George Washington Provided Leadership : Leadership Is The Courage to Believe and Act!

What George Washington did to save the country from sliding back into what was considered by maybe even a majority of the population was a safe and secure position, that is, allowing others to govern no matter how sinister or unscrupulous, it's just easier that way then having to make decisions regarding your very survival. George Washington  provided strong, principled leadership in the face of overwhelming odds because he knew and believed there was no alternative.

When the British moved against this country to take away the belief of independent thought and action, it was a necessity to have strong leadership that understood what was at stake, it was do or die.

And what we face today I believe is similar, maybe not so dire as being killed in battle or hung by the by a foreign power for insurrection or revolution, what we face now is an apathy of careless ignorance of what we could lose if we as a nation don't understand what is at stake.

We could lose everything that 100's of thousands died to preserve without having to fire a shot. We lose the battle because we as a nation have forgotten how important individual freedom is. We take it for granted that it will always be there for the taking without having to sacrifice anything to remain free.

Hey, I have my phone, what more to life can there be?

With Donald Trump in a leadership position, it seems the majority of the population understands the gravity of the situation we are faced with now as so many among us strive to peel off large chunks of our freedom as a means to gain control of our lives by forcing their religious agenda and ideology of class division, warfare and hate that they believe will ultimately bring a repeal of the Constitution of this great nation and then rewrite it to suit personal ambitions for a central authority, a supreme power over others.

What has actually changed in 240 years?

Is history repeating it self? Will we as a free nation have the will and courage today as our forefathers did so many years ago that believed there can not be any alternative to freedom. 

As I have stated on many other occasion and I will continue to state again here, ''Freedom means having nothing else to lose". Forget this to be the most truthful statement of the modern age means we no longer understand or want to be free to chose who and what we are.

Next November is coming. It's time to decide, to chose again.

How George Washington’s Sterling Character Set an Example for the Ages

Richard Lim / @ThisAmerPres / December 23, 2017

For most Americans, the 23rd of December has no particular significance. But an extraordinary event happened on that day in 1783 in Annapolis, Maryland, that stunned the world. Gen. George Washington stood before the Continental Congress in Maryland’s State House and resigned his commission as the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. It changed the American republic forever.

Washington had served as commander since 1775. Throughout eight grueling years of war, he led his soldiers through glorious triumphs and crushing losses. His ragtag group of farmers and shopkeepers was outnumbered by a superior British force. It had been ravaged by disease and starvation.

Several times, it was on the verge of dissolution—after the disastrous defeat in New York City in 1776 and during the brutal winter at Valley Forge. But, with the help of the French military, Washington kept his army together, and he emerged from the war with the devotion of his men.

Washington’s task was to fight an asymmetric war against the more powerful British Empire. In that respect, his task was not unique. History is full of examples of weaker powers fighting, and even defeating, a stronger power.

What made Washington’s mission unique was that he was leading a large-scale republic conceived under a revolutionary principle; namely, that all men were created equal and that governments exist to secure their God-given rights. The Americans were embarking on a new experiment to prove whether this revolutionary belief could become a reality. For the Americans, it wasn’t just about winning the war. It was also about how they would win.

The Americans were fighting against British tyranny, against what they considered to be a corrupt and centralized system that deprived them of their natural rights and taxing them without their consent. They were used to governing themselves through Colonial legislatures that checked any centralizing tendencies. But winning wars often requires centralizing authority and raising taxes. And armies, by necessity, often resort to violating the rights of civilians during wartime, such as confiscating property and arresting citizens suspected of treason under military courts.

Washington had the unique challenge of winning the war consistent with revolutionary principles.

Many observers around the world doubted that such a vast republic could be created. Sure, there were republics in Italian city-states or in Dutch provinces, but the American Colonies were themselves the size of entire countries.

How could they be governed without a strongman? How could so many interests be held together without breaking out into anarchy? After all, the Greek and Roman republics both turned into dictatorships, and the vast majority of states around the world were ruled by monarchies.  Even if Washington won the war, surely he would end up having to rule as a dictator. If the American Revolution would not be defeated on the battlefield, it would be defeated in principle.

Washington would be tempted several times by the allure of power. By 1782, some within Washington’s army doubted the Revolution would succeed. Many of the soldiers were suffering because neither the states, nor the Continental Congress was willing to raise the funds necessary to pay them.

The government was just too weak—or simply unwilling—to pay the soldiers. To some Americans, this exposed a defective weakness in the republican government. One man, Col. Lewis Nicola, wrote a letter to Washington in May 1782 suggesting that “strong arguments might be produced for admitting the title of king”—that Washington take monarchical power.

