Covered California, the Golden State’s Obamacare subsidiary described as the “new, easy-to-use marketplace where you and your family may get financial assistance to make coverage more affordable,” is sending out voter registration cards premarked Democrat.
With their grip on the Senate in danger and with few winning issues to run on, Democrats are trying to turn the midterms into a referendum on the Koch brothers.
Charles Koch, 78, and David Koch, 73, who run the second-largest privately held company in the country, are pouring a chunk of their vast fortune into helping Republicans take back the Senate.
The billionaire MIT graduates have been hugely successful in building Koch Industries, a company founded by and named after their father, into a multinational conglomerate with $115 billion in annual revenues and 100,000 employees, 60,000 of whom work in the United States. The brothers have long bankrolled libertarian and conservative candidates and causes. Over the last decade, one of their spokesmen said, the Kochs also have given $1 billion to educational institutions, hospitals, cultural groups and other philanthropic causes.
With Democratic incumbents facing tough odds amid public discontent with Obamacare, the weak economic recovery and doubts about President Obama's leadership overseas, the party hopes to make the Kochs' support for Republican candidates the key issue for voters.
The Left has long railed against the Kochs, accusing them of using their money to roll back progressive policies. Democrats now have gone a step further, pouring millions of dollars into an effort to demonize the brothers ahead of the November voting. They are taking their case to the public with an array of personal attacks that portray the Kochs as plutocrats using their vast wealth to serve their own interests, not the public interest.
The Senate Majority PAC, Senate Democrats’ top outside group, has embarked on a $3 million ad campaign in 5 states — a tally almost equal to the $3.6 million the group has spent on all other races so far this cycle. The blitz is the most concrete attack on the Kochs yet.
Arkansas, Colorado and Louisiana will receive $500,000 each, and $1 million is going to North Carolina -- all states where Democratic incumbents are in danger of losing. Michigan, with an open Senate race, will also receive $500,000 in ad money.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is also launching what it calls a “major campaign” to tar Republican candidates who have benefited from Koch spending, labeling them “addicted to Koch.”
A KochAddiction.com website features colorful graphics accusing the Kochs' companies of producing "toxic chemicals, harmful pollutants, carcinogens and greenhouse gases." Another page says the brothers' "ideal America" would feature "lower wages, no Obamacare, no Social Security, tax breaks for billionaires, dirty air and dirty water."
Another outside Democratic group, Patriot Majority, is conducting a “Stop the Greed Agenda” bus tour in key districts. Participants deliver speeches about “the Koch Brothers’ voter suppression agenda, which ensures their friends and government officials are elected into office.”
For their part, Republicans say the Democrats are focusing on the Kochs because they're playing a losing hand. "We love it when they attack the Kochs because it means they don't have anything else to talk about," said a leading GOP strategist and fundraiser. "They can't run on Obamacare. They can't run on the economy."
Political parties have always tried to shine the spotlight on big-money donors backing the other side, with wealthy partisans often providing easy targets. Republicans regularly hammer both the financial impact of labor unions and wealthy Democratic supporters like George Soros, who has donated millions to the party and its candidates.
The Kochs are the primary backers of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative, tax-exempt, political-advocacy group that has spent $30 million since August 2013 on advertising to unseat Democrats, mostly by slamming Obamacare.
“Those ads have been moving numbers,” Jennifer Duffy, senior editor at the Cook Political Report, which rates political races, told the Washington Examiner.
In North Carolina, Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan has plummeted in the polls since the spots began airing. Hagan, who held a 10-point edge, has sunk to a virtual tie against GOP challengers.
The AFP blitz has also pummeled vulnerable Democratic incumbents in Arkansas, Alaska, New Hampshire and Louisiana. And the group is expanding its efforts to Colorado, where Democratic Sen. Mark Udall is slipping in the polls, and to Michigan and Iowa -- states where Republicans could pick up open Senate seats held for decades by Democrats.
With the GOP needing to gain six seats to take the Senate, the success of the AFP offensive has left Democrats doubling down on their anti-Koch strategy.
In Alaska, vulnerable Democratic Sen. Mark Begich has a new ad that tries to portray the Koch brothers as outsiders who shut down an oil refinery in the state and polluted the water supply.
Koch company officials call the ad “misleading and false” and said they are cleaning up pollution from a previous owner and are helping refinery workers find new jobs.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has played a conspicuous role in the Democrats' onslaught. A former boxer, Reid is known for taking swings at his political opponents. With his Democratic majority in danger, he may have the most at stake, and he has taken the rhetorical attacks against the Kochs to new levels.
“The Kochs should stick to what they know,” Reid said in a speech. “The oil business.”
Reid has taken aim at the brothers’ own reputations, describing them as “un-American” and “shadowy billionaires” out to rig the nation’s political system for their own personal benefit.
“This is about two very wealthy individuals who intend to buy their very own Congress,” said Reid. “A Congress beholden to their money and bound to enact their radical philosophy.”
That theme has also been woven into the Democrats’ fundraising strategy, which depends on smaller donations from the party's base. In a fundraising letter, Reid accused the brothers of “buying our elections. Without your support they’ll succeed in kicking Democrats out of the Senate majority this fall.”
But it is not clear if Democrats can succeed in making the Kochs an unattractive household name tethered to the GOP brand, even as Republican candidates stay focused on Obamacare and the economy.
A spokesman for Koch Industries disputed charges by Democrats that the libertarian-minded brothers are motivated by greed, saying they only had a desire to steer the nation’s beaten-down economy back to growth and prosperity.
“They care deeply about America and they are doing this because they feel the country is going in the wrong direction,” Koch Industries spokesman Robert Tappan told the Examiner.
The brothers want to promote “fundamental policies and philosophies that have gone by the wayside,” he said, such as limited government and freedom from burdensome regulations.
Tappan said the Kochs are not involved in the day-to-day operations of AFP, although Democrats charge that the brothers are obscuring their significant influence on the group.
Because AFP operates as a 501(c)(4) organization, it does not have to disclose its donors. Democrats say their ad hominem tactics against the Kochs are justified because the names of donors to AFP are not made public, even though plenty of “dark money” Democratic advocacy groups do not disclose their donors either.
Democrats argue that there is no comparing the Kochs to Soros or Tom Steyer, a former hedge fund manager who plans to raise $100 million to highlight climate change in the 2014 midterms.
“There’s a night-and-day difference,” Democratic strategist Chris Lehane told the Examiner. “The Kochs are spending money to advance their economic self-interest. Steyer, for example, has committed to giving away his wealth for causes he believes in, that benefit everyone.”
Supporters of the Kochs say many Democratic attacks have been proven false and overstate the brothers' clout. One story that went viral but has since been debunked claimed that Koch Industries stands to make a $100 billion profit from constructing the Keystone XL pipeline, which the brothers support.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, AFP spent $36 million in the 2012 election cycle trying to unseat President Obama and congressional Democrats -- placing it second among 501(c)(4) groups. Karl Rove's American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS ranked first on the list, with $71 million.
