“Rotten to the Core”

Via NC Renegade

 

Common Core is an educational curriculum being forced upon the states by the Obama administration, which is scheduled to be mostly implemented this year in the 45 states that have adopted it. Common Core eliminates local control over K-12 curriculum in math and English, instead imposing a one-size-fits-all, top-down curriculum that will also apply to private schools and homeschoolers.

Common Core was has been promoted in a manner that sounds good and commendable – “States working together to create national standards for education… standards that are designed to be robust and relevant in the real world.”  Common Core describes itself as “internationally benchmarked,” “robust,” “aligned with college and work expectations,” “rigorous,” and “evidence-based.”

Common Core proponents claim that it is not a federal mandate, instead using language like “state-led” and “voluntary.” The Common Core website asserts, “The federal government was NOT involved in the development of the standards.” It states that Common Core is not a national curriculum, but “a clear set of shared goals and expectations for what knowledge and skills will help our students succeed. If you go to the Common Core website, this is what you will find:  Common Core is focused in two areas: Mathematics standards and English Language Arts standards.  It was created by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).

If the initiative sounds so hunky dory, why is there a growing resistance to this initiative in many states around the country, including right here in North Carolina? 

More @ For The Love Of God And Country

Russia staffs Mediterranean fleet. Turkey weighs payback for Syrian bombings

Via NC Renegade

 

Russian Navy Admiral Viktor Chirkov said Sunday, May 12, that the process is underway for creating a permanent staff to run Russian fleet operations in the Mediterranean Sea.  Speaking at Sevastopol, the Black Sea fleet’s home port, Adm. Chirkov said a staff of 20 officers was already in place. And the Mediterranean deployment would comprise five to six warships and their service vessels as well possibly as nuclear submarines which, say our military sources, are armed with nuclear ballistic missiles.

debkafile’s military sources: The new permanent deployment is the next Russian step for safeguarding Bashar Assad’s regime in Damascus and deterring military attacks on his Hizballah allies and Iranian interests in their three-way bloc.

Moscow is also announcing loud and clear that Russia is finally restoring its military presence to the Middle East in 2013 after the last Soviet squadron exited the Mediterranean in 1992.

The Russian naval step came 24 hours after two car bombs reduced to rubble the center of the Turkish town of Reyhanli near the Syrian border, killing 46 people and injuring scores. Turkish ministers at the scene Sunday openly blamed Syrian military intelligence for the attack’s planning and execution.

This raised concerns in Moscow that Ankara was preparing to deliver a serious reprisal, possibly in the form of an aerial or missile assault, on Syrian military targets.

More @ Debka

Draft Chelsea Clinton

Via Blue

Failure Rewarded

Via Ninety Miles From Liberty

D.C. police chief promises swift response to potential armed protest

Via Laguna Madre Pirate

Gun rights activists plan to openly carry weapons as they march across the Arlington Memorial Bridge into the District on July 4 as part of a protest organized by an Internet talk show host — a plan that drew a swift and confrontational response from the city’s police chief.

“If you’re coming here to break the law, then we’re going to take action,” Chief Cathy L. Lanier said Tuesday in an interview on News Channel 8. “There is a pretty good chance we’ll meet them on the D.C. side of the bridge.”

More @ Washington Times

Truths About Slavery

Via Billy

 New England Slave Ship

If you listen to the current and recent stories about slavery and the slave trade you will be led to think of it as an entirely Southern institution. You will think it was created by Southerners for the benefit of Southerners and that no one else had anything to do with it. This is how you are supposed to think.

This is how your public school “education” has programmed you to think. Truth has little or nothing to do with it. You are “educated” to believe “Marxist” truth whether you realize it or not. However, those who have educated your teachers realize it even if the teachers don’t.

Most of the time, though, Marxist truth (whatever supports the current agenda) will be a far cry from reality. This is one more reason to remove your kids from public school.

More @ Revised History

Sen James Inhofe: Obama Could Be Impeached Over Benghazi

Why Obama released embarrassing IRS bombshell

The Internal Revenue Service under the Obama administration – described by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., as the “most feared government agency” – admitted Friday it targeted conservative and tea-party groups during last year’s election because of their politics.

Bachmann, a former tax attorney, told WND in an interview the IRS admission means the credibility of the 2012 election is in doubt.

Americans, she said, should be wondering whether Obamacare, which is to be enforced by the IRS, will target conservative voices opposed to President Obama with delays or denials of medical care.

But why would an administration ever confess to such a flagrant misuse of politics and power?

Bachmann, who chairs the House Tea Party caucus, said it’s the Benghazi scandal.

“There’s no doubt this was not a coincidence that they dumped this story today, a Friday dump day,” Bachmann told WND. “This is when they put their negative stories out.”

But she said the looming storm cloud called Benghazi is the “soft underbelly” of the Obama administration and likely will keep Hillary Clinton from fulfilling her dream of occupying the Oval Office.

That would make it logical to release an IRS story that, while embarrassing, also could be cubbyholed as another “conservative” dispute with the White House.

More @ WND

Harvard's Feldstein: 'Economy Is Limping Along' Since Fed's Easing Has Failed

 

The Federal Reserve's effort to boost the economy with quantitative easing (QE) has failed, says Harvard economist Martin Feldstein.

"[T]he evidence suggests that the program has done little to raise economic growth while saddling the Fed with an enormous balance sheet," he writes in The Wall Street Journal.

The central bank has added more than $2 trillion to its balance sheet since 2007.

QE is supposed to help the economy by lifting stock prices, says Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan. The idea is that those higher share prices lead to greater household wealth, which then sparks increased consumer spending.