Washington responded forcefully to Nicola, saying he viewed such thoughts “with abhorrence, and reprehend with severity.” He then ordered Nicola “to banish these thoughts from your mind.”

But many in the army continued to think that strong measures should be taken. By March 1783, several officers participated in a plot in army encampments in Newburgh, N.Y., to threaten the Congress, perhaps by refusing to disband after the war ended.

Although Washington sympathized with his men, he knew that disobeying the civilian government would destroy the very principles he had been fighting for. In an emotional speech to his officers, he pleaded with them to “express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes … to overturn the liberties of our country and … open the [floodgates] of civil discord, and deluge our rising empire in blood.” With that, the plot ended and the tenuous civil control over the military held.

That brings us to that fateful day, Dec. 23, 1783. The Treaty of Paris had been signed, and the United States was all but independent.

Washington arrived at the State House in Annapolis around noon. As he faced Thomas Mifflin, president of the Continental Congress, Washington declared, “I have now the honor of offering my sincere congratulations to Congress and of presenting myself before them to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country.”

One witness, James McHenry, wrote, “It was a solemn and affecting spectacle; such [a] one as history does not present. The spectators all wept.” Washington ended “by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God.” At this, McHenry wrote, “his voice [faltered] and sunk, and the whole house felt his agitations.”

Washington then drew out his commission and handed it over to Mifflin. He then headed home, back to Mount Vernon, arriving there on Christmas Day 1783 as a private citizen. The image of a man surrendering power in a time of kings and emperors stunned the world. American painter John Trumbull, in Europe at the time, observed that the act “excites the astonishment and admiration of this part of the world.”

“’Tis a conduct so novel, so unconceivable to people, who, far from giving up powers they possess, are willing to convulse the empire to acquire more,” he said.

Upon learning of Washington’s resignation, King George III himself remarked, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

Recent political scandals are only confirming the widespread belief that our politicians, at all levels, abuse the power they have. For many Americans, abuse of power seems to characterize our system, whether it is the institutional mechanisms that ensure the repeated election of career politicians or the revelation of their personal indiscretions.

At a time when faith in our leaders is at an all-time low, it is easy to forget that we were founded largely through the work of a man who, when tempted with absolute power, refused to take it.

It’s no longer in vogue to study the virtues of our statesmen. We live in a cynical age, in which it sells far more books that “uncover” America’s sins, rather than celebrate its greatness. And the “sophistication” of moral ambiguity sells far more than the “simplistic” affirmation of character.

Washington was not a perfect man, but his story reminds us about a time when virtue was valued and extolled. In the words of Daniel Webster, “American has furnished to the world the character of Washington. And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.”

In an age crying out for character, it’s time to rediscover the example Washington set for us on Dec. 23, 1783.

People Fleeing ''Blue'' States : DNA Corruption Rules.

I wonder what would be a good reason to move to any ''blue'' state, a state run by progressive liberal democrats? As history is a good indicator of what the future will portend for you if you do actually want to move to a state like Illinois or New York, you would have to have for one helluva good reason to place your self and your family at risk.

Also, the top ten big cities in America that are failing are all run by democrats. And with that fact in mind, one has to know that things can only get worse for them. It's in the DNA. You an run but you can't hide.

Nearly 450,000 People Fled These 3 Deep Blue States in 2017

Will Racke / @hwillracke / December 27, 2017

Three Democratic-leaning states hemorrhaged hundreds of thousands of people in 2016 and 2017 as crime, high taxes, and, in some cases, crummy weather had residents seeking greener pastures elsewhere.

The exodus of residents was most pronounced in New York, which saw about 190,000 people leave the state between July 1, 2016, and July 1, 2017, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released last week.


New York’s domestic out-migration during that time period was about the same as it was during the same time in 2015 and 2016. Since 2010, the state’s outflow of just over 1 million residents has exceeded that of every other state, both in absolute terms and as a share of population, according to the free-market think tank Empire Center.

Despite the massive domestic out-migration flow, New York’s net population grew slightly, largely due to high levels of international immigration and a so-called “natural increase”—the difference between births and deaths in a given year. New York’s net migration was about minus 60,000 residents, but the state had 73,000 more births than deaths, resulting in a net population growth of about 13,000.

Illinois was not so fortunate. Long-beset by twin budget and pension crises and the erosion of its tax base, Illinois lost so many residents that it dropped from the fifth- to the sixth-most populous state in 2017, losing its previous spot to Pennsylvania.

