Debunking the Common Core “The Emperor’s New Clothes” Narrative….

THE BELL NEWS

• by Gretchen Logue
• January 7, 2013

…and why are education reformers/politicians ascribing to fairy tales for policy?

Should Common Core State Standards be considered an educational version of the story “The Emperor’s New Clothes”?  The standards are the promise of  new clothes for education but is there basis for believing there are any clothes at all?  From Wikipedia:

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” (Danish: Kejserens nye Klæder) is a short tale byHans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” The tale has been translated into over a hundred languages.^[1]

Christopher H. Tienken, Editor of AAASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice provided commentary in the Winter 2011 publication entitled Common Core State Standards: An Example of Data-less Decision Making.

His research may just expose the standards to be unfit and fallacy to those who are critical thinkers asking for data determining their stated validity.  This article should be studied by educators, politicians, taxpayers, to understand the colossal farce Common Core standards are in terms of providing promises of educational improvement for American students as they are unproven and untested.

Tienken writes the standards have not been validated empirically and no metric has been set to monitor the intended and unintended consequences they will have on the education system and children (Mathis, 2010).  So why would governors and private trade organizations spend millions of taxpayer dollars on theories instead of verifiable researched data?  The CCSS proponents have bought into these two arguments:

• America’s children are “lagging” behind international peers in terms of academic achievement, and

• the economic vibrancy and future of the United States relies upon American students outranking their global peers on international tests of academic achievement because of the mythical relationship between ranks on those tests and a country’s economic competitiveness.

 Where’s the data supporting the CCSS proponents’  arguments?  There isn’t much put forth by the education reformers.  So why are states and school districts implementing unproven and untested theories?  He defines the acceptance/lack of data for the unproven and untested CCSS assessments and implementation allegedly designed to enable students to become “globally competitive” with such sentences/phrases as:

 An unbelievable suspension of logic and evidence

• To believe that economic strength of the United States relies on how students rank on the Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) or the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), rather than reliance on policy (tax, trade, health, labor, finance, monetary, housing, natural resources policy)…”is like believing in the tooth fairy”
• The “critical skills necessary to compete in the 21^st century” are repackaged 19^th century ideas and skills…they are “inert, sterile, socially static”…the CCSS are stuck in a curricular time machine set in 1858
• Connecting an individual’s education achievement on a standardized test to a nation’s economic future is not empirically or logically acceptable and using that mythical connection for large-scale policymaking is civically reckless…when school administrators implement programs and policies built on those faulty arguments, they commit education malpractice
•  More countries with national standards underperformed the US than did countries without national standards
• To think that every student in this country should be made to learn the same thing is illogical—it lacks face validity…we should have learned from the Soviet Union that central planning does not work in the long-run
• Standardization and testing are so entrenched in Singapore that every attempt to diversity the system has failed, leaving Singapore a country that has high test scores but no creativity
• (CCSS) creates a standardizing apparatus…we should respect differences among children, not try to extinguish them…there is a lot more going on here on the societal level than meets the eye…it’s more complex than the creators and vendors of the standards either understand or wish to present
• Children have a right to a quality education.  School leaders, those who prepare them, and the people who lead our professional organizations have a duty to help provide the quality…if some education leaders choose to drink the snake oil then they should expect to get sick.  If some help sell it, they should resign.

 He backs up his findings with 48 independent referenced sources.  It is worth your time to read his commentary that destroys the CCSS proponents’ arguments with methodical precision based on actual data.  Compare/contrast his research/reference with the data CCSSO and the NGA use:

  

Many school districts or schools have “data committees” that make school-widedecisions based on some type of data. Surely there must be quality data available publically to support the use of the CCSS to transform, standardize, centralize and essentially delocalize America’s public education system.  The official website for the CCSS claims to provide such evidence. The site alleges that the standards are “evidence based” and lists two homegrown documents to “prove” it: Myths vs Facts (NGA, 2010) and the Joint International Benchmarking Report (NGA, 2008).

 The Myths document presents claims that the standards have “made use of a large and growing body of knowledge” (p. 3).  Knowledge derives in part from carefully controlled scientific experiments and observations so one would expect to find references to high quality empirical research to support the standards.

When I reviewed that “large and growing body of knowledge” offered by the NGA, I found that it was not large, and in fact built mostly on one report, Benchmarking for Success, created by the NGA and the CCSSO, the same groups that created these standards; Hardly independent research.
The Benchmarking report has over 135 end notes, some of which are repetitive references. Only four of the cited pieces of evidence could be considered empirical studies related directly to the topic of national standards and student achievement.

The remaining citations were newspaper stories, armchair magazine articles, op-ed pieces, book chapters, notes from telephone interviews, and several tangential studies.

Many of the citations were linked to a small group of standardization advocates and did not represent the larger body of empirical thought on the topic”.

Tienken’s report needs to be sent to school boards, superintendents, state educational agencies, educational reform groups, governors and state legislators for their response to his research and conclusions.  These private and/or public entities need to asked why they support common core standards and provide the data to back up their beliefs and use of the standards.  If you get shocked faces and declarations from these groups/politicians such as “I do whatever _________ tells me to” (fill in the blank: state agency, federal government, governor, etc), you know the right to direct your school’s educational direction is in dire jeopardy.

 Tienken writes those who perpetuate bad ideas based on flawed data are practicing poor leadership.  If some school leaders and their organizations do not want to stand up for children then they should stand down and let those who are will assume the leadership reins.

