ARCHIVES
COMMUNIST CALLED OBAMA MENTOR
By CLIFF KINCAID
Oct. 9, 2008 - The man pictured here is Frank Marshall Davis, known in the
media as a mentor for Barack Obama. A new book, The Dream Begins, claims
Davis was "demonized" as a Communist but that he helped shape Obama's views.
I will leave it to you to decide what influence he had over Obama. But I do have
the shocking truth about Davis. He was not only a documented member of the
Communist Party USA, but a sex pervert, homosexual and pornographer. I have
the entire 600-page FBI file on Davis. I also have excerpts from and an analysis
of Davis's pornographic Sex Rebel book.
When you read our reports on Davis, you will be absolutely astounded. You will ask yourself:
Why haven't I been told this until now? Why the cover-up?
My name is Cliff Kincaid. I am editor of the Accuracy in Media (AIM) Report. Conservative
media personalities such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have given me credit for unearthing
the facts about the Global Poverty Act, a notorious foreign aid welfare giveaway bill. I am a
journalist by training and have been a writer, analyst and researcher in Washington, D.C. for 30
years. My agenda is uncovering the truth.
I also serve as president of America's Survival, Inc. (ASI), a foreign affairs watchdog group. It
was in this capacity, as we were researching the bloody legacy of international Communism, that
I came upon the hard and cold facts about Frank Marshall Davis and his influence.
Please understand that we don't take a stand for or against any candidate. We have no affiliation
with any political campaign. Our purpose is to educate the public about the role played by global
movements and institutions on America. I came to the conclusion that we wouldn't be true to our
mission if we didn't put all of our information about Frank Marshall Davis and his international
communist connections on the record for you to consider. You can come to your own
conclusions about the extent of his influence.
Simply put, we discovered that Davis was a key high-level operative in a Soviet-sponsored
network in Hawaii. His FBI file suggests that he may have been involved in espionage activities
on behalf of the Soviet Union.
We disclosed our initial findings at a May 22 news conference in Washington, D.C., where we
released our two reports on communist influence in Hawaii and Chicago. These reports are
available at our website. However, major organs of the national news media have seen fit to
either ignore Davis or play down his communist affiliations. That tendency is clearly at work in
the new book, The Dream Begins.
When America entered into our current economic crisis, I reviewed a copy of a 1932 book,
Toward Soviet America, by then-CPUSA boss William Z. Foster. He explained how socialism
will come to America. It is frightening to realize that Davis was part of that movement. Davis's
communist activities began in 1931 and continued into the 1970s. He passed away in 1987. He
never stopped being a communist.
Let me caution you. When you go to our website and read some of this material, especially the
information about Davis's perverted sexual activities, you will be sickened and disgusted. This
material is for adults only! I do not provide it to titillate or amuse you. I provide it so that you
will understand that this is someone who should never have been put in charge or control of any
young person.
It is necessary to put this on the public record because there is a coordinated effort to suppress the
truth about Davis. The book I previously mentioned is only the latest example of a media trend to
depict this hard-core communist agent as some kind of civil rights activist. Nothing could be
further from the truth. He was a Communist pervert.
When you go to our website -- www.usasurvival.org -- and examine our reports on Davis and
related matters, you will see for yourself the terrible truth.
WHO IS SARAH PALIN?
By Butch King -- Alaskan Bush Pilot and Guide
Sept. 9, 2008 - Sarah “Barracuda” Palin is a straight shooting, hard charging, get it done gal. She knows when to listen,
how to analyze the facts and how to make a decision, then implement the plan. She doesn’t do a poll before jumping in
with both feet like too many of the Washington types.
She has little legislative experience because she has always held the executive position; in private life, as mayor of
Anchorage’s largest bedroom community and more recently as governor. She is a smart, attractive home grown Alaska
girl with excellent moral and family values. She can see what needs to be done and does not hesitate to get it done.
One of our state’s major problems is that its capital is in Juneau, 500 miles from the nearest road and 800 air miles from
the population base which is Anchorage, Wasilla and Fairbanks. Our legislature and most of the state government is in
Juneau and they ALL behave like a bunch of freshmen in a college town. It has been this way since statehood in 1959.