Just under 115,000 Illinois residents decamped for other states between July 2016 and July 2017. Since 2010, the Land of Lincoln has lost about 650,000 residents to other states on net, equal to the combined population of the state’s four largest cities other than Chicago, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.

Illinois’ domestic out-migration problem has become a nightmare for lawmakers, who must find a way to solve the worst pension crisis in the nation as the state’s tax base shrinks year after year. Illinois’ Democratic-dominated legislature has tried to ameliorate the situation with tax hikes, causing even more people to leave and throwing the state into a demographic spiral. Illinois experiences a net loss of about 33,000 residents in 2016, the fourth consecutive year of population decline.

“As people leave the state, they take their pocketbooks with them. That means there are fewer Illinoisans to pay the bills,” Orphe Divounguy, chief economist with the Illinois Policy Institute, told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s worrying because if you have a declining population and a declining labor force, you will for sure have a further slowdown of economic activity going into 2018.”

California was the third deep blue state to experience significant domestic out-migration between July 2016 and July 2017, and it couldn’t blame the outflow on retirees searching for a more agreeable climate. About 138,000 residents left the state during that time period, second only to New York.

However, because California was the top receiving state for international migrants, its net migration was actually 27,000. Add to that number a “natural increase” of 214,000 people, and California’s population grew by about just over 240,000, according to the Census Bureau.

Going forward, one factor that could worsen domestic out-migration from New York, California, and Illinois is the newly enacted tax reform bill, which caps state and local tax deductions at $10,000. The limit on the state and local tax deduction is poised to hit taxpayers harder in those states than it will in just about any other.

According to the Tax Foundation, New York, Illinois, and California had three of the five highest tax rates expressed as a percentage of per capita income, with residents paying 12.7 percent, 11 percent, and 11 percent, respectively.

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1-5 Government Employees 6-figure Salary : 30,000 Rank And File - $190K+

All we really need to bring our country back from the financial precipice is Donald Trump and more Republicans that believe they have a duty to save the country from the progressive socialists democrats that have driven America into that black hole decline, dependence and the pestilence of class warfare just for the political reason of getting and keeping power to control others for themselves. 

We are truly at a crisis point in our great country. I hope at some point Donald shows a lot of these people the door out.

1 of Every 5 Government Employees Has a 6-Figure Salary

Rachel del Guidice / @LRacheldG / December 27, 2017

The U.S. government pays employees a total of about $1 million per minute, according to a watchdog group’s report on the sprawling federal bureaucracy.

Looking at 78 large agencies, the nonprofit organization OpenTheBooks.com found that the average salary of a federal employee exceeds $100,000 and that roughly 1 in 5 of those on the government payroll has a six-figure salary.

Almost 30,000 rank-and-file government employees make over $190,823, more than any governor of the 50 states.

“Our oversight report shows the size, scope, and power of the administrative state,” Adam Andrzejewski, Open the Books’ CEO and founder, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “Two million federal bureaucrats have salaries, extraordinary perquisites, and lifetime pension benefits. This compensation package has never been seen in the private sector.”

The median wage for all American workers was $44,148 a year for a 40-hour work week in the final quarter of 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Andrzejewski said the Open the Books report, released Tuesday and including an interactive map of the 2 million federal bureaucrats by ZIP code, is meant to educate taxpayers on where their dollars are going.

So what about those perks?

When federal employees reach the third anniversary of their employment, he said, “they get eight and a half weeks’ paid time off” plus “10 holidays, 13 sick days, and 20 vacation days.” “We estimate those perks alone cost the American taxpayer $22.6 billion a year,” Andrzejewski said.

With the government paying the disclosed workforce $1 million per minute, according to the report, every eight-hour workday costs taxpayers more than $500 million.

A total of 406,960 employees make a six-figure income, amounting to roughly 1 in 5 employees. From 2010 through 2016, the number of federal employees making more than $200,000 increased by 165 percent.

“People are really hungry for these hard facts, they are interested in searching their little piece of the swamp,” Andrzejewski told The Daily Signal.

Among other findings of the report, called “Mapping the Swamp: A Study of the Administrative State”:

—A small federal agency in San Francisco, Presidio Trust, paid out three of the government’s four largest bonuses, including the largest in fiscal year 2016. The biggest bonus, $141,525, went to a personnel manager who did payroll.

—The Postal Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs employ over half of all disclosed federal workers, at 32 percent of and 19 percent, respectively.

—About 2 million “undisclosed” employees work for the Defense Department, including active military duty. Their compensation, including $1 billion in bonuses and $125 billion in pensions, amounts to $221 billion per year.