 How do you believe these organizations/politicians will respond (if they do) to Tienken’s research?  Tienken welcomed rebuttal on his 2011 commentary:

“I welcome your rebuttals but please remember: Leave the opinions and ideology behind and bring the evidence”.

Do the CCSS proponents have anything other than opinions and ideology?   This commentary was published in Winter 2011.  I haven’t seen any data backing up CCSS proponents’ assertions, have you?   That’s odd as they state CCSS is data driven.  If they insist CCSS should be data driven, shouldn’t the foundational theory of their reforms consist of verifiable data to determine the veracity of their argument?

***************************************************************************************************

 Dr. Tienken’s academic profile:

 Christopher Tienken, Ed.D. is an assistant professor of Education Administration at Seton Hall University. He has public school administration experience as a PK-12 assistant superintendent, middle school principal, and elementary school assistant principal. He began his career in education as an elementary school teacher. Dr Tienken’s research interests include the effect and influence of professional development on teacher practice and student achievement, the construct validity of high-stakes standardized tests as decision-making tools about student achievement and school effectiveness, and curricular interventions used in schools to improve achievement. His research about the effects of professional development on student achievement has been recognized by the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Staff Development Council awarded him the Best Research Award in 2008.

For more articles on CCSS and Dr. Tienken’s reports visit:

http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/2013/01/best-research-award-winner-says-common.html?spref=fb

http://www.bankruptcylawyerlongbeachonline.com/west-vs-asia-education-rankings-are-misleading/

Bee's Note:
For more on this subject, see:  MISSOURI EDUCATION WATCHDOG

The Hagel And Brennan Nominations And What They Tell Us about Obama

Monday, January 07, 2013

JOSHUA PUNDIT

As I expected, President Obama nominated ex-Senator Chuck Hagel today as Secretary of Defense and  John Brennan to head the CIA. Both nominations tell us something interesting about this president and about the future.

I pretty much figured out that Hagel would get the nod  once the White House put the word out to the usual suspects to start  pushing him after his abysmal record  on Israel and on Iran came to light.

I would also be very surprised if Hagel didn't get confirmed by the Senate, barring something unusual happening. The body has 53 Democrats, 45 Republicans and 2 left leaning independents who mostly caucus with the Democrats, as well as a potential tie breaking vote in Vice President Biden. I'd be very surprised if President Obama didn't discreetly have his own caucus polled before he put Hagel up for nomination.

Hagel would have to lose at least 6 Democrat votes to be denied confirmation, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Administration gave behind-the-scenes permission to Senate Democrats in states with large Jewish populations like like Chuck Schumer (D-NY) or Ben Cardin (D-MD) to choose to vote no if there's enough of a margin to get Hagel across the finish line without them.

There's no question about Hagel's consistently  pro-Iran and  anti-Israel stance.  He was a reliable anti-Israel vote during his entire senate tenure, becoming one of the handful of senators refusing even to sign on to resolutions that were essentially just measures of support for an ally.

At the same time, his positions on Iran make one almost think he should have registered as a foreign lobbyist at some point.He's been a consistent opponent of even President Obama's relatively mild sanctions, no matter what he says now. He favors direct US negotiations with Hamas and Hezbollah, and was one of only 12 Senators who refused to lobby  the EU asking them to declare Iranian proxy  Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

In fact, Hagel has long been an advocate of taking Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah off the State Department's list of terrorist groups, and while he was a sitting senator Hagel voted against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.And remember, as Senator Hagel starts burnishing his veteran's credentials, that Hezbollah has killed more U.S. servicemen than any other terrorist group except the Taliban. And that the Revolutionary Guard has the blood of American soldiers on its hands as well.

Just as a coincidence, Hagel also sits on the board of  Deutsche Bank, which is now  being investigated by U.S. authorities for violations of the same Iran sanctions Hagel voted against when he was in Congress.

Is he an anti-Semite?  A number of his former Jewish constituents in Nebraska seem to think so. Many of them  recall him as hostile and unfriendly not just on Israel but towards the community in general:

The flavor of the accounts is given in a headline in one Jewish website: “Nebraska Jews Recall Senator Chuck Hagel as ‘Unfriendly’ and ‘Unmovable’ on Israel, ‘Didn’t Give a Damn About the Jewish Community.’” The former editor of the Omaha Jewish Press recalled that “Hagel was the only one we have had in Nebraska, who basically showed the Jewish community that he didn’t give a damn about the Jewish community or any of our concerns.” Another community leader commented that  “During his last year in office, we knew he was not going to run again, he never returned any of our calls.” 

It's also a matter of record that in 1999, when the American Jewish Committee asked members of the U.S. Senate to sign an advertisement condemning anti-Semitism in Russia the AJC subsequently ran in the New York Times during Russian President Boris Yeltsin's U.S. visit, the only Senator who refused was Chuck Hagel.

More troubling to me is Hagel's tendency to conflate 'Jews' and Israel. Aside from his quaint belief that the 'Jewish Lobby' runs DC, ( as quoted by  author Aaron David Miller's 2008 book "The Too Much Promised Land"),there's also a disturbing incident I wrote about previously, Hagel's campaign to shut down the Haifa USO facility when he was president and CEO of the World USO from 1987 to 1990:

“He said to me, ‘Let the Jews pay for it’,” said Marsha Halteman, director for military and law enforcement programs at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which led the battle to keep USO Haifa operational.