Non-disclosing liberal groups spent far less — about $35 million overall.
Koch Industries, according to CRP, has donated more than $18 million to Republican candidates since 1989, ranking only 59th among political contributors during that period.
At the top of the list is ActBlue, a grassroots fundraising group that has donated $97 million to Democrats since 1989, more than four times as much as the Kochs have given directly to Republican candidates. Two union groups round out the top three, with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees at $61 million and the National Education Association at $59 million.
Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips called Democrats’ accusations “laughable,” and said the only real difference between the groups is ideological.
“There is an enormous double standard,” Phillips told the Examiner.
“The largest funder in the American public policy area are the unions. They dwarf anything that we do, or what anyone else does,” he said. “But no one on the Left or in the media questions that.”
The Obama administration lately has demanded much from American soldiers, who now face possible reductions in the number in their ranks as well as higher payments toward their health benefits. That’s in addition to duty in Afghanistan, or worse.
In the latest slap to the face of U.S. Department of Defense personnel, Obama now is asking those soldiers to oversee the digging of toilets at a girl’s school in Kenya, his “home country,” as First Lady Michelle Obama once publicly put it.
The Naval Facilities Engineering Command is tasked with coordinating the endeavor, involving the construction of a building containing 16 female “dry-pit latrines” for the Mpeketoni Secondary School, according to project Statement of Work that WND discovered during routine database research.
WND has provided unparalleled reporting on the “exponential growth” of U.S. assistance to Kenya in recent years, as founder and CEO Joseph Farah recently pointed out in an editorial.
That coverage includes an expos̩ of a sophisticated, advertising industry style scheme Рwhich the administration subsequently covered up Рto sway journalistic opinion in its favor.
Emblazoned with the Kenyan and United States flags side-by-side, a temporary outdoor sign at the school-latrine facility will announce “In cooperation with the Kenyan Government, funding for this project is provided by the U.S. Government,” according to construction-plan specifications.
Four weeks prior to project completion, a “dedication plaque” will be affixed to the building at spot offering “optimal visibility.” Final wording on the plaque remains undetermined, the SOW says.
This female-friendly project comes at a time when the Kenyan parliament has passed a rather controversial – and female-unfriendly – bill that would enable men to marry as many women as each pleases, according to an Agence France-Press report via the Guardian newspaper.
The article says polygamy already is “common among traditional communities in Kenya, as well as among the country’s Muslim community, which accounts for up to a fifth of the population.”
On Kenya’s polygamy bill, Katherine Pfaff, the Department of State’s press duty Officer, wrote, “We don’t have a comment on this.”
The administration has made gender equality a priority, often contractually obligating federal vendors to weave gender-specific corrective measures into individual foreign-aid projects – regardless of the otherwise primary focus of those assistance actions.
State Department visa regulations, however, differentiate between polygamy – “the historical custom or religious practice of having more than one wife or husband at the same time” – and bigamy, which the U.S. views as “a criminal act resulting from having more than one spouse at a time without benefit of a prior divorce.”
Visa applicants under these rules can indeed be rejected if it is suspected they intend to practice polygamy while in the U.S.
The U.S. Agency for International Development separately is deploying a Public Financial Management Adviser whose duties it will equally divide between Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, and Washington, D.C.
The adviser will guide the USAID/East Africa team on efforts across the border in Somalia, where the U.S. seeks to help reverse the effects of a two-decade absence of a functioning finance system, central bank or tax collection system.
USAID likewise is assisting the Somali Federal Government – which is “unable to attract investment or pay debt” – by helping it build a “durable, transparent public financial management system.”
Despite this “political progress,” USAID deems the Somalia initiative as a “non-presence program” managed by a staff of 16 in Nairobi.
Also slated for funding on the continent is school-based sex-education, where in South Africa USAID will spend up $24 million on such initiatives.
Initial focus will be on grades 7–9, encompassing the 13- to 15-year-old demographic, but eventually will span from grade 3-12.
“During adolescence, children begin to form their identity, experiment with sex, and search for acceptance by peers, who influence their behaviors,” according to the SOW governing the South Africa School-Based Sexuality and HIV Prevention Education Activity.
“High quality, school-based programs for sexuality education and HIV prevention can give young people the knowledge, self-efficacy and skills to delay first sex, and to protect themselves from HIV and unintended pregnancy once they initiate sexual activity.”
See the Kenya plans:
And here is WND’s reporting on Obama’s spending in Kenya:
The United States Institute for Peace recently brought together the governors of Nigeria’s mostly Muslim northern states for a conference in the U.S., but the State Department blocked the visa of the region’s only Christian governor, an ordained minister, citing “administrative” problems.
The visa of Plateau State Gov. Jonah David Jang, has been held up by the Obama administration for than a year, according to Ann Buwalda of the Jubilee Project, which focuses on Nigerian human rights.
Of the 19 states northern states, 12 have implemented Islamic law, or Shariah, noted Buwalda.
Jang’s visa has been tied up in security background checks described as “administrative processing” since July 2012,” she said.
“This is despite the fact that he has never violated the terms of his visa,” Buwalda said.
The USIP confirmed that all 19 northern governors were invited, but the organization did not respond to requests for comments on holding the talks without the region’s only Christian governor.
Emmanuel Ogebe, a human rights lawyer and counsel for the U.S. Nigeria law group, said the Christian governor’s “visa problems” are because of bias in the U.S. government.
“The U.S. insists that Muslims are the primary victims of Boko Haram. It also claims that Christians discriminate against Muslims in Plateau, which is one of the few Christian majority states in the north. After the [governor] told them that they were ignoring the 12 Shariah states who institutionalized persecution … he suddenly developed visa problems,” he said.
While the State Department confirmed that the USIP conference took place, the federal bureaucracy there had no comment regarding Jang’s visa issues, citing confidentiality rules.
Buwalda said it’s not unusual for the U.S. government to exclude Christians in Nigeria discussions and meetings.
“My personal observation and view is that some staff within the [State Department] have an unbalanced perception that somehow raising the persecution of Christians minimizes the persecution of Muslims or even favors Christians over Muslims,” she said.
Buwalda said that in the State Department’s “current mandate to limit reporting to ‘trends,’ a distortion results in that the ongoing violence against Christians is underreported or not reported because it is not a new trend.”
“Another contributing factor is the reporting efforts by some groups, including Western human rights reporting groups, to report only on acts of violence against Muslim communities often based on anecdotal information while whitewashing or ignoring the acts of violence perpetrated on the Christian minority community,” she said.
She said she’s found “in meetings that there is often a shallow or a distorted understanding of the dynamics on the ground relying on sources of information which are dubious and unreliable.”
“It is our goal to provide accurate and factual reporting which truthfully describes acts of violence, the religious identity of the victims, and root causes which does not shy away from referencing the declarations of the persecutors as to why they are carrying out the acts of violence.”
