I don’t doubt Obama was born in Hawaii and believe that he’s intentionally holding on to his actual birth certificate because it works for him as a political weapon. Obama knows he can count on the Palace Guard MSM — who have never in their history not demanded the disclosure of a document from a sitting president — to do his dirty work; to label anyone who even touches the issue as either racist or crazy (see:  ite-Media).

What does this have to do with Bill Cosby?

Some context: Prior to the interview with the Cosby (below), Viera had just gotten her head handed to her by Trump in an earlier interview that had the partisan “Today Show” host so flustered you can actually see her face turn red. Obviously, still bruised by the experience, she was looking to Mr. Cosby to make her feel better and call Trump a racist or something, but the classy comedian didn’t quite oblige. His main criticism was reserved for Trump’s will-he-or-won’t-he dance around his intention to run. The Trump stuff starts at the 6:40 mark, but make note of the awkward pause at 5:30 when Viera asks Cosby if Obama’s been a good education president….

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While Cosby makes clear he personally likes the President and his family, rather than praise Obama as a good on education, Cosby talks around the issue in generalities about wanting to help America and all presidents to make education better. This is likely based on Obama’s war against poor children in the form of his cynical dismantling of the Washington DC voucher system. Essentially what we have here is a president happy to squander a few trillion taxpayer dollars on anything other than giving poor children a ticket out of the failure factories that define urban public schools (especially in DC).

(more…)

We, the American public, hold it as an article of faith that those responsible for devising and implementing public policy have our best interests at heart. Our best minds are hard at work, striving to make the world a better place. Our elected officials are dedicated to protecting our freedoms, increasing our prosperity, and securing justice for all.

What, then, is the public to assume when, in spite of the best efforts of our most brilliant thinkers and politicians, freedoms erode, prosperity decreases, and for a great many, justice seems elusive? Surely, sinister forces must be at work.

Let us take for an example the nation’s system of public education. For years, American taxpayers have been sold on a triad of public policy fixes for public education. In order to improve student performance, state and federal governments must dedicate a greater portion of their budgetary dollars to education; class sizes must be reduced, and there must be greater oversight by the federal government. So fervent is the belief in this holy trinity of education, that to even ponder the efficacy of the federal Department of Education is seen as heresy. Any politician who attempts to curb the unrestricted flow of tax dollars to public schools is accused of not wanting to “invest in education.”

And yet, increases in spending have not resulted in a corresponding increase in student achievement. Studies have shown that over the last 50 years, student proficiency in math and English has shown little improvement even as spending and federal government oversight has increased and class size has decreased. Given the brilliance and dedication of our public servants, the failure of significant academic gains to materialize, in spite of billions spent on education, can only be the devil’s work.

And if you are a black man, the devil must, indeed, be working overtime. (more…)

[Ed. Note: Please visit Big Journalism for the full "Cry Wolf" series.]

Patrick Courrielche’s kickoff article exposing major university faculty and graduate students’ Cry Wolf Project is alarming. Each installment in the series has only made it more so.

CWP’s solicitation for policy briefs designed to construct politically driven narratives is a confession of academic malpractice. As Kurt Schlichter has pointed out, its participants’ intentions are unethical, insubordinate, and potentially illegal.

The CWP email shows its players to be intolerant of varying viewpoints in the pursuit of their ideological ends. The fact that they are offering colleagues and grad students money to predetermine outcomes proves their intent: to tell partisan political stories:

Drier-Email –

What are they afraid of? (more…)

Such was our founder’s belief in the preeminence of God that when the First Continental Congress convened in 1774, Massachusetts delegate Thomas Cushing suggested to the assembly that together they pray for divine guidance and protection.  The historical events that would forever change the world were preparing to unfold: war loomed on the horizon; the Declaration of Independence would be signed, and a nation “conceived in liberty” would be born.  In this moment, men of varied religious beliefs — Presbyterians, Episcopalians, some Quakers, others Baptists or Congregationalists – were led in prayer by an Episcopal priest in an appeal to the almighty that was described as “extraordinary…filling the bosom of every man present.”

It would not be the last time the founders appealed to the Almighty God.