Hagel’s campaign to close the storied USO port struck many observers, including the U.S. Navy and congressional leaders, as misguided. Those same critics argue today that Hagel’s animosity toward the Jewish state leaves him unsuited to be the nation’s next defense secretary.

“He essentially told us that if we wanted to keep the USO [in Haifa] open—and when I say ‘we’, he meant ‘the Jews’—he said the Jews could pay for it,” said Halteman, who recalled being taken aback by the comment.

Again, note that Hagel never said something like 'maybe we can seek outside funds to keep it open' or talked about shutting down other USO by telling, say, Italian Americans to pay for the USO in Palermo or Naples if they wanted to keep it open. He made a point of demanding it be shut down unless the Jews paid for it.

Yet, with all that, I'm not particularly interested in labeling him an anti-Semite, although it's worth looking at how virtually every anti-Semite and Israel hater in public life has lined up solidly behind him. Andrew Sullivan and Pat Buchanan, for instance, are absolutely ga ga over the president's pick and so are the kameraden over at Stormfront. If Hagel isn't actually a Jew hater, he apparently likes how he looks in the uniform, if you take my meaning. I fully expect him to make the same sort of pro forma vague remarks about 'commitment to Israel's security' you'd expect in this situation, but let's just say the man's entire history belies anything he says during his conformation hearings.

It's odd how many of President Obama's present and former close associates have a similar Israel or Jewish problem. If you look at the president's other close associates over the years like Al Sharpton, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn, Louis Farrakhan, Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said and a host of others, Hagel fits right in, and he and the president are said to be quite close personally.

One can only imagine what might be said about a prominent white politician with long time close associations with David Duke, Tom Metzger, Barry Mills, or Don Black, but that's perhaps a separate discussion.

Another point I don't expect to be raised during Hagel's hearing but should be is his craven behavior on Iraq. After voting for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when it was easy, he later had a change of heart and began doing his best to sabotage our war effort. Anyone can have a change of heart, and considering the way AfPak and Iraq were run it might even be considered commendable to some degree. But Hagel joined up with Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton and yes, Senator Barack Obama in doing their very best to sabotage the Surge strategy by starving it of funds, doing their best to destroying morale on the home front and publicly maligning and insulting its originator and Iraq'a commander, General Petraeus while it was underway and our troops were under fire.

The Surge successfully accomplished what it was meant to accomplish, to allow America to make a more or less graceful withdrawal from Iraq. But the games played in DC by people like Senator Hagel made it just that more difficult, and it was frankly despicable behavior. I'd expect that sort of thing from Harry Reid, but not from someone who makes a point of letting us know he's seen combat. Politics did not stop at the water's edge with these people, and our troops suffered because of it.

So what does President Obama's nomination of Chuck Hagel tell us about the president, and about what we can expect in the future?

Along with President Obama's new pick for the CIA, John Brennan, Hagel is quite outspoken about America normalizing its relationship with Hamas and Hezbollah.They all agree, to put it bluntly, that the way to end any conflicts between America and Islam is to forge closer ties with the emerging Muslim Brotherhood governments, withdraw from the region, be careful not to 'offend' Islam here at home and to distance ourselves from Israel. Or in other words, let's give them the Jews and they'll go away.  Brennan once famously referred to Jerusalem as 'al-Kuds' its Arab name and is a vociferous and out spoken advocate of treating Islamist terrorism as a crime problem.. That should give you a pretty good idea where he's coming from.

History has proven what a fallacy this sort of thing is many times before, but that pretty much is their position in a nutshell.

Hagel is also an outspoken foe of military spending, so you can expect him to continue Leon Panetta's work in hollowing out our military to provide more revenue for the president's pet domestic projects. 

I've said for some time that President Obama is not at all serious about preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, or at least not having America do it.It may very well be that the president fully intends for the Israelis to do it themselves and take the onus..after which he can use Israel's 'aggression' to push for a dictated settlement to the Arab Israeli conflict and for sanctions against the Jewish State. In any event,expect a much more adversarial relationship with Israel, even to the point of our terminating joint weapons projects that actually benefit the United States or refusing to sell arms to them any more.

The Israelis will no doubt cope, having been through this before, but our disengaging from the Middle East will come back to haunt us.

President Obama's ideal is to turn America into a European style socialist state. But he apparently hasn't noticed the financial turmoil going on in Europe these days as the system there collapses or the fact that the only reason the Euro Socialist states have lasted this long is because the U.S. allowed them to farm out their national defense to America.

There's no one waiting in the wings to take over the job of defending America.

Hollow Men in a Hollow Earth - by Daniel Greenfiled

Monday, January 07, 2013

Hollow Men in a Hollow Earth

Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog 0 Comments

We still think of idealists as men in worn coats sleeping on cots in cold basements. Those sorts of men can still be found, but the basements are the old digs of an evicted Latino 7th Day Adventist Church with the paint scraped off to expose the fashionably bare brickwork and go for $2,500 a month on the wrong side of the Williamsburg Bridge strewn with cots from IKEA and kept cold as a statement about Global Warming. Their shivering denizens work profitably at an environmental non-profit as social media managers in the great national and international network of the left.

Five years later they're living in a posh bedroom community in Jersey as the heads of some shell organization aimed at young people that's funded by mysterious family foundations and angling for a job in D.C. advising a Senator or a Cabinet member on the environment. If not they'll have to settle for a gig at some Green consultancy telling old timey corporations on how they can get sustainable to win over the kids and score some sweet tax breaks.