Federal workers are paid a “new minimum wage,” Open the Books argues, because the average employee at 78 of the 122 departments and independent agencies reviewed makes $100,000 or more.

“Congress should hold hearings to bring transparency to all the information we’re still missing, including performance bonuses and pension payouts,” Andrzejewski said in a prepared statement. “It’s time to squeeze out waste from compensation and stop abusive payroll practices.”

DC Metrobues Deny Religious Ad : Secularists In Charge?

Sigh - big city bureaucrats are now and always have been the problem, especially big city bureaucrats, since the rise of progressive socialist secularists ideology that is forcing common sense and logic from public discourse.

That the Metrobuse system has seen fit to deny a religious ad to run on their buses which was in no way objectionable to the general public during Christmas, is now more understandable given what ads that are allowed to run on Metrobuses.

Seattle does seem to have a better program for even handed approach in advertising for it's transit utility. Still, as a city the is totally infested with progressive liberals, it would seem appropriate to actually witness just how even handed the city is to accepting religious ads. as against secularist demands.

Seattle Public Transit Religious Ads Guideline Could Prove Model for DC Metro, Which Won’t Run Religious Ads

Amy Swearer / @AmySwearer / December 21, 2017

Last week, a federal judge denied a motion from the Archdiocese of Washington for an injunction directing the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to accept and run the archdiocese’s advent advertisements on Metrobuses.

The advertisements, which featured shepherds following a star, urged people to “find the perfect gift” by directing them to a website with Catholic mass times and other religious content.

Metro previously rejected the advertisements as inconsistent with its advertising guidelines, which prohibit, among other things, “advertisements that promote or oppose any religion, religious practice or belief.” The archdiocese initiated a lawsuit in federal district court against Metro, asking that the guideline in question—Guideline 12—be declared unconstitutional.

This is far from the first lawsuit against Metro’s advertising guidelines, which it amended in 2015 to prohibit a wide array of noncommercial advertisements, including those with political or religious messages, endorsing public policies, or attempting to influence public opinion on contentious social issues.

What does this ruling mean? What are the legal arguments being raised against these guidelines? Could Metro have avoided these lawsuits by implementing more flexible policies? The Injunction Denial Is Far From the End

The federal district court judge only declined to issue a preliminary injunction, which is different than deciding whether the guideline is constitutional. An injunction is merely a request to make the other party to the lawsuit act or stop acting in a certain way, pending the outcome of the case. The archdiocese essentially asked the judge to require that Metro run its advent advertisements until the court rules on whether Guideline 12 is constitutional.

A preliminary injunction is an “extraordinary and drastic remedy” that is “never awarded as [a matter] of right” (Munaf v. Geren). In other words, it’s intentionally difficult for a party to obtain one. The judge determined that the archdiocese did not establish that it was likely to succeed on the merits of its case, and that it would not suffer irreparable harm if Metro isn’t required to run the advent advertisements in the interim. On Wednesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals also declined to issue a preliminary injunction for similar reasons.

Legal Arguments Against the Guidelines

The archdiocese raises several legal challenges to Guideline 12, some of which are complicated by the fact Metro is a unique tri-jurisdictional agency, created by Congress as an interstate compact between Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. It’s difficult to ascertain whether and how this might impact the archdiocese’s claims that Guideline 12 violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal statute that the Supreme Court ruled cannot constitutionally be applied to the states (City of Boerne v. Flores). The other major claims, however, appear fairly straightforward.

The archdiocese’s first claim is that Guideline 12 impermissibly restricts its First Amendment right to free speech. Because Metro is a government agency, this case is governed by law concerning the regulation of speech on government property. This means the restriction will be analyzed under the “Public Forum Doctrine,” which categorizes government property as either a traditional public forum, a designated public forum, or a nonpublic forum.

In traditional and designated public forums, regulations that discriminate against speech on the basis of its viewpoint or content are almost always struck down as unconstitutional. In nonpublic forums, however, content-specific regulations may be allowed as long as they are both reasonable and viewpoint-neutral.

The archdiocese contends primarily that Metro’s prohibitions are not viewpoint-neutral and are enforced in a discriminatory manner against religious expression. It points out that Metro allows advertisements for the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle charity drive and for a yoga studio, both of which arguably promote religion and religious practices. Further, it argues that Metro allows secular and commercial viewpoints on the Christmas season, while disallowing any promotion of the holiday’s inherently religious underpinnings.

The archdiocese’s second major claim is that Guideline 12 burdens its First Amendment right to freely exercise its religious beliefs.