James Madison acknowledged God’s favor in our founding in Federalist 37 referring to “a finger of that almighty hand, which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.”  I dare say that men like Madison and Cushing would not recognize the America of today, filled with politicians afraid to confess their faith or educators fearful of offending the sensibilities of their students with any mention of God. (more…)

“The People Speak” College Tour concluded with a standing-room-only crowd in UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall last Friday afternoon.

After the video presentation, host professor Ellen DuBois facilitated an audience question-and-answer session with her guests, actor Josh Brolin and producer Chris Moore, while Howard Zinn’s partner Anthony Arnove (whom Brolin credits for his own participation) paced the back of the theater.

Asked about his project’s intended use in K-12 public school settings, Mr. Moore answered:

We have a whole educational program. There’s a curriculum, there’s a whole educational thing. There’ll be a website that has tools, that’s searchable… There is definitely a plan.

That plan includes “The Zinn Education Project” which:

…promotes and supports the use of Howard Zinn’s best-selling book A People’s History of the United States and other materials for teaching a people’s history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. The Zinn Education Project is coordinated by two non-profit organizations, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.

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Children are uniquely malleable beings, readily convinced of magically colorful tales – Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are the first that come to mind. This innocence is beautiful, but it is a quality that can easily fall victim to radically foreign ideas if taught consistently and pervasively at an early age. One need only look at the birth of fascism or socialism to see a recipe for how radical ideas become ubiquitous among a nation’s youth.

Enter Howard Zinn – an author, professor and American historian – who, with the help of Hollywood and the History Channel, intends to change the way our pre-K through high school children learn American history. His current curriculum suggestions, like introducing three-year-olds to the lynching of African-Americans, or quizzing seven-year-olds on which Presidents owned slaves, should be a red flag to parents.

Zinn has spent a lifetime teaching college students about the evils of capitalism, the promise of Marxism, and his version of American history – a history that has, in his view, been kept from students. His controversial 1980-book The People’s History of the United States paints traditional American history as a façade – one that has grotesquely immortalized flawed leaders and is based on principles that victimize the common man. In 2004, Zinn wrote a companion book entitled Voices Of A People’s History Of The United States, which includes speeches and writings from many of the people featured in The People’s History.

These two books have now become the basis for a new documentary, entitled The People Speak, to be aired December 13th at 8pm on the History Channel. The trailer portrays the documentary as a collage of compelling one-person readings, told through the words of “ordinary” people who have struggled throughout American history against oppression. Produced by Zinn, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Chris Moore, the documentary appears to be cloaked, ironically (given Zinn’s admitted socialist agenda), in many of the traditional ideas that were behind our founding. The verdict is still out on the doc, but it is not for the books that inspired the film as well as the educational initiative associated with it. (more…)

In his first year in office former president Bill Clinton, who had run as a centrist, was drawn into the new left vortex of socialized healthcare, which led to a resounding defeat for Clinton and the Democrats in the 1994 mid-term elections. Current President Barack Obama too is attempting to reform healthcare and like Clinton has seen his popularity sink. Some political pundits are drawing comparisons between the two administrations and positing that democrats are setting themselves up for a bit of a spanking come 2010. It is, as Shirley Bassey sang, “all just a little bit of history repeating.”

Or is it?

In 1994 the political right offered voters something more than simply criticism of the President. Republican members of the House of Representatives presented voters with the “Contract with America.” This document, signed by all but two Republican congressmen and all of the Republican congressional candidates, detailed the specific legislative action Republicans would take if the American people handed them the reigns of government. The contract was a “detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print.” (more…)

Press release from U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Ranking Member of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee:

Enzi Leads GOP HELP Committee Inquiry
Into Alleged NEA Political Activity

 WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Ranking Member of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today led his fellow Republican HELP Committee members in requesting an explanation regarding possible violations of federal law at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).  Enzi and his colleagues sent the request to NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman. 

In the letter delivered today the Senators questioned the possibility of “taxpayer dollars to engage in lobbying activities to promote the President’s health care legislative agenda and other legislative priorities” during several August conference calls with NEA grant recipients and community stakeholders.

