 2010, viewed raising the minimum wage as an electoral crowd pleaser.

Via: American Thinker

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Obama strives to be 'my brother’s keeper' $200 Million more!!

President Obama on Thursday will establish a new interagency task force charged with promoting opportunities for young men of color through an examination of government policies and programs.

The program, dubbed “My Brother’s Keeper,” will ask businesses and foundations to fund programs across the country designed to keep young minority men employed or in school and out of jail.

“For decades, opportunity has lagged behind for boys and young men of color. But across the country, communities are adopting approaches to help put these boys and young men on the path to success,” a White House official said in a statement. “The president wants to build on that work.”

The president will announce that foundations supporting the initiative have pledged at least $200 million over the next five years to “find and rapidly spread solutions that have the highest potential for impact,” the White House said. 

Efforts receiving commitments will include those targeting early child development and school readiness, parenting and parent engagement, third grade literacy, and school discipline reform. 

Programs helping reduce minority interactions with the criminal justice system and improve health and economic opportunities will also be among those evaluated by the task force, which has three months to design an plan for coordinating the $200 million in commitments.

According to the White House, the panel will also work across the federal government to assess the impact of federal policies on boys of color, create an online portal of programs that have a proven record of success, and recommend ways the White House can continue to partner with the private sector on outreach efforts.

Obama will announce that the effort will be chaired by Assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary Broderick Johnson at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House. 

Colin Powell, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NBA hall-of-famer Magic Johnson, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver are also expected to be in attendance, as will business leaders, faith leaders, state and local officials, and participants of a youth guidance program called “Becoming a Man” that targets boys on Chicago’s South Side. 

The president has met repeatedly with the group, and heralded it as an example of how small interventions can help keep young minorities out of trouble.

Also in attendance will be Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, according to the network’s media reporter,

Via: The Hill
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Bradley A. Smith: Connecting the Dots in the IRS Scandal

 Now consider the following events, all of which were either widely reported, publicly released by officeholders or revealed later in testimony to Congress. These are the dots the media refuse to connect:

• Jan. 27, 2010: President Obama criticizes Citizens United in his State of the Union address and asks Congress to "correct" the decision.

• Feb. 11, 2010: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) says he will introduce legislation known as the Disclose Act to place new restrictions on some political activity by corporations and force more public disclosure of contributions to 501(c)(4) organizations. Mr. Schumer says the bill is intended to "embarrass companies" out of exercising the rights recognized inCitizens United. "The deterrent effect should not be underestimated," he said.

• Soon after, in March 2010, Mr. Obama publicly criticizes conservative 501(c)(4) organizations engaging in politics. In his Aug. 21 radio address, he warns Americans about "shadowy groups with harmless sounding names" and a "corporate takeover of our democracy."

• Sept. 28, 2010: Mr. Obama publicly accuses conservative 501(c)(4) organizations of "posing as not-for-profit, social welfare and trade groups." Max Baucus, then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, asks the IRS to investigate 501(c)(4)s, specifically citing Americans for Job Security, an advocacy group that says its role is to "put forth a pro-growth, pro-jobs message to the American people."

• Oct. 11, 2010: Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) asks the IRS to investigate the conservative 501(c)(4) Crossroads GPS and "other organizations."

• April 2011: White House officials confirm that Mr. Obama is considering an executive order that would require all government contractors to disclose their donations to politically active organizations as part of their bids for government work. The proposal is later dropped amid opposition across the political spectrum.

• Feb. 16, 2012: Seven Democratic senators— Michael Bennet (Colo.), Al Franken (Minn.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Mr. Schumer, Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Tom Udall (N.M.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.)—write to the IRS asking for an investigation of conservative 501(c)(4) organizations.

• March 12, 2012: The same seven Democrats write another letter asking for further investigation of conservative 501(c)(4)s, claiming abuse of their tax status.

• July 27, 2012: Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) writes one of several letters to then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman seeking a probe of nine conservative groups, plus two liberal and one centrist organization. In 2013 testimony to the HouseOversight and Government Reform Committee, former IRS Acting Commissioner Steven Miller describes Sen. Levin as complaining "bitterly" to the IRS and demanding investigations.