Despite the Fed's action, "the economy is limping along with per capita gross domestic product rising at less than 1 percent a year," Feldstein says.

"Even if all of the rise in the value of household equities since quantitative easing began could be attributed to the Fed policy, the implied increase in consumer spending would be quite small," he adds.

"At best, the Fed's long-term asset purchases reduced the extent to which the federal deficits crowded out equity purchases," Feldstein suggests.

"Although it is impossible to know what would happen without the central bank's asset purchases, the data imply that very little increase in [gross domestic product] can be attributed" to the Fed's effort to juice stock prices.

"The time has come for the Fed to recognize that it cannot stimulate growth and that a stronger recovery must depend on fiscal actions and tax reform by the White House and Congress," Feldstein writes.

More @ MoneyNews

All the gun related bills in North Carolina 2013-2014

Via K

As things firm up in the NC General Assembly, we’re starting to see all the gun related bills for the 2013-2014 NCGA Session. I’m planning on tracking each bill here. This page will have the names of all the gun related bills, plus a link to the latest post on each bill. If there isn’t a link, then there isn’t a post on that bill yet. Be patient. I’m just one guy.

NOTE: I will not be writing a post on a bill until it is past its first reading and is referred to committee.

Key: The link in the bill number goes to the NCGA website, the link in the bill title goes to my most recent post on it. The date is the date of that post. I will also write “Support” “Oppose” or “Meh” to indicate how I feel about the bill.

House Bills:

More @ NC Gun Blog

Susan Collins: I Don't Buy 'Rogue Agents' Claim

Republicans said Sunday that the Internal Revenue Service's heightened scrutiny of conservative political groups was "chilling" and further eroded public trust in government.

Lawmakers said President Barack Obama personally should apologize for targeting tea party organizations and they challenged the tax agency's blaming of low-level workers.

"I just don't buy that this was a couple of rogue IRS employees," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "After all, groups with 'progressive' in their names were not targeted similarly."

More @ Newsmax

Where the Hell are the Americans ?

WHERE ARE THE AMERICANS ?

 
  What has become of this country founded by individualists, free souls and men with the courage of their convictions ?

  Why have we allowed ourselves to deteriorate into such a despicable state that the freewill that created that famous “American Attitude” many around the world love to hate is now foreign and considered something to be repressed ?

  How many of you hesitate or no longer speak freely out of fear or retaliation and labeling ?

How many of you believe that your Christian religious beliefs are under attack by our Domestic Enemy and their policies of appeasement towards muslim potentates and their over financed representatives here in the US ?

 How many of you fear racial retaliation for speaking openly about your rights, your political representation or your personal views ?

 Why have we allowed ourselves to be belittled, kowtowed and intimidated by foreigners and domestic enemies into being, what our founders would be embarrassed to be, a nation of sheep begging for a sheep dog’s protection ?

WHERE ARE THE AMERICANS ?

More @ Trying Times

Lawless Nation, Lawless President, Disgraceful Senate Immigration bill S.744 (Schumer-Rubio)

About 1/3 of my A-26 squadron were KIA from 1966 to 1969 flying into Laos and North Vietnam.

 

Letting Obama be a law unto himself dishonors their memory and service and that of every American soldier, marine, airman, and sailor who have served from Lexington and Concord until today. Without courage, no other virtue can survive except by accident.

--Mike Scruggs

          5 minutes and 37 second video of statement by Chris Crane, top representative for ICE

                3 minutes and 20 second video of statement by Chris Crane, representing ICE

Obamacare: Taxpayers Must Report Personal Health ID Info to IRS & The largest tax increase in history

 

When Obamacare’s individual mandate takes effect in 2014, all Americans who file income tax returns must complete an additional IRS tax form. 

The new form will require disclosure of a taxpayer’s personal identifying health information in order to determine compliance with the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate.

As confirmed by IRS testimony to the tax-writing House Committee on Ways and Means, “taxpayers will file their tax returns reporting their health insurance coverage, and/or making a payment”.
So why will the Obama IRS require your personal identifying health information?

Simply put, there is no way for the IRS to enforce Obamacare’s individual mandate without such an invasive reporting scheme.

More @ Americans for Tax Reform

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Obama: $1 trillion in Obamacare spending is historic 'tax cut'

As part of a Mothers’ Day weekend defense of his signature legislative accomplishment, President Obama claimed that the law represented the “largest health care tax cut for working families and small businesses in our history. “

His argument was a Hail-Mary effort to redesignate subsidies for individuals to purchase health insurance on government-run exchanges as a “tax cut.” But according to the Congressional Budget Office, these subsidies actually qualify as more than $1 trillion in “Exchange Subsidies and Related Spending.” (Emphasis mine.)

Far from being a historic tax cut, Obamacare actually qualifies as one of the largest tax increases in history

More @ The Examiner

Doug Kass: Fed's Mandate Is Now to Elevate Stocks

Hedge fund manager Doug Kass' repeated forecast this year for a stock market correction obviously hasn't proven to be correct so far, and he blames it on the Federal Reserve.

"Where I've gone wrong, and I'm being a little facetious, is that I didn’t realize the Fed's mandate had gone from employment and inflation toward elevating the Dow and the S&P 500," he told CNBC.

Both indices closed at record highs again Wednesday.

"The earnings landscape continues to be challenging, and the market hasn’t cared because global monetary policy is dominating the revenue and earnings lethargy," said Kass, president of Seabreeze Partners.

"We're in a P/E [price-earnings]-driven market, and these are always far more difficult to assess than earnings-driven markets." That's because the P/E-driven markets move on the basis of sentiment and psychology, Kass explained.

More @ Moneynews