Center for Security Policy Senior Fellow Clare Lopez said that based on the administration’s actions regarding Islamic issues, exclusion of the Christian governor is not a surprise.
“Remember how long it took for the State Department to add Boko Haram to the Foreign Terrorism Organizations list? This is despite evidence of its relationships with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Shabaab,” Lopez said.
She said the State Department “is steadfastly refusing to admit, even now, that Boko Haram’s rampages against Christian communities in Nigeria have anything whatsoever to do with Islam.”
Lopez said the Obama administration effectively is complicit with Islamic law.
“This [administration] knowingly and deliberately has subordinated its decision-making to the Islamic jihad and Shariah narrative,” she said. “We know that all training that would educate DoS (DHS, DoD, DoJ, etc.) officials and employees on down to local law enforcement about the threat from Islamic jihad and Shariah systematically has been purged from the … curriculum. Trainers and instructors who formerly taught such subjects are blacklisted,” Lopez said.
Lopez emphasized that the administration’s actions are deliberate and an abrogation of members’ oaths of office, adding: “It may well be prosecutable – material support to terrorism as well as aiding and abetting the enemy in time of war.”
The White House has not responded to WND’s request for comment.
Buwalda said the U.S. government blames the Christians for the violence.
“In fact, unrelated to the governor’s visa issue, three of our Nigerian colleagues including a former congresswoman from Plateau State and I participated in a Department of State meeting with high level officials last year in May or June [who] very bluntly declared how the governor of Plateau State was to blame for unrest in his state,” Buwalda said.
“I was shocked at the hostility.”
Ogebe wrote in his blog, “Justice for Jos,” that Boko Haram has made clear that it will not attack mosques.
“Boko Haram has gone out of its way to emphasize that it does not attack Islamic places of worship. However it does assassinate Muslim critics after worship when they are vulnerable. Boko Haram’s first attack inside a mosque in the five-year insurgency occurred in 2013. Their targets were Muslims who had cooperated with the authorities against the terrorists. It was not a random attack on Christians as has been the case,” Ogebe wrote.
Ogebe said there are specific circumstances for Boko Haram to attack a Muslim.
“Recently, Boko Haram acknowledged killing a Muslim cleric who had been critical of them. It is likely the terrorists’ first claim of responsibility for the killing of a fellow Muslim,” Ogebe said. “The question remains – why is the U.S. downplaying or denying the attacks against Christians?”
To support the claim, Ogebe cites the executive summary of the State Department Human Rights report, which referenced Boko Haram violence but neglected to mention the victims’ religious identity, except for the reference to a mosque attack.
“Throughout much of the country, Boko Haram perpetrated numerous killings and attacks, often directly targeting civilians,” he wrote.
“During the year, the sect, which recruited child soldiers, claimed responsibility for coordinated assaults on social and transportation hubs in Kano; an attack on the town of Baga; multiple attacks on schools and mosques; an attack on the town of Benesheik; and the killing of government, religious, and traditional figures.”
On Feb. 17, the terrorist group Ansaru, believed to be a Boko Haram faction, kidnapped seven foreigners in Bauchi State, he pointed out.
Ogebe noted the other attacks listed were all against Christian targets.
Everybody and their mama is calling themselves a Conservative nowadays, including RINO’s (Republicans In Name Only). The term has become so watered down I nearly caved to the temptation to stop using it to describe my own political philosophy. Instead, I realized it was time for someone to define it; it was time to draw the proverbial Red Line where wannabe’s dare not cross. As a result, I came up with my 5C’s of Conservatism. Here they are:
1.) Christ: This is the most important “C.” Why? Without God all truth, values, and morality are mere opinions. Moral relativism is king and it doesn’t mean a thing! Conservatism is built on facts and Natural law. When Jesus says “if a man doesn’t work he shall not eat,” and Obama implies you don’t have to work to eat; or when a woman says what’s growing in her stomach is just tissue and God says “before you were born I knew you,” there has to be a measuring stick to determine who’s right. That measuring stick is God.
2.) Constitution: The Constitution is our referee in the game of freedom. It will never grow outdated regardless of technological advances because it deals with human nature. Tyranny by despots is forbidden unless “We The People” allow it. People like Martin Luther King Jr. fought for equal rights under our Constitution, not extra rights mind you, like some of the civil rights scam artist of our day. He like so many of our Founding Father’s understood the divine intervention of framing our Constitution. He believed in the American Exceptionalism that our founding documents provided and he fought and died to ensure that those same inalienable rights were realized for all.
3.) Capitalism: Socialism isn’t natural! No one grows up with aspirations of government dependency! Socialism is the epitome of greed and envy! You waste time ignoring your own God given gifts in order to vilify those that may have fulfilled theirs. Recall the Parable of the Talents where Jesus made it clear (at least to Christians) that he’s invested in your life and he expects a return on that investment. Under Socialism your misery is a career politicians’ security, but Capitalism empowers you while limiting the power of those that would seek to rule over you. In a Capitalist society it doesn’t matter where you start in life, because the only person that can stop you from moving up is you.
4.) Compassion: The term “Compassionate Conservative” is one of the dumbest and most dangerous I’ve ever heard in American politics, and it’s insane for the GOP to use it! It implies we’re mean. Modern day Conservatism when defined correctly is the most compassionate philosophy on the planet. Liberalism looks Uncle Sam dead in the eye and confesses “I’m nothing without you.” Conservatism looks him in the eye and proclaims “you’re nothing without me!” Conservatives love helping people draw out and take advantage of their God given talents no matter who they are.
5.) Communication: When you have the wrong information you arrive at the wrong conclusions. As Conservatives were use to having the facts on our side, but as the old adage goes “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” We can succeed in expressing our love and concern to every race, sex, and economic class by making politics personal. There’s a reason Jesus used parables. It works! Democrats are subjecting their voters (aka victims) to long term poverty because they emotionally appeal to their fears; let us appeal to their hopes, and we must not be afraid to deliver our message on their turf.
Jackson is a radio talk show host - his website is www.carljackson.com
Morris Dees is the founder and driving force behind the Southern Poverty Law Center. I first became aware of him in my early twenties, after the fund-raising company for which I worked accepted the SPLC as a client. Morris Dees was sold to us as a champion of civil rights. I bought it. I was proud to work for them and I raised more money for them than I’d ever raised for any other client – until it came to my attention that they didn’t really need the money as much as I’d believed. [1]
In the years following I put the SPLC out of my mind completely. A little while ago, I started hearing the SPLC mentioned when opponents of men’s rights decide to smear AVfM as a hate group- one of the hate groups SPLC fundraisers use to sweet talk their way into to wallets of poor, elderly contributors and wealthy supporters alike. I love a scam case as much as the next gal so, with the help of a colleague, I hunkered down and did some digging.