The letter also raises serious questions regarding how the NEA’s participation in these calls may have violated federal criminal restrictions on lobbying Congress, the Hatch Act, appropriations restrictions on spending funds for such purposes and possible contradictions with the entity’s mission under its authorizing statute.

“…The promotion to NEA grant recipients of topics that are at the top of the President’s legislative agenda and urging a call to action creates a serious conflict of interest,” wrote the Senators.

The full text of the letter to Landesman is below: (more…)

A close reading of the President’s speech to schoolchildren today reveals some notable things.  As a trial lawyer, it’s professionally interesting to see how he makes his case – and to see what case he is actually making.  And as the father of a new kindergartner and a toddler, I’m interested in seeing how he goes about trying to influence our children – not because I’m paranoid about him influencing my kids but because I’d like to learn how to do it myself.

Let’s start with some statistics.   My computer counted 36 uses of the word “I” and 15 uses of the contraction “I’m” in 2,367 words.  The subject is supposed to be “school,” but that word only appears 25 times.  So, the subject is the President.

The first two paragraphs seem innocuous, but they set the tone.  There are a lot of contractions – 110 by my Dell’s count.  You use those to seem comfortable and informal, sort of like Matlock would.  It assures the jury – I mean the kids – that you are not so different from them, that you’re one of them.  It’s a good move – I do it.  I’m just not sure the President should. (more…)

Today, President Obama delivers his speech to American students after several days of controversy due to its companion U.S. Department of Education (ED) Lesson Plan.

Count me among those who find a U.S. President delivering a speech to students–especially one encouraging them towards academic responsibility and excellence as a means to productive adult citizenship–among the more innocuous, and potentially beneficial activities of the Office.

Appreciating yesterday’s early release of President Obama’s speech and having now read it in context, I would heartily maintain that opinion, were it not for the ED’s controversial lesson plan.

FYI:

Part I, Sec. 1905 of the ED’s General Provisions: ELEMENTARY & SECONDARY EDUCATION states: (more…)

Half-a-century ago, a band of Leftist thugs violently took over the administration building at Columbia University and hijacked the American education system.  From that moment on, they used this system to indoctrinate – in fact brainwash – generation after generation into their cult of Leftism.

For the next five decades (pseudo)-intellectuals, hiding behind tenure and “Academic Freedom,” have been spewing greater and greater nonsense designed for one purpose and one purpose only: sabotaging and eventually destroying all of Western Civilization.

 
Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers

Don’t think so?  Simply consider the fact that one of the most oft-repeated chants of the Modern Liberal movement is “Hey, hey, ho, ho. Western Civilization has got to go.”

With control of the “education” system, the Leftists turned what had been a place of scholarship into a Leftism factory with a curriculum and modus operandi designed to facilitate their Utopian dreams which first required the demolition of the great (but imperfect) Western World. (more…)

America is facing a self-esteem crisis.  There’s too damn much of it.

In a nation where failure is rewarded with bailouts, the successful are public enemy number one and society’s nannies spread the lie that everyone is a winner, a simple TV singing contest provides the loudest voice of bedrock conservative values like hard work and personal achievement.  And that voice has an English accent.

For the three folks who don’t know because they have been living in a cavern next to Osama bin Laden since 2002, “American Idol” has wannabe crooners appear before a panel of four judges and warble some song for about sixty seconds.  The viewers vote (by paying a buck to the phone company) on who stays in the contest and who gets tossed off, but before the voting the singers get feedback.  This is when the fun begins. (more…)

Q: Out of 29 participating nations, where did America rank on international student assessment?

A: 24th

Every education reform effort since the National Defense of Education Act signed in 1958 has begun with soaring rhetoric, big promises, and massive budgets and delivered not much in the way of results.

In 1979, Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education; George H.W. Bush promised to “map a new approach to education”; Bill Clinton signed his “Goals 2000″; and George W. Bush had his “me too” moment with “No Child Left Behind.” Yet in spite of all these efforts and billions upon billions of dollars only 23% of American students were proficient in reading by graduation in 2005. In fact, according to the most recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), reading scores have remained flat while real federal spending per pupil has more than tripled since 1985. The average freshman graduation rate has also remained flat according to the National Center for Education Statistics. (more…)