When Sarah moved to Juneau, so did accountability and responsibility. When the oil revenue started flowing and a
barrel of North Slope Crude hit $23, these people began spending money like drunken sailors. You can only imagine
what was happening when oil hit $100 a barrel, about the time Sarah took command. My wife Kathy has first-hand
experience with this fiasco, as her father and her ex-husband were Alaska legislators.
About the time Sarah took the helm as governor of Alaska, about half of the state legislature was in the pocket of big oil
companies or contractors doing big projects for native corporations around Alaska, all funded by state oil revenue.
Alaska government was nothing but a good old boys club riding the perpetual wave of prosperity. This filtered down
from the legislature, through the Department of Natural Resources, Department of Labor and even spilled into the Public
Safety who are supposed to “preserve and protect”.
When Sarah walked into the Governor’s Mansion, she promptly dismissed the state trooper detachment assigned to
governor and had her and her husband’s gun case brought in from Wasilla. Then, she got rid of the former governor’s
state jet and told legislators there were no more free rides, they would have to fly Alaska Airlines just like her and her
family if they wanted
to travel.
Next came the the Barracuda part. The heads that rolled were too numerous to name, but when Sarah finished cleaning
house, a number of our legislators ended up in jail on corruption charges, or tendered their resignations along with
numerous department heads and those who had been riding the gravy train for way too long. And then she had lunch.
By the end of the day, Sarah Palin had saved the people of Alaska millions and has not yet slowed down.
She has truly brought CHANGE to Juneau. I personally know several persons in the private sector in Alaska, that hold
her in high esteem. She surrounds herself with smart people, many from my hometown of Anchorage. She listens to
them but makes her own decisions. Sarah Palin is a no B.S. politician. It is refreshing that there is such a thing anymore.
You want to talk about change? You should see a before and after picture of the state government in Alaska.
That’s change!
Sarah will bring a number of things to the election. I am sure she will appeal to many voters who otherwise could have
gone the other direction on election day. We need what Sarah will bring, first to the election and second, what she will
bring to Washington D.C. John McCain has been advised well, Let’s just hope the American people can get the
straight scoop on her in the weeks
ahead.
This is just the opinion of one Alaska Bush Pilot and Guide, who pays attention to national politics, watches the news and
is deathly afraid of the direction our nation is headed. I guarantee that if Sarah gets a chance to dig her spurs into the
flanks of the liberal Washington types, they will know that she is in the saddle.
CHARTER SCHOOLS SURGING ACROSS U.S.
By Robert Holland
July 5, 2008 - There has been a bumper crop of charter school stories this graduation season. What's more, the articles
have been largely positive, a sign that these independently managed public schools are gaining popularity.
In Greenfield, Mass., the first graduating class at Four Rivers Public Charter School -- 26 strong -- celebrated the fact
that six years ago they had gathered as seventh graders, along with their parents, on
an overgrown field. Their school hadn't even been built yet. They took a leap of faith and fashioned a new school
together.
A start-up success story on a larger scale comes from New Orleans, where charter schools have brought an
entrepreneurial spirit to education restoration in a city devastated by Hurricane Katrina three years ago. Charters now
handle 53 per cent of the city's post-hurricane enrollment; pre-Katrina, they had just two per cent.
Charters are booming in the state with the longest track record. Although overall public school enrollment in Minnesota is
declining, charter schools last year experienced their largest increase since 1991-92, the year the nation's first charter
school opened in Minnesota.
Charter schools are free of most of the rules that hamstring other public schools, including regulations pushed by teacher
unions to benefit their members instead of students. This freedom allows charter schools to tailor programs to children's
real needs.
The University of Minnesota's Joe Nathan, one of the authors of the Center for School Change's report on "Enrollment
and Demographic Trends for MN Charter and District Public Schools," offered these reasons for the rise in charter
enrollments:
"First, small size of the schools. Secondly, safer schools. Third, distinctive programs, whether
they're language immersion, ... the arts, things like that. Fourth, there's a feeling of great respect
from teachers to parents and from teachers to students" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, June 19).
It also doesn't hurt that charters are public schools that parents can actually choose.
In Rochester, members of the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper's editorial board visited True North Rochester
Preparatory School to learn how it's racking up some of the highest math scores in New York State. The answer is
shorter than the school's name: discipline.