I found that there are already so many articles and blog posts concerning the hypocritical nature of this organization that I almost didn’t bother to write this article at all – But my colleague managed to get her hands on a copy of Morris Dees divorce documents. One read through those forms left me wondering how, in this day of tabloids and shock television, Mr. Dees manages to maintain his knight-in-shining-armor image.
These documents read like the script of a Lifetime network movie. Morris is portrayed as a run-of-the-mill, evil male monster. There’s allegations of child molestation, spousal abuse and unconventional sexual behavior described in enough detail to upset most anyone. The document is so sensational that I hesitate to believe most of the details. The sole source of the information seems to be a very angry soon to be ex – spouse, who, considering the probable payoff, had every reason to lie. If the allegations brought against him by his ex wife are actually false and if Dees lost any money in this apparently very nasty divorce, it seems to me that he should be supporting men’s rights, rather than idly allowing the organization he founded to attack men’s rights activists. Call me old fashioned.
The only reason I mention these documents at all, and posted them along with the other sources[2], is because one of the milder events detailed makes an excellent analogy for what appears to be Mr. Dees’ approach to business.
The event occurred on July 3, 1978. Morris Dees met with both his wife and his mistress and asked each one to tell him how much she loved him. Upon hearing their statements he told them that he couldn’t live without either of them. Seeing that he meant to carry on with both of them, his wife forced him to choose. In the end he chose his wife but continued to sneak around with his mistress.
Analogy for what, you ask? Allow me to explain.
In many of the biographies about Morris Dees publicly available online, it is said that as a teen he was punished by his father for using a derogatory term in reference to a black man.[3] In his own autobiography Dees’ admits to having earned money doing legal work for the KKK in 1962.[4] The information surrounding the former incident of racially bigoted behavior suggests that Mr. Dees’ father taught him that being a bigot was wrong, but if that were the lesson learned would the latter have occurred?
I think that the lesson teenaged Morris Dees took from his father’s punishment was something more along the lines of; If you’re going to be a bigot you’d better not be obvious about it. On close inspection, the Southern Poverty law Center isn’t quite as concerned with the plight of black people as they’d have us believe.
Supporting this observation is an incident in 1986 when the SPLC’s entire legal staff quit in protest of Dees’ refusal to address any of the issues presenting real problems to the black community. Gloria Browne, a lawyer who quit a few years after the incident in 1986 criticized the SPLC for “cashing in on white guilt and black pain.” Former black employees complained that the Center was run like a plantation. [5]
All of this information is publicly available as the SPLC continues ride it’s reputation for fighting racism. Although their impact in civil rights is relatively small when compared to other civil rights charities, the SPLC’s income dwarfs those of its contemporaries. That fact has been pointed out several times.
Question: How do they do it?
Answer: Silence.
In 1995 the Montgomery Advertiser ran a series of articles examining the SPLC’s fund-raising tactics and vast wealth. The articles were nominated and became finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.[6] Those articles are now very well hidden if they are available at all. When confronted with his divorce documents, which he tried to have legally sealed, Dees simply refuses to respond. All criticisms of their financial workings are met with silence.
Remember that analogy I mentioned? Now consider the fact that the SPLC’s ‘work’ on the side of civil rights is supported by contributors -over two hundred million dollars to date[7], while Mr. Dees’ efforts of behalf of a Klan member brought him only what would amount to tens of thousands in today’s dollar value. Clearly the ‘Champion of Tolerance’ image loves him far more than that of bigoted Southerner.
When it comes to the criticisms and accusations directed at Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center, silence is just good business. After all it just isn’t wise for a man to argue with his mistress within earshot of his wife.
[1] http://salientsight.com/nurdydancing/the-southern-poverty-law-center/
[2] http://www.avoiceformen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2012/09/SPLC-Founder-Morris-Dees.pdf
[3] http://biography.yourdictionary.com/morris-s-dees-jr
[4] http://rkeefe57.wordpress.com/tag/klan/
[5] http://www.chemistrydaily.com/chemistry/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center
[6] http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/1995
[7] http://cdna.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/resource/SPLC_Annual_Report_2011.pdf
~Special thanks to my friend I.M. Zed who managed to get the really interesting files from the hard to reach places~
And that's exactly where State Rep. Dwight Kay's (R-Glen Carbon) House Resolution 543 to delay the implementation of Common Core curriculum stands Thursday - in a "Special Issues" subcommittee - with a promise that the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee will take up the measure with a full hearing in the "near future."
However, Rep. Kay continues to listen to constituents and talk to House colleagues about the concern among parents, teachers and administrators as to the expense associated with setting Common Core standards into affect in Illinois. A study by the Pioneer Institute, a non-partisan, privately funded research organization, estimates that Common Core will cost Illinois schools $773 million over the next seven years, something which concerns a growing number of Republican and two Democrat House members.
Downstate Democrat House members Brandon Phelps and Jerry Costello II signed onto Kay's effort this week, making the call for Common Core delay bi-partisan - a crucial step in the Democrat-controlled Illinois House.
Erin Raasch, who hosts the Stop Common Core Illinois Facebook page says the work the group did was noticed by committee members during Wednesday's hearing.
The Supreme Court, in a one-hour, twenty-eight-minute session Tuesday, staged something like a two-act play on a revolving stage: first the liberals had their chance and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy gave them some help, and then the scene shifted entirely, and the conservatives had their chance — and, again, Kennedy provided them with some support.
So went the argument in the combined cases of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius. The “contraceptive mandate” in the new federal health care law, challenged under federal law and the Constitution, fared well in the first scene, and badly in the second.
But the ultimate outcome, it seemed, will depend upon how Justice Kennedy makes up his mind. There was very little doubt where the other eight Justices would wind up: split four to four.
(Art Lien)
In the first drama, Kennedy worried over the plight of female workers, and he suggested that their interests could be protected with little cost to their employers. In the second he worried over the plight of corporations owned by families opposed to abortion and he implied that forcing them to pay for it would be wrong.
The hearing could not have been a pleasant experience for two experienced advocates — Washington attorney and former U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, and current Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., making a return engagement from their encounter two years ago when the Affordable Care Act first came up for review in the Court — when each won something.
In the end, what made trouble for each of them Tuesday was the slippery slope: if we ruled for you, what would that mean for other factual scenarios or other laws that might impinge on religious beliefs?
Clement was badgered throughout his time at the lectern, especially by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, who suggested that if corporations gain an exemption from having to provide birth-control services for their female employees, then the next complaint would be about vaccinations, blood transfusions, and a whole host of other medical and non-medical services that a company or its owners might find religiously objectionable.
Paul Clement arguing for Hobby Lobby and Conestoga (Art Lien)
Early in the argument, Justice Kennedy asked non-committally how the Court could avoid the constitutional issue of the mandate’s impact on the right to freely exercise religion. Clement said it would be easy, and relying only on a federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, would clearly favor a corporate exemption to the mandate.
When Kagan and then Sotomayor said corporations could accommodate their female workers’ access to contraception at little financial cost, either by paying a penalty for not providing the service in the health plan or by giving up such a plan altogether, Kennedy chimed in to suggest that, financially, at least, it would be “a wash.”