If they're truly lucky, the dedicated idealist may even earn a chance to ghostwrite Al Gore's next book about the environment. At parties, they'll take out a pristine copy of the New York Times bestseller, a status it achieved through the efforts of social media managers who coordinated mass buying efforts followed by mass returns for zero net profit but maximum status, whose cover features Gore gazing contemplatively at the Earth, and whisper to the person they're trying to impress. "I wrote that."

Idealism is a brand now, and few men have profited from it as thoroughly as Albert Arnold Gore Jr. Where former presidents Carter and Clinton dashed to different philanthropies around the world, Gore, true to his stodgy unimaginative image invested in one brand of idealism. Environmentalism. Carter could have his houses and Clinton could sit in luxurious hotel rooms in Haiti counting all that aid money, but Gore, like the intrepid tobacco farmer he was, bet everything on the whole planet.

In the 90s, environmentalism was just one of many stocks in the rainbow market of liberalism, alongside AIDS, racism, sexism and world hunger. A good MTV VJ could manage to incorporate all five into a hope for world peace, followed by a grunge band, a rap video and a series of seizures. And environmentalism was still limited to saving cute animals and being angry at oil companies for being all about the oil.

Al Gore's environmentalism seemed as boring as everything else about him. It was fitting that a man with the bearing and personality of a tree would spend all his time yammering on about trees. But then a series of Mayan tablets predicting the destruction of the North Pole by 2007 or 2012 or 2092 came into the possession of a humble former Vice President and everything changed.

Racism was bad, but it wouldn't kill everyone. Neither would AIDS. World Hunger was something for the Africans to worry about. But Global Warming brought back Armageddon in a big way. Like the Cold War, cold basements or bungee jumping, it reminded the numbed children of privilege that they could die at any moment. And it stroked their egos by telling them that, just like in all their favorite Saturday Morning Cartoons, only they could save the world.

Al Gore, like many a bearded prophet, had gone to his mansion in the wilderness of Belle Meade (median income $194,016) and returned with pie charts and cockamamie theories made up by other people that would make him extremely rich. Idealism was a brand, and unlike Clinton, Gore seemed sincere, if only because he came off as too unimaginative not to be.

With luxury goods, the brand is also the product, and environmentalism is the ultimate luxury good. Luxury products are at their most profitable when marketing intangibles. Flying over calf leather from Italy is expensive. Giving American leather a fancy name is cheap. Environmentalism is much the same. The real commodity being sold is particular a state of mind and membership in an exclusive club.

Capitalism made luxury hard work by making everything cheap. Suddenly it wasn't enough to just lie in bed and order the butler to bring you exotic pomegranates from the Orient and champagne from the vineyards of France. Those things could be found in any supermarket courtesy of the jet plane. Status stopped being a lazy man or woman's game and became a frenzied rat race. Fat was out and hyperactive workouts were in. Anyone could afford good art, so those with discerning taste chose bad art. Anyone could vacation abroad, so they bought old farm houses, restored them and painted bad art while trying to grow their own food.

Status itself became a sign of a lack of status. Anyone could buy a suit, so the occupations of the rich became those where you did not have to wear a suit, where you could become very wealthy while wearing jeans, a hoodie and sneakers. The grandsons and granddaughters of the nouveau riche relearned the old lessons of the upper crust that displays of wealth were vulgar and status lay in a self-conscious lack of it. When everyone has cars, you ride a bike. When everyone can afford steak, you buy a thimble cup of 200 dollar organic magic beans. When everyone wants things, you show how little you need things by convincing everyone to go Gandhi and give up things.

Environmentalism was the ur-brand of philanthropy. A philanthropy as big as the planet for a cause so generous that it was completely anti-materialistic. And like all luxury, it was also hugely and obscenely profitable.

While his rival was getting tangled in Iraq, Al Gore was becoming the Giorgio Armani of environmentalism. And environmentalism was much bigger than men's coats or women's shoes. It was a lifestyle, a cause and a movie deal. It was everything.

Causes are like copyrights. A company that believes in a cause, donates money from its profits to the cause. Sometimes that's explicit, as with the Red label, mostly it happens behind the scenes. But the green label is everywhere, on the product and behind the scenes. It's the lifestyle that says you like to buy things, but you also care about the planet. It says that you're a modern sensitive person who loves the peasants of Guatemala and the ice of the South Pole. And just like buying a silver vest covered in diamonds, it says that you shouldn't be allowed out of the house with money.

But environmentalism is bigger than all this. It's not just green toilet paper and recycled rubber shoes, washing machines that don't work and recycling carts with usage meters on them. It's numbers. And the numbers are really big.

Money used to be gold, now it's numbers. The digitization of all things, art, poetry and music are just drops in the great numbersphere. The flood is in the financials where everything is imaginary and has value until the economy is one great numbers game. Environmentalism is one more layer of numbers in a numbers game where social justice sells homes that people can't afford and then sells the debt and then the debt of the debt.

In the post-modern economy everything is stripped down to its definitions, monetized, hollowed out and resold as an investment to funds and persons scrambling to outrun inflation by investing in consensually real unreal investments. Environmentalism, like all idealism for hire, sells out the one thing that it stands for...  the right to pollute.

The right to pollute is not a small thing in a world where exhalation is pollution. The right to pollute means the right to drive a car, build a factory, buy non-local produce, eat a burger, fly to Miami and exhale. It is nothing less than the right to live.