On Principal Stacey Shells' watch, students do not talk in the hallways and must walk a straight line to and from the
lunchroom. There are carrots, too, in the form of rewards for good conduct and high achievement.
"After all, it's impossible to teach amid disorder," the board noted in a June 19 editorial. "Too many City School District
teachers know that all too well. Many tell disturbing stories of constant disruptions by students uninterested in learning.
They create chaotic environments that make it almost impossible for other students to pursue knowledge."
There is abundant statistical evidence of the impact of the charter movement. EdSource, an
independent research organization, recently found charter middle and high schools performed
much better than regular public schools on California's 2007 achievement tests. Oakland's charter
middle schools scored an eye-popping 210 points higher than the city's noncharters on an
800-point scale (Oakland Tribune, June 19).
In Denver a group of angry parents came to a school board meeting last month demanding to know why the same choice
was not available to them. "We want this for our kids and our families," said Luci Saenz, mother of a child at Valdez
Elementary. "We are ready to fight. We believe in our children, and we believe they deserve it" (Denver Post, May 7).
The successes of charter schools are grabbing attention within the education establishment, but for a different reason.
Vested interests want less competition from excellent schools, not more. Thus the Delaware State Education Association
(DSEA), the state's teachers union, expropriated its members' dues to commission a Washington, DC public relations
firm to craft a slick strategy for halting further charter start-ups in the state.
If the likes of the DSEA get their way, students and parents won't be the only parties with diminished choice. Teachers
will join them--unless, that is, success stories just keep coming in and eventually overwhelm the selfish resistance.
Robert Holland is a senior fellow for education policy at The Heartland Institute, Chicago, Ill.
STATE OFFERS DEATH, NOT REMEDY
June 27, 2008 - Anyone who finds the liberal depictions of universal medical care provided by the government appealing
should consider the plight of Barbara Wagner, a 64-year-old lung cancer patient living in a low-income apartment in
Springfield, Oregon.
World Net Daily reports that the Oregon Health Plan will not pay for the drug her doctor has prescribed for her, but it
will pay for assisted suicide.
Wagner was notified of this decision in a letter from LIPA, the private company contracted to administer the state
program. Wagner, according to a local paper, was “devastated” when she learned of the state’s refusal to pay for her
life-saving medicine. "To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live,
it's cruel," Wagner told the newspaper.
Dr. John Sattenspiel, senior medical director for LIPA, told the paper, "We had no intent to upset her,” but the company
had to inform her of “her options” under the Oregon Health Plan. Her sole option, of course, was to die but at least the
state would pay someone to “assist” her.
Dr. Walter Shaffer, a spokesman for the state Division of Medical Assistance Programs, explains the state’s
position, "We can't cover everything for everyone.”
Despite the state’s macabre proposal, Wagner will receive the drug she needs to save her life. She reported
receiving a notice from the pharmaceutical company that it will provide the drug, which costs $4,000 a month, for at least
a year. At the end of the year, the local paper noted, she can apply for further treatment from the company.
Part of the irony in this situation is that pharmaceutical companies rank just below oil companies in the liberal
rogue’s gallery, while government care is touted as the answer to everything. the incident also reveals what we can
expect when "assisted suicide" is legal.
TAKE ACTION AGAINST CPS
By Christopher Robinson
August 26, 2008 - On May 29, 2008, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the 3rd Court of Appeals ruling which found the
State had no right to seize the FLDS children from the ranch in Eldorado because it failed to prove either abuse or
neglect. The Supreme Court held "removal of the children was not warranted."
This case is not about whether you agree with the FLDS or not; it is about whether you value your liberty. I do not
agree with the FLDS lifestyle and belief system, but I do value family and liberty and oppose any attempt by the
government to abuse its authority with respect to either Protective Services (formerly CPS) has done just that -
overstepped its authority.
And did you catch this headline: "Senate panel suggests taking FLDS sect's assets to cover costs." A legislative panel
suggested that the state explore garnisheeing the religious organization's assets to recoup the costs of caring for the
children they seized! Said Sen. Bob Deuell, "Why should we be footing the bill when they've got assets?" So, they can
wrongly take our children from our homes and then consider charging us for their care!