When those two explored whether the government was letting too many businesses escape the mandate by “grandfathering” their health plans, Kennedy interrupted to say that the conversation was focusing only on the mandate from the perspective of the employers. What about the workers, who may not agree with their employers’ religious beliefs, Kennedy asked skeptically: ”Does religion just trump that?”
When it was Solicitor General Verrilli’s turn at the lectern, he found immediately that Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito, Jr., were ready to pounce, disputing each of the government lawyer’s core points about the need for the contraceptive mandate in this context.
Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, Jr. (Art Lien)
When Verrilli began putting heavy emphasis on his point that the Court, in weighing religious claims, must take full account of the negative impact that has on “third parties” who would be affected, Justice Scalia told him that the RFRA law makes no mention of third-party interests.
When Verrilli said the Court has never found a right to exercise religion for corporations, Alito wondered if there was something wrong with the corporate form that it would not be accorded religion freedom rights. Did Verrilli agree, Alito said, with a lower court’s view that the only reason for a corporation to exist was to “maximize profits?” Verrilli said no, but Alito had made his point.
Chief Justice Roberts wondered why, if a corporation could bring a claim of race discrimination, why couldn’t it bring a claim of religious discrimination? And, seeming to look for a way to rule narrowly for corporations, he suggested that the case might be decided by finding such protection only for corporations that are owned by a tightly limited group of shareholders. Verrilli tried to resist both thrusts.
As Verrilli’s situation worsened, Justice Kennedy moved in to wonder why it was that Congress would allow a government agency — the Health and Human Services Department — “the power to decide a First Amendment issue of this consequence…. That is for Congress, not for an agency.” Kennedy would repeat that criticism later in the argument.
Although the Solicitor General had to contend mostly with questions and comments by the conservative members of the Court, he also had some difficulty when one of the Court’s moderate liberals — Justice Stephen G. Breyer — finally moved into the argument to ask why the government couldn’t just pay for the services it wanted female workers to have.
Verrilli tried to answer by saying that, if the government did try a different way to assure such services for corporate employees, the religious owners of some companies would just challenge that, too. That did not satisfy Breyer, who wanted to know “how this case fits into the broader spectrum” of how courts and government accommodate religion.
Breyer did not seem to be lining up with the corporations, but instead looking for assurances that a ruling against them in this case might have broader implications that worried him.
The low point for Verrilli, however, came late in his argument, when Justice Kennedy told him bluntly: “Under your view, for-profit corporations can be forced to pay for abortion. Your reasoning would permit that…. You say that for-profit corporations have no standing to litigate what their shareholders believed.”
Wisely, and predictably, Clement would start his rebuttal with Kennedy’s comment about corporations being forced to pay for abortions. He obviously wanted that thought to linger as the Justices left the bench.
George Orwell gave us some invaluable words: Newspeak, doublethink, thoughtcrime. Given the generosity of his gift to us, it is probably ungrateful to desire that he had given us a little more, but we could use a term for what he described as the use of “language as an instrument for concealing or preventing thought.” For lack of a genuine Orwellian coinage, I’ll use the word “antithought,” by which I mean a phrase or expression that is intended to prevent understanding rather than to enable it. Antithought includes elements of the linguistic meme, question-begging, and attempts to change the subject.
Advertisement
As a phrase, “voting against their own interests” clearly has taken on a contagious life of its own, a genuine linguistic meme. But what is its function? Its ostensible function is to communicate the idea that conservative people of modest means, particularly in relatively poor Republican-leaning states, vote for candidates who are in fact hostile to their economic interests, having been beguiled into voting thus by the so-called social issues, by religion, by racism, by Fox News, or by whatever attendant boogeyman will do to swell progressivism, start a tweet or two. But its ostensible function is not its authentic function, nor can it be, because the antithought is engineered to foreclose discussion of the facts that it assumes, those being: (1) that conservative economic policies ill serve lower-income people, notably those in rural and agrarian areas; (2) that economic concerns should, as a matter of self-evident rationality, supersede non-economic concerns; and (3) that people in “Kansas” — that greater Kansas whose borders are not contiguous with those of the 34th state — would concede No. 1 and No. 2 if not for the nefarious operations of certain wicked social and political forces.
Here, antithought is essential to the hopes of the so-called progressive movement (another perversion of language: the idea that a political tendency that seeks to impose 1930s-style central-planning policies, which have their intellectual roots in the government of Bismarck, is in anno Domini 2014 “progressive”). There are a few centuries’ worth of very good economic data suggesting that economic policies oriented toward the security of property, free trade, free enterprise, regulation that is both light and consistent, and a relatively small political footprint upon the economy produce economic growth and widespread prosperity, and that this dynamic functions in both relative and absolute terms — which is why, for example, Chinese people are poor in China while Chinese people are rich in Hong Kong, and why India is richer than Pakistan. Kansas may very well be making a rational and historically literate judgment that Republican economic policies, defective as they often are, remain more oriented toward growth and more hostile to central planning than do Democratic policies, and that this is likely to leave the country as a whole, and thus Kansas, better off. In fact, the general prosperity of the United States, even after the punishing economic episodes of the past decade and more, is a scandal to the Left, as are the market-oriented and fiscally conservative reformist movements that have achieved so much in places such as Sweden and Canada. The horrifying thought of general prosperity under capitalism is therefore to be met with another antithought: “the 1 percent.”
None of this should be taken as explaining away the economic difficulties facing the American middle class, the American poor, or, for that matter, the global poor, each of which groups is facing different but serious problems. The purpose of antithought in this context is, as Paul Ryan has been learning, to prevent discussion about why poor people are poor and what might be done about it. It is a tool used to avoid ever making explicit the implicit claim of progressives that the poor would cease being poor if a larger share of the economy were put under political discipline and made subject to the benevolent direction of institutions that progressives control.
Bad language can be good politics. On Sunday evening, I was dismayed, though not surprised, to read Paul Begala denouncing Ken Starr as “obsessed with sex,” Mr. Starr having indulged what Mr. Begala imagines to be some very specific and exotic perversion by submitting a brief in the Hobby Lobby religious-liberties case. Mr. Begala has enjoyed great success deploying the “obsessed with sex” antithought for a decade and a half now, ever since the Clinton machine began chanting it in the manner of an Arkansas-based cargo cult during the Lewinsky affair. That particular antithought was spectacularly successful: Bill Clinton caused the nation’s business to come to a halt because of his uncontrollable sexual appetites and the attendant shame that resulted in his being impeached on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. President Clinton was guilty at least of the perjury charge, as his subsequent disbarment affirmed, but, as my friend Andrew C. McCarthy points out, an impeachment is a political matter rather than a legal one, and the Clinton organization’s arsenal of antithought helped to see him through.