Similarly to laws and regulations restricting speech, regulations burdening a person or organization’s religious practices must be neutral and generally applicable to survive legal challenges (Emp’t Div. v. Smith). If they are not neutral and generally applicable, they must survive strict scrutiny—that is, they must advance a compelling state interest, be necessary to achieve that interest, and be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.

To be neutral and generally applicable, laws and regulations cannot single out religious speech or practices for disfavored treatment, and they cannot be enforced in a discriminatory manner against religious practitioners. (Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah).

The archdiocese argues that Metro’s prohibitions disfavor religious speech in general, and establish a preference for nonreligious institutions and viewpoints. In practice, the prohibitions silence all ideological challenges to secularism.

Although absent from the archdiocese complaint, it should be noted that at the same time Metro banned all religiously-oriented viewpoints because of their polarizing nature, it amended the guidelines to allow the advertisement of alcoholic beverages—an equally polarizing advertising topic, according to Metro’s own research.

Metro’s Guidelines Are Misguided

As the late Justice Antonin Scalia famously noted, “It is entirely possible for a law to be really, really stupid and yet be constitutional.” Here, Metro notoriously demands increased funding while simultaneously rejecting revenue streams from fairly uncontroversial advertisements that technically violate its broad advertising guidelines.

Metro’s desire to adopt more restrictive guidelines was not completely unreasonable in and of itself—they were initially amended in 2015 after a proposed advertisement picturing a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad caused significant and not entirely unfounded fears of violent backlash.

Similar public outrage had occurred in 1988 after Metro allowed advertisements alleging Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians, in 1995 when it ran anti-abortion advertisements, and in 2001 over advertisements attacking the Catholic Church’s stance on the use of condoms.

It is understandable that Metro sought ways to constitutionally prohibit these types of controversial advertisements that could legitimately hamper its ability to achieve its primary aim—safely getting a D.C. area passenger from Point A to Point B.

However, there are other ways in which Metro could achieve this goal with more narrowly tailored advertising guidelines that could prohibit only those advertisements likely to be harmful or disruptive to the transit system. Had it adopted guidelines similar to those implemented by the King County (Seattle) Department of Transportation, all of this unnecessary litigation and public relations nightmare could have been avoided.

Seattle’s transit advertising guidelines offer perhaps the best example of a healthy balance between raising revenue, treating viewpoints equally, and still ensuring that inflammatory advertisements will not threaten the efficiency of the system or the safety of passengers.

Its prohibitions are limited in scope, and provide flexible but instructive guidelines for assessing whether a particular advertisement falls within a particular prohibition.

Notably, Seattle prohibits political campaign speech and speech that “demeans or disparages an individual, group of individuals, or entity.” But the most relevant prohibition bars advertisements containing “material that is so objectionable as to be reasonably foreseeable that it will result in harm to, disruption of or interference with the transportation system.”

For all of these arguably subjective standards, King County seeks to make the process more objective by employing a “reasonably prudent person” test to determine whether the advertisement would be generally understood as violating the prohibitions on demeaning or disruptive material. In Washington, as in many states, this test has developed a substantial body of judicial precedent that allows for fairly consistent and discernable outcomes.

The practical benefit of this standard is that it protects King County’s interests in passenger safety by actually focusing the prohibitions on material most likely to impact passenger safety and business efficiency. The “harmful or disruptive” prohibitions are not concerned with quashing viewpoints, either on an individual or categorical level. Rather, the concern is much more aligned with “reserv[ing] the forum for its intended purposes,” (see Perry Educ. Ass’n) which is the provision of safe and reliable public transportation.

Under similar guidelines, Metro could have allowed the archdiocese to run its advertisements, while still having an emergency fire extinguisher to eliminate the would-be flames likely to be prompted by advertisements depicting Muhammad or accusing the Catholic Church of murder.

Although this lawsuit is still in its infancy, it appears—for this Christmas, at least—the archdiocese will not be able to run its advertisements on Metrobuses. It is too early to make conclusions on how the court will rule on the merits, as many more facts about whether and how Metro enforces its policy in a discriminatory way may come to light as the litigation proceeds.

One thing, however, is abundantly clear: Metro could have avoided this problem by adopting more narrowly tailored prohibitions that don’t exclude advertisements unlikely to cause disruptions to transit service.

At the very best, Guideline 12 might pass constitutional muster (barely). That doesn’t make it any less worthy of being repealed as a bad policy.

Teacher Quality Found Wanting : No Demand for Excellence

Low quality teachers in our public schools? 'Say it ain't so!' The National Education Association(NEA) responsible for setting the standards for teacher education has failed.
The NEA is an organization that depends on good progressive socialist liberal principles to survive, taking as much of other peoples money ass they can. And in this case, the deep pockets of the taxpayers. 