Who will be next? What if CPS comes knocking on your door? Do you or your family hold beliefs or practice a
lifestyle that may be considered "counter-cultural" or against "mainstream" society? Do you or a loved one home
school? Are you a born-again Christian? Are you leery of the environmental extremist agenda? Do you hold certain
beliefs or practice a lifestyle that would be considered today or in the near future "harmful" or against modern society?
We live in a world where the definition of "normal" or "acceptable" is quickly changing. Family values are no longer
upheld as they once were. The definition of marriage has changed. You are "strange" if you go to church more than once
a week. Same-sex relationships are applauded, and equal rights are demanded for them. If you disagree, you could be
found guilty of "hate crimes."
We are on a slippery slope. It would be easy for this case to fade into the background because popular opinion does
not favor FLDS. "Yeah, they're strange, who cares what happened to them." But if we don't let our governor and our
legislators know that we strongly disapprove of the strong-arm tactics employed by CPS, who will be next? An
unverified phone call was all it took for the DFPS to raid the ranch in Eldorado. We must call for an overhaul of this
agency.
If you love liberty, if you value family, and you don't want to see the state trample on either - please take a moment to
contact Gov. Perry and your legislators. Don't be apathetic. Take action today. If we don't speak up, we may lose our
opportunity to do so in the future.
"When they came for us, there was no one left to protest. . . ."
Christopher Robinson is a Lubbock attorney and home school father.
WHO KNEW FREE ENERGY COULD BE SO EXPENSIVE?
By Drew Thornley
May 24, 2008 - The Electric Reliability Council of Texas recently estimated that billions of dollars will be needed to
transmit wind-generated electricity from the areas of Texas most suitable for wind generation -- West Texas and the
Panhandle -- to the areas of the state that need energy the most -- the I-35 corridor and the upper Gulf Coast.
These costs will be borne by Texas ratepayers. How did we get here?
Renewable energy mandates and subsidies have paved the way for Texas’ wind energy boom. Texas leads the nation in
installed wind power capacity, adding 1,708 megawatts (MW) in 2007, bringing its total to 4,446 MW by the end the
year. California is a distant second, with 2,439 MW by year’s end. In 2007, just 0.77 per cent of the nation’s electric
generation came from wind energy; in Texas, wind accounts for two per cent of generation.
Robust wind power expansion is expected, as Texas producers are required to generate 5,880 MW of renewable
energy by 2015 and face a 10,000-MW target for 2025. To this end, $700 million went into new wind Texas farms in
January.
Wind energy proponents extol wind as free, safe, and clean, but these characterizations miss the point. Energy users
expect reliability, and challenges dot the path from wind to the electric grid to the energy consumer.
For wind turbines to produce power the wind must blow. Because the wind does not blow constantly, wind turbines
produce a fraction of their potential generating capacities.
Furthermore, wind blows the least during the summer months when power is needed the most. ERCOT relies on just 8.7
per cent of wind power’s capacity when determining available power during peak summer hours. Also,
due to wind’s intermittency, wind farms must rely on conventional power sources to back up their supply.
Besides generous federal subsidies and tax incentives, Texas entices wind developers with tax exemptions and
deductions; yet wind power remains more expensive per kilowatt-hour than conventional energy sources.
ERCOT’s estimates for transmitting West Texas wind energy, under four different scenarios, range from $3.78
billion to $6.28 billion.
ERCOT estimated costs by using straight-line lengths for transmission cables. Thus, transmission costs were estimated
using a best-case-scenario approach and, as such, should be considered minimums. Add to this ERCOT’s estimates of
$410 million to $1.03 billion for connecting wind generation to the new collection substations.
Wind energy also comes with legitimate environmental concerns. Wind farms require vast tracts of land,
disrupting farming acreage and animal habitats; and turbine blades kill thousands of birds each year, including
protected species.
ERCOT estimates Texas’ electricity demand will rise 20 per cent by 2015 and 43 per cent by 2025. Texas must
remain focused on providing its residents with affordable, reliable energy and not turn its back on fossil fuels,
which can meet our needs and are cleaner than ever before.