Communism criminalized commerce and then legalized it on its terms. Environmentalism criminalizes life and legalizes it on its terms. The terms are paying a tribute to one of the many green companies owned wholly or partially by Al Gore and his merry band of green investors who steal from the rich and give to the even richer, and steal from the poor and give to the Gore..

Idealism is a commodity and when the investment comes due, you sell out in exchange for power and profit. One minute you're standing in front of a spreadsheet of a quarter ton of cow farts a minute being emitted by the livestock of New Zealand which, you claim, spells imminent doom for all the ice on the planet, and the next minute you're opening a business to sell pollution indulgences to the environmentally minded who want to fly to Fiji on a first class moral ticket.

One minute you're warning about fossil fuels and the next minute you're selling your news channel  to a Middle Eastern oil tyranny for 500 million bucks. And you're doing it because idealism is a commodity to be cashed in for a tidy profit right before tax season. The longer you allow your idealism to appreciate, in the eyes of others, the more money you can make cashing it out.

Al Gore sold access to China and made campaign calls from the White House because there was no legal controlling authority that said he couldn't. He claimed that he invented the internet because there was no one, except a million comedians, to say that he didn't. He claimed that his relationship with his wife inspired Love Story, because when you lie all the time,what's one more lie?

The Gore lost the election, went into the wilderness of Belle Meade and came out with the revelation that it's time to drop all the little lies and stick to one big one. Forget claiming that you invented the comma and the cocoa bean while on a conference call with Isaac Newton and just focus on warning everyone that the planet is about to explode. A lie as big as a planet. A lie that was too big to fail.

Gore monetized that lie, he took it to every bank on the planet and then he took it to every cable company and convinced them to give him access to 40 million American homes so that he could tell them that the planet was about to blow up. And just as he had at the White House, Al Gore cashed out that access and sold it to an enemy nation.

There are idealists who sell out and become hollow men, and there are hollow men who pretend to be idealists. Gore is a hollow man selling someone else's alarmist hollow earth theory so he can make it to the next stage of a career that has no meaning or purpose. Like most professional idealists, Al Gore cares for nothing except money. Having sold out so many times, his only idea is to keep doing it again and again.

The professional idealist is a hollow man. A soulless man who is tasked with convincing everyone of the existence of the thing that he does not have. The left has created an endless number of professional openings for such soulless men, for paid liars and faithless tricksters, who live only to convince the world that they believe just long enough for them to sell out one more time.

SULTAN KNISH BLOG - by Daniel Greenfield

Conspiracy of Brothers - by Daniel Greenfield

TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2013

 MIDDLE EAST AND TERRORISM

by Daniel Greenfield

 

To read and order Frank Gaffney’s pamphlet, The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration, click here.

November was just about done and Chris Matthews, the MSNBC host voted most likely by his own staff to have a poster of Barack Obama over his bed, was cheerfully coming to the end of his sideshow list. With the White House in the background, Matthews sneered about the “weak conspiracy” claim by Congressman Gohmert that the Obama Administration was taking advice on Middle East policy from a bunch of Muslim Brotherhood operatives.

Matthews didn’t even bother trying to factually challenge the claim in any way. Savvy MSNBC viewers were expected to dismiss the idea of a secretive organization trying to influence American foreign policy … unless it was run by the Jews.

At Mother Jones, David Corn sneered at Franklin Graham for promoting the Muslim Brotherhood “conspiracy theory.” But both Matthews and Corn were a little behind the times. That summer when Hillary Clinton arrived in Egypt, she was confronted by shoe-throwing protesters denouncing her for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

Think Progress, the left’s shiniest spin machine, explained that the Egyptian protesters had gotten the peculiar idea that there was a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy from American “Islamophobic” bloggers. Several months later, the object of the fanciful conspiracy theory, Mohammed Morsi, orchestrated a seizure of power, rammed through an Islamist Constitution and sent gangs out to brutalize and torture protesters with no direct condemnation from the White House or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

A month after Matthews had sneered at the idea that Muslim Brotherhood members were exercising inappropriate influence over American foreign policy; the venerable Egyptian magazine Rose El-Youssef ran an article about the six Muslim Brotherhood operatives, including two in the Department of Homeland Security, who were influencing American foreign policy on the Brotherhood’s behalf.

While Rose El-Youssef had been a pro-government magazine, during the revolution its journalists had locked out the pro-Mubarak CEO and a new editor had been appointed by the Council of Ministers. Nor could the article be characterized as propaganda or even opinion journalism. Shawki simply laid out the biographical details of the Muslim Brotherhood figures without any trace of indictment or blame.

Shawki listed six men, Arif Alikhan, the assistant secretary of Homeland Security for policy development; and Mohammed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. He also listed Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, as well as Salam al-Marayati, co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America and Eboo Patel, a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships. Not to mention Huma Abedin.

The article carefully avoided drawing any conclusions; the magazine had earlier faced legal charges for “smearing” President Morsi by discussing his outreach to Hamas. Instead the article let the facts about the six men speak for themselves.

Arif Alikhan, was described as a Qutb-ist, after the Brotherhood’s Sayyid Qutb, who saw the most serious American national security documents. Elibiary’s organization, it mentions, was financed by the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. And so on down the list it goes concluding with Eboo Patel’s relationship with the family of Hassan al-Banna of the Brotherhood.

In response, Obama’s goofy ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, penned a letter to the magazine expressing her “disappointment” in the article’s implication that Muslim Americans are guided primarily by their religious beliefs and could not be trusted to provide neutral advice to the United States. Anne went on to say that the United States does not back any single Egyptian faction and that stories based on rumor and innuendo have no place in the magazine.