The demand by the public to improve educational standards are always met with the lobbing efforts on congress for yet more money to fix any problem. The NEA finds it just too difficult to actually having to take the responsibility for their own failure to deliver. Blaming state governments and federal agencies is a long and well trod road that has yielded results with good success.

But now with Charter Schools, Vouchers and Private Schools, as well as online schools, the NEA is finding the old ways no longer will feed the monster of privileged academics lurking behind closed doors in Washington and else where wondering who they can brow beat for answers and protection from the taxpayers pitch forks.

Even after of decades of throwing ever increasing $billions at the problem of schools failing to educate, the NEA still relies on more money as the final solution. Little wonder schools are still failing the students and the taxpayers, proving the wizards of smarts running show are truly bankrupt of ideas.

 

The Low Academic Quality of Too Many Teachers

Walter E. Williams / December 27, 2017
My recent columns have focused on the extremely poor educational outcomes for black students. There’s enough blame for all involved to have their fair share. That includes students who are hostile and alien to the educational process and have derelict, uninterested home environments.

After all, if there is not someone in the home to ensure that a youngster does his homework, has wholesome meals, gets eight to 10 hours of sleep, and behaves in school, educational dollars won’t produce much.

There’s another educational issue that’s neither flattering nor comfortable to confront. That’s the low academic quality of so many teachers. It’s an issue that must be confronted and dealt with if we’re to improve the quality of education. Most states require prospective teachers to pass a certification test. How about a sample of some of the test questions.

Here’s a question from a recent test given to college students in Michigan planning to become teachers: “Which of the following is largest? a. 1/4, b. 3/5, c. 1/2, d. 9/20.” Another question: “A town planning committee must decide how to use a 115-acre piece of land. The committee sets aside 20 acres of the land for watershed protection and an additional 37.4 acres for recreation. How much of the land is set aside for watershed protection and recreation? a. 43.15 acres, b. 54.6 acres, c. 57.4 acres, d. 60.4 acres”.

The Arizona teacher certification test asks: “Janet can type 250 words in 5 minutes, what is her typing rate per minute? a. 50wpm, b. 66wpm, c. 55wpm, d. 45wpm.”

The California Basic Educational Skills Test asks the test taker to find the verb in the following sentence: “The interior temperatures of even the coolest stars are measured in millions of degrees. a. Coolest, b. Of even, c. Are measured, d. In millions.” A California Basic Educational Skills Test math question is: “You purchase a car making a down payment of $3,000 and 6 monthly payments of $225. How much have you paid so far for the car? a. $3225, b. $4350, c. $5375, d. $6550, e. $6398.”

My guess is that these are questions that an eighth- or ninth-grader with a good education ought to be able to answer. Such test questions demonstrate the low bar that states set in order for one to become a certified teacher. Even with such low expectations, college graduates have failed these and similarly constructed teacher certification tests. Recently, New York, after being tied up in court for years, dropped its teacher literacy test amid claims of racism.

A 2011 investigation by WSB-TV found that more than 700 Georgia teachers had repeatedly failed at least one portion of the certification test they were required to pass before receiving a teaching certificate. Nearly 60 teachers had failed the test more than 10 times, and one teacher had failed the test 18 times. There were 297 teachers on the Atlanta school system’s payroll who had failed the state certification test five times or more.

With but a few exceptions, schools of education represent the academic slums of colleges. They tend to be home to students who have the lowest academic test scores—for example, SAT scores—when they enter college. They also tend to have the lowest scores when they graduate and choose to take postgraduate admissions tests—such as the GRE, the MCAT, and the LSAT. Professors at schools of education tend to have the lowest level of academic respectability. American education could benefit from eliminating schools of education.

You might ask: Without schools of education, how would teachers be trained? I think that we ought to adopt a practice whereby teachers are hired according to their undergraduate major.

I learned this talking to a headmistress of a private school. She said she doesn’t hire education majors. She said that if she hires a teacher to teach chemistry, math, English, or any other subject, the person must have a bachelor’s degree in the discipline. Pedagogical techniques can be learned through short formal training, coaching, and experience.

Trumps Releases Report On Prison System : 1 in 5 Are Immigrants And Illegal

I wonder how this report will be received by the mainstream media? Will they report on it at all and if the do, will they actually report what it says without changing the report to reflect their personal narrative, agenda and ideology.

If history is any indicator of what the future will bring, I strongly believe this report on the number of prisoners currently in our penal system, how many are immigrants and how many are illegal immigrants will not see the light of day on the lettered channels or news outlets like The New York Times or  the Washington Post.