Wind alone cannot meet the increasing demand we face. Rather, wind is one stick in a bundle of larger sticks,
all of which can and should contribute to meeting energy demands. Wind should be part of a diversified
portfolio of energy resources, anchored by the traditional energy sources that have the capacity to meet Texas’’
burgeoning energy needs.
Drew Thornley is a natural resources policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market
research institute based in Austin.
OBAMA’S ANTI-MARRIAGE AGENDA
By Gary Bauer
March 4, 2008 - As the campaign for the Democrat nomination heats up, Barack Obama is moving aggressively to
outflank Hillary Clinton on her left. To rally the radical base, he is now pandering to the militant homosexual rights
movement, advocating policies that would effectively clear the way for the imposition of same-sex "marriage" across the
country.
In advance of the Ohio and Texas primaries the Obama campaign released an "open letter" to the homosexual
community. Here are some key excerpts:
"...throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans. In Illinois, I co-sponsored a
fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending
protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored
bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal
employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard
Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination
on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. As your president, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat
same-sex couples with
full equality in their family and adoption laws.
"...I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) - a position I have held since before arriving
in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute
altogether. ... I have also called for us to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and I have worked to improve the Uniting
American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our
immigration system."
"Complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act," would enable radical judicial activists to impose same-sex "marriage"
across the country at their whim. The Defense of Marriage Act did not ban homosexual "marriage." It created an
exemption from the Constitution's full faith and credit clause, giving states the right to refuse to recognize same-sex
"marriages" performed in other states.
Right now, if you are married in California and move to Florida, you do not have to get remarried, because
legally valid marriages of one state are recognized in other states due to the Constitution's full faith and credit
clause. Without the exemption created by the Defense of Marriage Act, one federal judge could declare the
same-sex "marriages" performed in Massachusetts legal in all 50 states. No state would be exempt, because
state constitutional amendments are still subject to federal review, and without DOMA, even the 27 states that have
enacted marriage protection amendments would be extraordinarily vulnerable.
Conservative columnist Terry Jeffrey noted that Obama justifies his position scripturally, as well. Yesterday, he told a
gathering in Ohio, "I think that it [same-sex "marriage"] is a legal right that they should have that is
recognized by the state. If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the
Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans."
Just to be clear about how radical and controversial Obama's position is, in 1996 DOMA passed the House of
Representatives on a vote of 342-to-67 (83 per cent in favor), passed the Senate 85-to-14 and was signed into law by
Bill Clinton. So in order to get to Hillary's left with the most radical elements of the Democrat Party,
Obama is willing to embrace a position overwhelmingly rejected by Congress, a Democrat president and 27
states that have passed marriage protection amendments by an average vote of 69 per cent.
Gary Bauer is the founder of Campaign for Working Families
ENGLISH COALITION LOBBY GETS A SPANKING
By Ken Mercer
May 31, 2008 - If you are mean, lie, or cheat, you deserve a spanking. That is exactly what
happened to the “Coalition” lobby at the May 21 - 23 meeting of the Texas State Board of
Education (SBOE).
That Coalition supports whole language, holistic scoring of essays, project-based learning,
inventive spelling, and no direct systematic instruction of grammar/usage. The results of the
powerful Coalition philosophy are devastating. The Commission for a College Ready Texas
reported that 50 per cent of college freshmen in Texas are unprepared and are enrolled in
remedial or developmental education. At the May 21, 2008, SBOE meeting, a parent and
her son testified about the failures of the current reading, writing, and grammar standards.
As at prior public meetings, the Coalition was repeatedly cautioned by SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy (R-College
Station) to refrain from rude outbursts and intimidating testifiers. In the real world, if you ever treated a concerned
customer that way, you would be fired.
In the same meeting, a retired educator testified in favor of strong phonics and back-to-basics grammar, only to be met
by Coalition members who hatefully stuck out their tongues. What wonderful role models for our Texas children these
Coalition members were!
Last fall, the Texas Education Agency contracted StandardsWork (SW), a nationwide professional facilitator, to help
bring forth the final standards document. The SBOE in their March 2008 meeting voted 15-0 to make the SW
document the base document upon which the teacher workgroups (meeting the first week of May 2008) were to make
their final changes.