• Aug. 31, 2012: In another letter to the IRS, Sen. Levin calls its failure to investigate and prosecute targeted organizations "unacceptable."

• Dec. 14, 2012: The liberal media outlet ProPublica receives Crossroads GPS's 2010 application for tax-exempt status from the IRS. Because the group's tax-exempt status had not been recognized, the application was confidential. ProPublica publishes the full application. It later reports that it received nine confidential pending applications from IRS agents, six of which it published. None of the applications was from a left-leaning organization.

• April 9, 2013: Sen. Whitehouse convenes the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism to examine nonprofits. He alleges that nonprofits are violating federal law by making false statements about their political activities and donors and using shell companies to donate to super PACs to hide donors' identities. He berates Patricia Haynes, then-deputy chief of Criminal Investigation at the IRS, for not prosecuting conservative nonprofits.

• May 10, 2013: Sen. Levin announces that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will hold hearings on "the IRS's failure to enforce the law requiring that tax-exempt 501(c)(4)s be engaged exclusively in social welfare activities, not partisan politics." Three days later he postpones the hearings when Lois Lerner (then-director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division) reveals that the IRS had been targeting and delaying the applications of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

• Nov. 29, 2013: The IRS proposes new rules redefining "political activity" to include activities such as voter-registration drives and the production of nonpartisan legislative scorecards to restrict what the agency deems as excessive spending on campaigns by tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups. Even many liberal nonprofits argue that the rule goes too far in limiting their political activity—but the main target appears to be the conservative 501(c)(4)s that have so irritated Democrats.

• Feb. 13, 2014: The Hill newspaper reports that "Senate Democrats facing tough elections this year want the Internal Revenue Service to play a more aggressive role in regulating outside groups expected to spend millions of dollars on their races."

Via: Fox News

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Gov. Jan Brewer vetoes Arizona’s religious freedom bill: ‘Creates more problems than it purports to solve’

Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer announced she would veto a bill allowing those with religious objections to refuse service to gay people, saying the proposed law “creates more problems than it purports to solve.”

Brewer held a late afternoon news conference on Wednesday to reveal her decision, which was broadcast on Fox News. (RELATED: When ‘leave us alone’ became ‘bake us a cake!’)

The governor expressed her disappointment that despite the problems facing her state, “this was the first policy bill that crossed my desk.” She claimed the bill “does not address a specific of present concern related to religious liberty in Arizona. I’ve not heard one example in Arizona where business owners’ religious liberty has been violated.”

“The bill is broadly-worded and could result in unintended and negative consequences,” she continued. “After weighing all of the arguments, I have vetoed Senate Bill 1062 moments ago.”

She held out an olive branch to those disappointed by her ruling. “I understand that long-held norms about marriage and family are being challenged as never before,” she noted. “Our society is undergoing many dramatic changes. However, I sincerely believe that Senate Bill 1062 has the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve.”

“Religious liberty is a core American and Arizona value,” she concluded. “So is non-discrimination.”

The governor had been under tremendous pressure — including by many in the business community and within her own party — to veto the law.

Via: Daily Caller

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Reid hammered by GOP after claiming all ObamaCare 'horror stories' untrue

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is being hammered by Republican lawmakers after he claimed on the Senate floor that all the ObamaCare "horror stories" being circulated are untrue.

Reid tried to clarify his remarks late Wednesday by saying he was only referring to the “vast majority” of stories featured in ads funded by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group, and not the complaints of everyday Americans. However, he added fuel to the fire by continuing to slam the group’s backers, the Koch brothers, calling them “un-American.” 

Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips, in response, said Reid had effectively "attacked the character and integrity of every American who had the courage to share how they're being hurt by the president's health care law." 

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., called Reid's original remarks "astounding and offensive." 

Reid said Wednesday morning on the Senate floor that he believes Americans for Prosperity hires actors in their ads to tell fake stories about canceled policies, higher premiums and ruined lives under ObamaCare.

“There’s plenty of horror stories being told,” Reid said. “All of them are untrue. But they’re being told all over America.” 

It was an apparent reference to, among other instances, an AFP ad that featured a woman with cancer who claimed her health care became unaffordable under the law. Her story was called into question by critics, but she and AFP are standing by the ad. 

Via: Fox News

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