It was a masterpiece of antithought: President Clinton was so sex-obsessed that he was willing to risk his presidency and the national interest in exchange for treating the White House intern pool as his personal seraglio, he lied on national television about it, he betrayed his family and allies, and he suffered the shame of impeachment and disbarment — but it was Ken Starr who was “sex-obsessed” for investigating the crimes that President Clinton committed in the service of his libido. Mr. Begala, who himself once lost an election to Hank the Hallucination, an imaginary character from a cartoon strip, is no prisoner of reality. But then, neither are the members of the constituencies he seeks to build, most of whom are content to derive their understanding of real events and ideas from imaginary characters and middling comedians.
And neither are most voters. Understanding politics and policy is work, because thought is work. Antithought, on the other hand, is easy, which is why such content-free phrases as “X much?” (e.g., “Straw man much?” “Issues much?” etc.), “must have touched a nerve,” and the like pass for insight, even wit. This species of antithought does not quite rise to the level of a talking point, being somewhere between that and a simple grunt. Part of it is lazy thinking, but part of it is the conscious construction and propagation of antithought. “If thought corrupts language,” Orwell wrote, “language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.” Among the main allures of such “debased language,” he argued, is that it is convenient: “Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy.”
That nothing desirable ever was easy is not advice that one could offer Bill Clinton with a straight face, so Paul Begala’s particular brand of well-engineered illiteracy, which is moral as well as intellectual, can be assumed to be as inevitable as the weather. Antithought is just another tool in the toolbox for campaign operatives and others of that ilk. But a culture of antithought is a different and dangerous thing for the free people of a self-governing republic if they expect to remain such.
— Kevin D. Williamson is National Review’s roving correspondent and the author of The End Is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome.
What will life be like after the internet? Thanks to the mass surveillance undertaken by the National Security Agency and the general creepiness of companies like Google and Facebook, I've found myself considering this question. I mean, nothing lasts forever, right?
There's a broad tech backlash going on right now; I wonder just how deep the disillusionment runs. I get the feeling that there are folks out there who would relish putting the internet behind us sooner rather than later. Imagine that: even the internet could be a thing of the past one day. What would that be like? No Facebook. No Google. No government nerds looking through your webcam.
But could we become more secure without abandoning the internet? What if there's a third way? One that doesn't involve either passive resignation to being exploited or a Luddite smash-the-looms fantasy. What if we began to develop and encourage the adoption of machines and a network that are actually secure – through which neither thieves, corporations, nor the NSA could track us – and what if these could be configured by us, to really do what we want them to do? To stop the spying, stealing and monitoring, but to allow other things to continue.
What would that look like?
We all know by now that the NSA and the UK's Government Communication Headquarters are reading our emails, listening to our phone conversations, storing our metadata and using our computers and phones to watch us. A bunch of dorky guys amassing huge collections of pictures of tits and dicks. Here they are, hard at work, protecting us:
I know I feel safer now! Happy viewing, guys! If we had any doubts before, now we know that the government doesn't trust us – so very many of us – and we certainly don't trust it.
Meanwhile, thieves have managed to get their hands on more than 100 million credit card numbers and PINs from Target and Neiman Marcus. Lots of cyber thieves operate in the former Soviet republics, so maybe that new sports car in Baku or that night on the town in Sofia is courtesy of your hard-earned savings.
It's not just the government and thieves who take advantage of the web's weird combination of opacity and insecurity; Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and other tech companies repurpose our phones and tablets into tracking and monitoring devices. Google, for one, makes a lot of money gathering information from us and selling it to advertisers. The free conveniences we enjoy – email, endless web browsing, cats and all sorts of gossip – are not, in fact, free. They are merely clever trade-offs for information about you. In return for access to much of the world's knowledge, we hand over valuable personal information about everything we believe, everything we're curious about, everything we desire or fear – everything that makes us who we are, at least to the retailers, advertisers and secret government agencies on the receiving end.
It is we who are being sold.
Trading our privacy for the convenience of a Google search is not so different from giving up constitutionally protected freedoms in exchange for the "security" that our government claims to offer. At least with Google and other tech services we know we're getting something; whether we actually are more secure because of the NSA's surveillance is an unresolved question. We are frequently told that this indiscriminate data collection has produced valuable results, but those results are "secret," so you'll just have to trust the government. I'm not saying we don't need strong security measures to protect us from lunatics, but this dragnet surveillance has gone way beyond meeting that need.
Cyber thieves, for their part, don't offer the average internet user anything in return – not only that, but they make money selling information about the security gaps they find to the US government. It's an open question whether the government actually wants to patch up those holes and make the internet more secure. For now, it's in its interest to keep these holes open – available for future use, but secret. And we know how good the government is at keeping secrets.
To a lot of folks it appears that the corporations, the thieves and the government are all doing exactly the same thing: the "legal" behavior and the illegal theft are cousins. Spying and cyber theft are not freak phenomena; increasingly, they appear to be unavoidable consequences of online access as it now exists.
As the internet has become more integral to our lives, we've become more vulnerable to its seductions, and the web has started to act like a bully, a drug dealer. It knows we need it, love it and are addicted to it, so it can take advantage of that need.
Moreover, the internet is no longer even egalitarian. And that was one of the big pluses! Once it seemed that everyone had the same access to information. Soon, though, its glories will be available only to those who can afford them. Recently, Verizon won a court ruling against net neutrality, which the Federal Communications Commission has announced it will not appeal, so the way is clear for corporations to play favorites with internet traffic. Clearly this miraculous technology – developed in part with the noble ambition that nuclear scientists might communicate freely – has been perverted into something dark and disturbing.
These deteriorating conditions feed into the rapidly growing discontent regarding the internet. What if the disillusionment eventually reaches a point at which many feel that the free services and convenience no longer compensate for the exploitation, control and surveillance? What if, one night, a small group of people decided they've had enough and say, Let's call it a day? What exactly might this imaginary band of outsiders do? Would they or could they shut down the entire internet? Is that even possible? And what would be the consequences? Now, let's be clear, I'm not advocating this, but I also don't think it's entirely outside the realm of possibility.
As we all know by now, the NSA tapped into a vast amount of international and domestic internet communications by installing devices in small rooms in data centers in San Francisco and a few other places. It didn't require an all-out assault to subvert one of these fortresses – just a small intervention with impunity and intent. Here is what the inside of one of these buildings looks like:
That's what makes it all work? My music studio isn't this messy!
The internet, it seems, is not "nowhere". There are nodes in the internet, where great amounts of data come and go, and they do have real physical locations. Intercept a few of these nodes – there are some here in downtown New York, linked to some in Lisbon, where the fiberoptic cables surface – and you can infiltrate the whole world, as the NSA knows. They needed access to only a few undistinguished buildings to get what they wanted.
So… imagine that a hypothetical group of disillusioned citizens obtains access to the same nodes – let's say it's an inside job by some building employees – but instead of tapping the nodes, as the NSA did, they break them. And to avoid any possibility of repair, they detonate a small timed radioactive paintball after they leave. No one gets hurt, but the radioactive splatter creates a no-go zone. As a result, no one can fix the fiber optics or even get near them for, let's say, 100 years. The city outside, and even the rest of the building, might remain safe, but don't go near that room on the 20th floor!