Patterson was still operating as if the accusations of Muslim Brotherhood influence could be banished with the usual accusatory cries of Islamophobia, even when dealing with a Muslim magazine in Egypt.

MSNBC and Mother Jones naturally could not be bothered to cover the Rose El-Youssef story. And neither could slightly more mainstream liberal outlets like CNN or the New York Times. Like Patterson, they were still pretending that Egyptian suspicions of the Brotherhood’s power grab and their distrust of Obama for supporting the Brotherhood were some strange Islamophobic idea that they had picked up from, as Think Progress put it, “conservative blogs.”

When Egyptians protested against the Obama Administration’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, the response from Think Progress was to blame Michelle Bachmann and Frank Gaffney for influencing them. And while Frank Gaffney has indeed led the way in exposing Muslim Brotherhood influence on this side of the ocean, the Egyptians who had been living with the Muslim Brotherhood’s terrorism and plots for nearly a century had extensive experience of their own with the violent and fanatical organization.

During the mounting controversy over the Huma Abedin case, Frank Gaffney wrote an invaluable pamphlet on the formerly Nazi-funded organization. “The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration,”, published by the Freedom Center, described in detail the influence wielded by Muslim Brotherhood agents and sympathizers within the highest circles of foreign policy in the country. Beginning with the Muslim Brotherhood’s program of conquest, recovered by the FBI, and listing some of its more influential agents, Gaffney made the case that there was every reason to investigate them and it.

Rather than address this state of affairs, the media still insists on pretending that anyone who questions the Brotherhood is trafficking in conspiracy theories. Unable to understand the liberal Egyptian critics of the Muslim Brotherhood, the media stays on safe ground by attacking American terrorism researchers like Frank Gaffney.

The Muslim Brotherhood had been trying to take over Egypt for nearly a century. Now that it has succeeded, it is reasonable for both Americans and Egyptians to wonder how that came about. There is no question that a major foreign policy disaster of this magnitude merits investigation. And investigating a foreign policy disaster requires that we understand the influences that led to the bad decisions that made it happen.  That is as true now as it was after the fall of China to the Communists.

The Egyptians who have lost their freedom are asking these questions. We, who have not yet lost our freedom, should begin asking those questions as well before it is too late.


Daniel Greenfield

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/conspiracy-of-brothers/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Democrats Introduce Bill - Obama a Third Term

Sponsor: Rep. Serrano, Jose E. [D-NY-15] (Introduced 01/04/2013)

DEMOCRATS INTRODUCE BILL ‘HJ RES 15’ TO ALLOW OBAMA A THIRD TERM

http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-joint-resolution/15/text

H.J.Res.15 - Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.113th Congress (2013-2014)

[Congressional Bills 113th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.J. Res. 15 Introduced in House (IH)]

113th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. J. RES. 15

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

_______________________________________________________________________

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 4, 2013

Mr. Serrano introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

``Article--

``The twenty-second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.''.

Source - Congress.gov

Where do you see yourself in four years?

"Of course I;m optimistic

about the next four years!

Aren't you??!

"If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things" - quote: Albert Einstein.

Unfortunately, the November 6th elections proved that too many people tie their happiness to a man who has failed the United States since he first took office.  That did not prevent him from being re-elected November 6, 2012.  

The news media rejoiced; the people rejoiced; the candidate was flying high, and once again, the battle for America will continue to be on-going for another four more years.

This blogger and many other conservatives felt as though they needed to recover from a hangover the day after elections.  We just had the wind knocked out of us!  We attempted to demonstrate the truth and reasons why we understood that America was headed in the wrong direction, under this present leadership that starts at the White House and works its way down through the State Department, Homeland Security, Dept. of Defense, and throughout the federal organizations.

What happened?  How could this happen?  

I must confess that staring at this computer became more of a nasty chore after the November elections.  I'd rather get on my hands and knees and wash floors, or clean out closets, than continue posting, since it appeared that two few could read the handwriting on the wall by voting for BHO a second term.  I felt there is no way I can change the direction of the wind and the winds of change as Obama is allowed to march "forward" is a disaster just waiting to hit the shores of America. This storm will be far worse than Hurricane Sandy - it will hit every single family in the United States.  Sides are already being chosen and each of us must decide where we'll stand: on the side of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or the side that intends to over-ride the U.S. Constitution, as it rushes towards an agenda foreign to our nation.  

And so, for the past two months I took a necessary Leave of Absence from blogging...posting the bare minimum to keep this blog breathing, but barely alive.  It was time well spent with family and personal responsibilities that could not have been completed if I had sat at this computer.  It was time spent reading and praying, and taking longer walks in the neighborhood.  Time is valuable, each day a gift from our heavenly Father, and our time should not be wasted.  Nor, should we alot one minute of our time worrying about matters that are under the control of our Creator and King of the universe and not in the hands of a weak man who calls himself Barack Hussein Obama.

So, in the coming days and back at this computer, we begin anew!  Perhaps, we'll find out more about Benghazi and why our men died in the hands of Libyan terrorists.  Will Hillary testify to shed some light into this horrific tragedy?  Shortly, there will be more news about gun control and whether or not Americans will have to fight for their Second Amendment's freedom under the Constitution of the United States. Will our Congress stop the aid to the Muslim Brotherhood, the enemy of Israel and the United States. Who will Obama blame next for his failures? The founding fathers?!