The progressive socialist liberals are fully invested with the notion that immigrants and illegals immigrants are the future of their collective, and no matter what crimes they commit, all will be forgiven as long as they vote for progressive democrats. Yeah, I know they aren't supposed to vote, but come on, look at states like Virginia with Gov. McAuliffe  and the worst of all, California with Gov. Jerry ''Moonbeam'' Brown.

Just imagine a democrat that would refuse 100,000 votes just because it was illegal? What other reason could they have to be so adamant for sanctuary cities? You see, it's not just the illegals that are criminals.

Trump Administration Releases Final 2017 Report on Incarcerated Illegal Immigrants. Here’s What It Found.

Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH / December 22, 2017

More than 1 in 5 of all federal inmates in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons are immigrants, as of the end of the fiscal year 2017, a federal report released Thursday said.  The report also found that 94 percent of confirmed foreign-born inmates in federal incarceration were in the country illegally.

The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security issued their final quarterly report for 2017 measuring progress since a January executive order by President Donald Trump to crack down on illegal immigration. The report also found that about two-thirds of all immigrants in the custody of U.S. Marshals Service were in the United States illegally. “This shows undeniably the need to secure the southern border with a wall to prevent many of the crimes from occurring,” a senior administration official said.

This is the third report issued since a Jan. 25 executive order regarding interior enforcement of immigration laws.

The reports have been primarily raw numerical data of confirmed foreign-born and illegal immigrants incarcerated. Officials said they hope future reports will have a breakdown of specific crimes, as well as information on state and local incarcerations.

A senior administration official cited U.S. Sentencing Commission data from fiscal year 2016 that found almost one-third of drug trafficking crimes and more than two-thirds of drug-use crimes came from foreign-born offenders, both legal and illegal.

The report found 58,766 known or suspected aliens were in Justice Department custody at the end of fiscal 2017, or Sept. 30. That included 39,455 persons incarcerated by the Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, and another 19,311 held by the U.S. Marshals Service, or USMS.

The report continues:

Of this total, 37,557 people had been confirmed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be aliens (i.e., non-citizens and non-nationals), while 21,209 foreign-born people were still under investigation by ICE to determine alienage.

Among the 37,557 confirmed aliens, 35,334 people (94 percent) were unlawfully present. These numbers include a 92 percent unlawful rate among 24,476 confirmed aliens in BOP custody and a 97 percent unlawful rate among 13,081 confirmed aliens in USMS custody.

“The American people deserve a lawful system of immigration that serves the national interest,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement issued Thursday. “But at the border and in communities across America, our citizens are being victimized by illegal aliens who commit crimes.”

Sessions added:

Nearly 95 percent of confirmed aliens in our federal prisons are here illegally. We know based on sentencing data that noncitizens commit a substantially disproportionate number of drug-related offenses, which contributes to our national drug abuse crisis.

The simple fact is that any offense committed by a criminal alien is ultimately preventable. One victim is too many. It’s time for Congress to enact the president’s immigration reform agenda so that we start welcoming the best and brightest while turning away drug dealers, gang members, and other criminals.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen noted the Trump administration is taking action but the report shows “more must be done.”

“We will continue to pursue President Trump’s immigration priorities, including securing the border, enhancing interior enforcement, and pursuing a merit-based immigration system, but Congress must act immediately to adopt obvious solutions to strengthen DHS and DOJ efforts to confront dangerous criminal aliens,” Nielsen said in a statement Thursday

Days after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order on public safety in the interior of the United States. Section 16 of the order directs the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to “to collect relevant data and provide quarterly reports” regarding the immigration status of all immigrants incarcerated under the supervision of the Bureau of Prisons; the immigration status of all aliens incarcerated as federal pretrial detainees, in some cases by the U.S. Marshals Service; and the immigration status of all convicted aliens in state prisons and local detention centers throughout the United States.

Senior administration officials said the departments are still working to obtain local and state data for future reports. Such information is critical because about 90 percent of the incarcerated population is in state and local prisons or jails.

A senior administration official noted that a vast majority of murder, sex offenses, and other serious crimes are prosecuted at the state and local level, which is another reason this information will be so important to obtain.

“As of September 28, 2017, a total of 24,476 confirmed aliens were housed in BOP facilities, and an additional 14,979 foreign-born individuals in BOP facilities remained under ICE investigation; together these known and suspected aliens accounted for 21 percent of all federal inmates in BOP custody,” the report says.