This might sound far-fetched. Surely no one can "break" the internet! The internet is our friend! And how could anyone even get into the buildings that keep it running?! But as we've seen, neither our "security" organizations nor the world's largest corporations are very good at keeping their shit secure.
OK, now, for the sake of this thought experiment…
The internet is a thing of the past. What now?
Obviously business goes haywire, to say nothing of the profitable business of watching us. High-speed automated trading, which makes up half or more of New York's stock market activity (though the proportion is currently declining, ends. Wall Street initially crashes, but eventually it finds a new normal. (There was trading before the internet, after all.) Streaming movies and music, however, is totally over. Skyping your grandmother – over.
Google is now absolutely worthless, though it still has all its existing data housed in massive server farms. No more drones will take flight or drop bombs on Pakistan or Yemen. Cash and checks are still pretty good; credit and debit cards can't rely on internet connections to verify accounts anymore – though they still work, as they did before the web. Amazon has ceased to exist, and huge brick-and-mortar stores like Wal-Mart have lost track of their massive inventories. Small towns and bookstores make a comeback! Even record stores!
No one can unfriend you, and Mark Zuckerberg won't know what and whom you like or don't like ever again. Online courses will halt; teachers will have to teach their students face-to-face. The Singularity will be postponed.
Would the world really be a better place without the internet? Is a complete reset really necessary?
For some, the internet has offered endless moneymaking opportunities, but whether many of the web's touted benefits end up reaching the majority of people is debatable. More and more, it seems that only a minority are making a fortune off what was extolled as a universally liberating technology.
To be fair, the internet offers some egalitarian benefits, besides pictures of cats. There's the well-publicized assistance it lends to movements for human rights and democracy and the instantaneously accessible forum it provides for much of the world's knowledge. Truth be told, the internet didn't actually create any of those movements or that knowledge, but it has certainly empowered a lot of previously voiceless people who now have access to them.
It's hard to weigh the worth of the internet because we can't even imagine life without it. We've internalized it. It's part of us, which explains why we are exploited so easily online. Is the internet a cancer killing us little by little or a wonderful cybernetic extension of our brains? Let's say we wanted to rid ourselves of the cancer. Would the cure be catastrophic or would the liberation be worth it?
To be honest, I have a hard time imagining internet 2.0. I'm old enough to remember the utopian enthusiasm that greeted the internet when it emerged 20 years ago. We can't go back – we know too much now – but maybe we can learn from what we loved about the internet back then. Namely, its egalitarian nature – that homemade and small-scale sites were just as accessible as the emerging e-commerce platforms. It was a pleasant, chaotic jumble. Can we revive the feeling of a souk and lose the big-box store feel?
Some folks have advocated that the internet be considered a utility. A "necessary" part of our lives like water, electricity or gas. It might be better to have some fair regulation than to let market forces shape the landscape. Can you imagine if corporations owned our water supply?
Imagine this: in a new internet, we'd still be able to send emails. Academic and nonprofit institutions would still share resources online. Wikipedia and web-based journalism would still exist. But if we can't be tracked as we are now, a lot would change. Google would lose its primary sources of revenue – ads – and return to being a very good search engine, with a lot fewer employees. The NSA and the other data thieves and collectors would be helpless. No one would have data on countless innocent citizens that could be repurposed to God knows what ends. The Chinese couldn't hack into the North American power grid.
All that money that was poured into online surveillance programs could of course now be spent on health and education (I did say "could" – I'm being very optimistic). That would actually increase security – worldwide. It's pretty well accepted that extreme poverty breeds terrorism. Offering attractive alternatives to extremism that lead to better lives is the way to win the "war on terror". Guns, drones and mass surveillance do the opposite: they actually breed terrorism. If we have the imagination to rethink both network security and national security – and that's a big if – then the whole world would have the opportunity to become safer, no matter what the US government claims.
Is there a will to change?
Let's assume that such a secure network structure is technically possible. internet 2.0 for real. Even if it is technically possible, I have a feeling that it might take a lot of willpower to walk away from the tit of convenience. Corporations and governments have built massive economic and political systems based on our accepting things as they are, and they will fight powerfully against any reforms.
What could make that surge of willpower come into existence? The information-hoovering in which corporations engage is of a kind with the government surveillance; in both cases we are prey to distant agendas. The three forms of data-gathering (if one includes cyber crime) are all connected – and none of them make us happier or more secure.
Reassessing what makes us secure might be a start. Real, life-long security comes not from the barrel of a gun or from being able to spy on your fellow citizens like a Stasi informant; it comes with less harsh extremes of wealth and poverty and increased access to health care and education. Embracing the security that comes with a more robust democracy is far preferable to other incentives to change, like all our credit cards becoming worthless or the NSA leaking incriminating webcam pictures of its critics. Before a catastrophic collapse like my hypothetical one ever comes, let's find it within ourselves to give up some convenience and become a little more human.
This piece was originally published on 23 March 2014 on Creative Time Reports, part of the Guardian Comment Network.
A teacher’s recount of the first day of Common Core Testing as posted on the Badass Teachers (BATS) Facebook page:
There were over 100 questions. Answers were selected by drop and drag with a trackpad, no mouse is available. One class took five hours to finish. Kids crying in 4 of 5 classes. Multiple computer crashes (“okay, you just sit right there while we fix it! Don’t talk to anyone!”). Kids sitting for half hour with volume off on headsets but not saying anything. Kids accidentally swapping tangled headsets and not even noticing what they heard had nothing to do with what they saw on the screen. Kids having to solve 8+6 when the answer choices are 0-9 and having to DRAG AND DROP first a 1 then a 4 to form a 14. Some questions where it was only necessary to click an answer but the objects were movable (for no reason). No verbal explanation that you must click the little speaker square to hear the instructions. To go to the next question, one clicks “next” in lower right-hand corner…..which is also where the pop-up menu comes up to take you to other programs or shut down, so about many shut-downs or kids winding up in a completely different program.
If this is not what you want for your kids and grand-kids, you’d better start making some noise. Ten years ago we would’ve thought this would be literally impossible.”
This is kindergarten people! This is what it has become between the Common Core Standards and high stakes testing.
This is a good way to create students who don’t want to go to school and think learning is hell.
Join me and Jesse Hagopian in a discussion about the Common Core Standards, high stakes testing and opting out. Due to the demand, we will be Skyping this workshop to those who are interested.
Enough is enough!
Dora
Post Script:
I received a comment stating that children in the US are not keeping up with other nations, that’s why the “need” for Common Core Standards. If you believed that we went into Iraq for reasons of ”national security” and because there were “Weapons of Mass Destruction” you might believe this. If you think that the NSA is protecting our Constitutional rights, then you might believe this also.