We need to begin immediately to set goals for ourselves.  Personal goals, and goals that will strengthen our nation.  Pin the names and Washington phone numbers of your Representatives to your refrigerator and call your representatives to share you concerns.  If not comfortable calling, send emails.  Silence is not golden when we understand the urgency of protecting our rights and policies that relate to the very safety of our borders. 

Where will each of us be in four years?  We don't need a crystal ball, not knowing what a day will bring, but we can work towards a better future for our children and grandchildren by protecting our nation's solid rock foundation under the Founding Father's sacrifices.  We are still "One nation, under God".  

I wish everyone a blessed and prosperous New Year.  

Bee Sting

Americans Stand with Israel

January 6, 2013 - Sunday

OBAMA SCUTTLES 'FISCAL CLIFF' DEAL?

BREIBART.COM

by by MIKE FLYNN 31 Dec 2012, 11:29 AM PDT

This afternoon, in one of the more bizarre appearances of his presidency, Barack Obama gave a televised address to a room full of supporters on the "fiscal cliff." He broke no news, but mocked Congress, and hinted at future tax hikes. Observers worried that he may have deliberately scuttled a potential agreement.

Even though he has come off his last campaign for political office, President Obama acted like a candidate on the campaign trail--one prepared to use whatever political capital he had accumulated to take shots at the opposition in Congress at the very moment leaders from both sides are trying to work together.

Less a President, Obama behaved more like an ESPN talking-head making fun of RG III's knee injury. 

Obama's address, which you can watch below, was held basically to announce that some other people are working on solving the "fiscal cliff" crisis. They are close, Obama reported, but they aren't quite there yet. He then proceeded to make some jokes about Congress, to warm applause from his selected audience. Smug doesn't come close to capturing the true nature of his tone. 

What Obama's presser did reveal, however, was that never-ending tax hikes are on the table for the next four years. Obama said that, beyond any deal Congress may reach on the "fiscal cliff", we will have to take further steps to address our debt and deficit. That is obviously true, as any possible deal won't really deal with spending cuts. But, Obama said that, going forward, we will have to continue to have a "balanced" approach and ask the wealthy to contribute more. 

Obama said he will continue to ask for "shared sacrifice" for "as long as I'm President. And, I'm going to be President for four more years." Tellingly, this "sacrifice" always includes more taxes, rather than cuts in spending. 

To anyone who wondered whether Obama wanted the "cliff" talks to fail, this afternoon's presser provided the answer. If the GOP thinks it can cede some ground on taxes and then move on to debating spending, Obama, this afternoon, put that notion to rest. Obama will treat ALL future talks on deficit reduction as opportunities to increase taxes. Anything the GOP agrees to in the next 24 hours is simply a down-payment on what Obama wants. 

I have long noted that repealing the Bush-era tax cuts doesn't come anywhere close to plugging our deficit. Obama, today, agreed with that. He signaled that, as long as he's President, further tax hikes will always be on the table. In doing so, he undermined all the work that's been done in Congress this weekend. 

Obama may have just scuttled any real "fiscal cliff" deal.

Follow me on twitter

_______________________

BEE STING'S NOTE:

and now, an interesting commentary with chart about the "fiscal cliff", posted to my FB:

If you want to know why the "fiscal cliff" and "tax and cut" debate ignores 95.59% of what is destroying America, then read on, because your favorite news source is not reporting the truth!! This is the most important post you will read today!! Please, New York Times or Harvard Rhodes Scholar economist, please try and refute this piece!! The attempt is to educate!! It is the truth that most voters do not understand!! To save the country from two party tyranny in Washington D.C. will require that a large percentage of voters understand what is written here!! Please trust that even your favorite politician and of course media are not educating you on the facts that follow!! Every year there are automatic increases built into the system for government growth!! The cut debate is just a slight decrease in the rate of growth, and they call it a cut, but its continued government growth, get it!! The tax debate is miniscule!! They will go up, slightly above what they already get every year anyway in revenue (taxes), about $2.5 trillion!! So the increase in taxes of maybe in the neighborhood of $1.2 trillion over ten years amounts to increasing taxes $120 billion/year!! Its nothing, taking what they already get every year from $2.5 trillion to $2.62 trillion/year!! Please understand this my friends!! The tax and cut debate is meaningless!! The "fiscal cliff" and "tax and cut debate" as scripted by media and politicians is just prime time theater, and about as important to the survival of the country as your favorite sitcom!! So in review there are no cuts in the current debate, and the tax increase debate in the paradigm where they already get $2.5 trillion in tax revenue every year anyway, is meaningless!! The big money, the issue destroying the country, the money that dwarfs everything currently being discussed, the money media and politicians do not want to talk about is the borrowing and counterfeiting!! During the time this stupid debate has progressed, both parties in government have been spending not only the dollar of revenue they receive, but also more than another dollar they get too!! That dollar is a combination of borrowed money, and federal reserve bank printing out of thin air!! So look at it this way!! Every year government spends the $2.5 trillion in revenue (tax receipts) they receive!! But every year that isn't enough for the government addicts!! They also spend, based on the last time both parties raised the debt limit in August of 2011, $2.4 trillion new deficit dollars!! So far government spent in 2012 about $2.5 trillion (revenue) + $1.7 trillion in borrowed money (based on the August 2011 raising of the debt limit)!! But that's not all!! The Federal Reserve Bank and Ben Bernanke are currently pumping $85 billion/month of printed money into their cartel banks and government!! So here we have it!! Government spends every year $2.5 trillion in revenue (taxes) + $1.7 trillion of borrowed money (based on the August 2011 debt ceiling raising agreement) + $1.02 trillion in counterfeited money from the federal reserve bank for a total of $5.22 trillion dollars every year!! $2.72 trillion of that amount is placed on We The People's and future generations credit cards every year!! Are you getting it yet!!! So in review, lets just forget the current debate about cuts, because there are no cuts!!! The tax amount they are discussing amounts to about $120 billion/year at the most!!! Meanwhile there is no debate about what is killing the country every year!!! That is the $2.72 trillion of deficit cash above revenue being spent every year by the egregious incompetence and felonious behavior of both parties!!! The amount being discussed in the current debate, is puny, $120 billion/year!!! The amount being ignored by media and both parties is $2.72 trillion/year, massive!!! The $120 billion/year is exactly 4.41% of the $2.72 trillion/year that is being ignored by media and both parties!!! Put another way, both parties and government are ignoring 95.59% of the problem, the amount that goes on the credit card of We The People and future generations!!! Getting it yet!!! The Borrowing Limit (Debt Ceiling) fight will emerge within a few days, the money that government really wants!! The debate, to this point, is just window covering so you cannot see inside the disaster that is the federal governments house of theft, money laundering, borrowing addiction, and counterfeiting!! Real cuts will only happen when the borrowing limit is attacked!! You cannot cut spending (cuts) unless you take the money away!! They already get the taxes, and they want a little more of that!! America could take a dollar away form government for every two dollars they currently spend, within a few weeks, by forcing republicans to vote nay on the vote to raise the Borrowing Limit!! If not a zeroing out of the borrowing limit, cut it by 50% from what you usually raise it to!! Then next year zero it out!! If you want to see government at the budget table within a few seconds, we must force republicans to do what is suggested here!! There is no other way to get cuts or for government to even consider a budget!! Why would they need a budget when they control the money supply every year, getting as much as they want!! The propaganda that government will shut down is a lie!! Government gets, as explained above, $2.5 trillion in revenue every year to spend!! If they shut down it would be their decision!! There is plenty of revenue to pay interest on the national debt, social security, medicare, and military, with billions left over!! If, for instance, they decided to pay for their unconstitutional welfare programs and worthless unconstitutional bureaucracies administering them, instead of social security, it would be their choice to do so!! To save America, We The People must force Republicans to attack the Borrowing Limit (debt ceiling)!! It will be the issue within a few days!! All the rest of this nonsense has been bad theater!!
~ by Warren Gillette

 

Obama Finally Admits He Wants Gun Control

MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2012

POLITICAL PISTACHIO 

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Barack Obama is the kind of politician that doesn't say anything until he thinks it is popular enough for him to say it.

In other words, he's pretty typical, when it comes to the rats of Washington DC.

If an issue is unpopular, he hides his true feelings, says a few not-so-specific things about the issue, and as a Senator he would vote "present" on such issues, just so as not to commit himself in case the polls head in a direction away from his position.  However, if you pay close attention, his rhetoric has always revealed he is an anti-gun kind of guy.

During Obama's first term I remember occasionally mentioning on this website Obama's desire to increase the federal government's regulations on firearms, and liberals would freak out, leaving comments asking me to name just once when Obama claimed he was for banning guns.  Obama's position was obvious, without him ever saying it, and the rhetoric I could come up with vaguely insinuated he was for gun control, but was dated prior to him leaping onto the national scene.  Things like the Fast and Furious scandal, where the Obama administration practically handed guns to the Mexican drug cartels in the hopes they would use them to murder thousands (of which they did), so that the democrats could create an anti-gun sentiment in the United States over it, were just not solid enough proof to convince these liberals that Obama wants to disarm America.

I would guess that most of those liberals wanted gun control, too, but understood that at the time it was a losing issue for the liberal left.

Obama was waiting for the right crisis, hoping that it would become popular to get on the gun control bandwagon - and the Newtown School Shooting was just the crisis Obama, and the democrats, were waiting for to politicize, and move America towards gun control.

Now, after all of the dust has settled, and it is looking like it might be time for him to let the clown out of the box, Obama has pledged to make gun control legislation his top priority.

According to the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, federal gun laws restricting firearms in any way are unconstitutional.  Such illegal legislation would be met with fierce opposition, and could prove to be a battle that becomes more volatile than the democrats believe.

Those that oppose federal gun control legislation understand that the States, not the federal government, have an authority to regulate firearms as they see fit.  The State governments are closer to the people, and therefore are supposed to be more accountable to the people.  A centralized federal government is distant, and is not going to be sympathetic to the local needs, or unique culture.  Besides, when a centralized government bans firearms, it opens up the opportunity for tyranny.  An armed populace guards against the federal government becoming anything other than servants to the people.  A disarmed populace become nothing more than subjects that can be pushed in any direction the ruling elite thinks it sees fit.

Senator Feinstein has pledged to propose legislation a lot like her old anti-gun feather in her cap that banned assault-style weapons from 1994 to 2004.  She has stated she plans to add high-capacity magazines to that.

Obama, echoing his colleagues, because he refuses to ever take the lead, says his plan is to rally Americans around an agenda to limit gun violence, adding he supports increased background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity bullet magazines.

The wheels are in motion.  It won't be long before they go for confiscation.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Obama makes passing gun control measures a priority for 2013 - Fox News

Obama hopes to enact new gun-control measures in 2013 - The Hill

HAPPY 2013 NEW YEAR! (music videos)