The report continues:

As of October 2, 2017, a total of 19,311 known and suspected aliens were housed in USMS facilities. Of the confirmed aliens in USMS custody, 66 percent (12,720) were unlawfully present, including 11,459 aliens (59 percent) with an administrative final order of removal and 1,261 aliens (6.5 percent) who were unlawfully present but pending adjudication in removal proceedings.

Should Trump Cut Loose NPR And PBS? : No Longer ''Public'' Broadcasting.

Look no further then any institution that depends $450 million tax dollars to ''survive'' and not become corrupted. It just like any welfare system on that we have in this country, from food stamps to Medicaid, let alone Social Security, Medicare and many others, it seems too many citizen that don't belong there but find a way to eagerly attach themselves to the free stuff.

Good socialist liberals all, once they have the scent of free stuff, especially big bottomless tax dollars that are available, here they come with bells on ready to begin the feeding frenzy! It's just too easy to just take other peoples money and run wild. 

Time for Trump Makeover of Liberal NPR and PBS

Michelle Malkin / @michellemalkin / December 22, 2017

At the close of 2017, no less than seven prominent male hosts and editors of influential government-sponsored radio and television shows are out of work amid claims of sexual harassment.

According to their accusers, the alleged Malevolent Seven are powerful pervs and creeps who’ve been running wild at NPR and PBS for decades, sponsored and subsidized by taxpayers and corporate donors.

In August, award-winning broadcast and radio host John Hockenberry departed from his public radio program “The Takeaway” on New York City’s NPR affiliate, which garnered a peak audience of nearly 3 million weekly listeners on more than 270 stations. Female producers and interns accused him of harassment and bullying before and after he deployed his golden parachute. Hockenberry says he’s “horrified” by the allegations.

In October, NPR’s former editorial director and senior vice president of news, Michael Oreskes, was ousted from his perch after several women claimed he forcibly kissed them in the 1990s while seeking jobs at his previous employer, The New York Times.

That same month, NPR launched an investigation of veteran Minnesota Public Radio host Garrison Keillor, creator of “A Prairie Home Companion.” The liberal icon penned a column defending fellow sexual harassment suspect Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., in late November; the next day, NPR fired him for inappropriate behavior involving at least one female co-worker. Keillor says the only incident he recalls involves inadvertently slipping his hand up the bare back of a “friend.”

Also on the Thanksgiving holiday chopping block: PBS fixture and CBS morning news star Charlie Rose, who reportedly groped, grabbed, phone-harassed, and exposed himself to upwards of eight female employees, interns, and job applicants dating back to the 1990s.

At the end of November, NPR canned Chief News Editor David Sweeney following an internal review after four of the public radio network’s female employees lodged formal complaints involving unwanted kisses, attention, and gifts.

In mid-December, Boston-based Tom Ashbrook, host of NPR’s “On Point” live morning show broadcast on 290 NPR affiliates stations for the past 16 years, was suspended after young women alleged he gave “creepy” sex talks, hugs, and back rubs in the studio. Ashbrook says he was “stunned” to learn of the charges.

And last week, PBS suspended weeknight host Tavis Smiley, whose interview show airs in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Southern California, and nationwide—with major corporate underwriting from Walmart. He also hosted a podcast on NPR. Smiley has waged an aggressive campaign defending himself against his employer’s witch hunt “gone too far.”

I can’t tell you who’s lying and who’s telling the truth, but I know with absolute certitude that all seven of these men are left-leaning journalists and pundits encrusted in the public broadcasting establishment.

This is a golden opportunity for President Donald Trump to drain the elitist media swamps and inject true intellectual diversity in the newsrooms of NPR and PBS. Liberal bias at these Beltway institutions is notorious—from NPR legal analyst Nina Totenberg wishing AIDS upon Sen. Jesse Helms and his grandchildren as “retributive justice,” to “Sesame Street’s” Oscar the Grouch mocking Fox News on PBS, to top NPR executives slamming the tea party movement as “scary” and “racist” to the undercover journalists of Project Veritas.

If pushover Republicans can’t bring themselves to fully defund NPR and PBS, can’t they at least step up and advocate for hosts and editors who keep their hands to themselves and refrain from insulting the people in flyover country who keep their rackets afloat? What better time, in the wake of liberal hypocrisy and sexual harassment self-implosions, to bring real balance to government-sponsored programming?

So far, the moment is being squandered. The replacements announced for Rose on PBS are BBC correspondent Katty Kay and former CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour. That’s right. Two liberal British female journalists.

Come on, Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Do better, D.C.

All things considered, we could use a little more “America First” and a little less globaloney and groupthink from NPR and PBS. I can think of a conservative female journalist or 12 up to the task.