The truth is that parents from around the world are still sending their students to US Universities because of our “standards”. Quite frankly, I taught students from Great Britain for a year and for the most part they lack creative and critical thinking skills, something that has set us apart as a nation. The accomplishments with NASA, the developments that we have made over the years reflect us as thinkers and leaders and most of us have been the product of our public educational system as I have been.
The statement that we are not keeping astride of other nations is propaganda, a marketing ploy, and nothing more.
See what Diane Ravitch has to say on the subject:
Every once in a while, a new set of test scores is released by the National Assessment Governing Board, the federal agency that supervises the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Just a few days ago, the NAEP scores for science were released for 4th and 8th grades, and once again there was woe and gnashing of teeth in the land (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/10/31naep_ep.h31.html?tkn=VPXFO3wzO2s%2Bbex2WwFqNNnCfYtzrpCNzSmA&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1). The scores had improved, but not enough to satisfy the nay-sayers.
The media react with alarm every time the NAEP scores appear because only about one-third or so of students is rated “proficient.” This is supposed to be something akin to a national tragedy because presumably almost every child should be “proficient.” Remember, under No Child Left Behind, ALL students are supposed to be proficient in reading and math by the year 2014.
Since I served on NAGB for seven years, I can explain what the board’s “achievement levels” mean. There are four levels. At the top is “advanced.” Then comes “proficient.” Then “basic.” And last, “below basic.”
Advanced is truly superb performance, which is like getting an A+. Among fourth graders, 8% were advanced readers in 2011; 3% of eighth graders were advanced. In reading, these numbers have changed little in the past twenty years. In math, there has been a pretty dramatic growth in national scores over these past twenty years: the proportion of students who scored advanced in fourth grade grew from 2% in 1992 to 7% in 2011. In eighth grade, the proportion who were advanced in math grew from 3% in 1992 to 8% in 2011.
Proficient is akin to a solid A. In reading, the proportion who were proficient in fourth grade reading rose from 29% in 1992 to 34% in 2011. The proportion proficient in eighth grade also rose from 29% to 34% in those years. In math, the proportion in fourth grade who were proficient rose from 18% to 40% in the past twenty years, an absolutely astonishing improvement. In eighth grade, the proportion proficient in math went from 21% in 1992 to an amazing 35% in 2011.
Basic is akin to a B or C level performance. Good but not good enough.
And below basic is where we really need to worry. These are the students who really don’t understand math or read well at all. The proportion who are below basic has dropped steadily in both reading and math in fourth and eighth grades since 1992.
When the scores are broken out by race, you can really see dramatic progress, especially in math. In 1992, 80% of black students in fourth grade were below basic. By 2011, that proportion had dropped to 49%. Among white students in fourth grade math, the proportion below basic fell in that time period from 40% to only 16%.
The changes in reading scores are not as dramatic as in math, but they are nonetheless impressive. In fourth grade, the proportion of black students who were below basic in 1992 was 68%; by 2011, it was down to 51%. In eighth grade, the proportion of black students who were reading below basic was 55%; that had fallen to 41% by 2011.
The point here is that NAEP scores show steady and very impressive improvement over the past twenty years. Our problems are tough, but they are not intractable. The next time someone tells you that U.S. education is “failing,” or “declining,” tell them they are wrong.
Mike Adams
A jury in North Carolina has decided that a university retaliated against a professor who got accolades from colleagues when, as an atheist, he was hired, but then faced retaliation when he became a Christian.
The damages for Mike Adams, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, will be determined later.
But officials from two major legal teams, the the Alliance Defending Freedom and the American Center for Law and Justice, agreed it was a significant finding.
ADF represented Adams together with lead counsel David French, who began the case with ADF and now litigates for the ACLJ.
A former atheist, Adams frequently received praise from his colleagues after the university hired him as an assistant professor in 1993 and promoted him to associate professor in 1998.
But some of his views on political and social issues soon reflected his adoption of Christianity in 2000, and the legal teams reported subsequently, the university subjected Adams to a campaign of academic persecution, including intrusive investigations, baseless accusations and other factors that culminated in his denial of promotion to full professor, despite an award-winning record of teaching, research, and service.
In his lawsuit against the university, attorneys argued that officials denied him a deserved promotion because they disagreed with the content of his nationally syndicated opinion columns that espoused religious and political views contrary to the opinions held by university officials.
Named as defendants were the school and its trustees and a multitude of other school officials, including a dean, Stephen McNamee, and chancellor, Gary Miller.
The jury simply said “Yes” when asked “Was the plaintiff’s speech activity a substantial or motivating factor in the defendants’ decision to not promote” Adams.
The jury also found that the defendants would not have made the same decision “in the absence of plaintiffs’ speech activity.”
“We are grateful that the jury today reaffirmed the fundamental principle that universities are a marketplace of ideas, not a place where professors face retaliation for having a different view than university officials,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Travis Barham, who participated in the trial this week. “As the jury decided, disagreeing with an accomplished professor’s religious and political views is no grounds for denying him a promotion.”
“The jury saw what we have long known to be true about the wrong done to Dr. Adams,” said Senior Legal Counsel David Hacker. “The verdict is a powerful message for academic freedom and free speech at America’s public universities.”
“We’re grateful the jury determined what we have long known to be true – that the university violated Dr. Adams’ constitutional rights when it denied his promotion,” said French, ACLJ senior counsel. “This is an important victory for academic freedom and the First Amendment.”
The case took an extended trip, detouring to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit for a ruling in 2011 that said, “no individual loses his ability to speak as a private citizen by virtue of public employment…. Adams’ columns addressed topics such as academic freedom, civil rights, campus culture, sex, feminism, abortion, homosexuality, religion, and morality. Such topics plainly touched on issues of public, rather than private, concern.”
Adams had a novel way of making his point, as WND reported a year ago.
For example, in his Townhall.com column at that time, he poked fun at the idea a university should exclude a Chick-fil-A restaurant from its property because of pro-family views of the company’s owner.
Such exclusion, which Adams described as “queer reasoning,” would make the university more “inclusive,” campaigners apparently believed.
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided that our LGBTQIA Office here on my campus makes me feel uncomfortable. In fact, the rainbow is a symbol of hate. So, next week, I plan to introduce a resolution to ban them from campus,” he wrote. “I expect the resolution to be defeated because it is idiotic. I’m just hoping I get a special office as a consolation prize – simply for being a narrow minded bigot.”
Lawyers reported when Adams was denied promotion in 2006, he had “multiple awards and rave reviews from students for his teaching, he had published more peer-reviewed articles than all but two of his colleagues, and he had a distinguished record of service both on and off campus, culminating in earning UNCW’s highest service award.”
According to William Creeley, writing on the website of the the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the case raised concerns.
“While the government as employer may reasonably expect a significant amount of control over the public speech of district attorneys, that same amount of control over the scholarly research and teaching of public university faculty members is inappropriate and amounts to an infringement on academic freedom.”