However, thanks to the intense questioning at the May 22 SBOE meeting by McLeroy, Gail Lowe (R-Lampasas), Terri
Leo (R-Spring), and David Bradley (R-Beaumont) the truth came out. The March document passed unanimously by the
SBOE was switched to a new, never before seen Coalition document. The Coalition retained control of their document
for several days after the teacher workgroups completed their meeting, perhaps making further changes before giving it
to the TEA or SBOE.
Member Geraldine Miller (R-Dallas) protested strongly that the Coalition had hijacked the process, and Cynthia Dunbar
(R-Richmond) stated the Coalition had made a mockery and a "circus" out of the process. Member Barbara Cargill (R-
The Woodlands) said she was ashamed and embarrassed to learn that SW had found Texas to be the most difficult state
in the nation
with which to work.
That is why I made the motion (passed 9 to 6) to accept the SW document that: (1) had two and one-half years of
educator input, (2) passed 15-0 at the March SBOE meeting, (3) met the legal requirement of being posted on the Texas
Register, and (4) allowed 23 million Texans the legally required thirty days to review the proposed new standards. The
hijacked Coalition document failed to meet any of those requirements.
SBOE Member Rick Agosto (D-San Antonio) successfully amended my motion to include the input of previously
agreed-upon Hispanic experts.
Member David Bradley then notified the SBOE that he intended to bring, on May 23, a substitute amendment which was
the exact document the SBOE just passed plus the important grammar/usage input from teacher workgroups.
To ensure a fair and transparent conclusion, I voted for Member Lawrence Allen’s (D-Houston) motion that ultimately
resulted in almost three additional hours of section-by-section review before the vote on the final document was taken.
The SBOE voted 9 to 6 for strengthened phonics, grammar, and ten reading comprehension sections. We soundly
defeated desperate pro-coalition amendments to water down phonics and add the failed whole-language reading
“strategies” to the main document.
I wish to say to the hard-working classroom teachers that the intimidating actions of the Coalition lobby embarrassed the
entire education field. It is my belief that the Coalition lobby was mean, they lied, and they cheated. In the end, they got
a very well deserved spanking; and the school children and educators of Texas have content-rich standards for phonics,
reading, writing, and grammar.
Ken Mercer was elected to the State Board of Education in 2007. He chaired the 2008 Teacher
of the Year Committee and is Vice-Chair of the Committee on School Initiatives.
IS BARACK OBAMA ‘BIG BROTHER’?
By Gary Bauer
May 20, 2008 - If exit polls are to be believed, Barack Obama may be popular with college-educated liberals, but he is
having trouble connecting with blue-collar workers, the "Reagan Democrats" who live and work in "Main Street, U.S.A."
-- and it's not hard to understand why.
In addition to his remarks about "bitter" people clinging to faith and guns, Obama made this startling statement: "We can't
drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72
degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."
If that's any indication of what we can expect from a President Obama, the American people better start asking some
tough questions before Election Day. What kind of big government policies would a President Obama propose to
implement such a statement? Would an Obama administration ban SUVs? Would it impose rationing at the grocery
store, like World War II-era restrictions? California officials are already contemplating the use of remote control devices
to control the thermostats in new homes and businesses.
Is this what "Big Brother Barack" has in mind for all of us?
Liberals insist that the government has no interest in defining the meaning of marriage and family, or preserving the
sanctity of life. Those are personal "choices" and matters of individual orientation that somehow rise to the level of
cherished constitutional rights. But Barack Obama thinks government can tell us what to drive, what to eat and where to
set our thermostats!
But wait, there’s more.
A Vision Of The Future
If you're still thinking of staying home on Election Day, let me give you a vision of the future. During a mass mass rally,
Obama told the crowd, "Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose
a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us." Here were 80,000 people listening to "President
Obama" telling them that Iran is a "tiny" nation that poses no significant threat to us. That's the mindset that will guide his
face-to-face negotiations with our enemies.
Let me be clear about this: Iran is sitting astride of the world's energy supply. It is feverishly working to acquire nuclear
weapons and is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. Its Holocaust-denying dictator has vowed to "wipe Israel
off the map," called our ally a "stinking corpse," and has also prayed for the destruction of America. And Barack Obama
sees no serious threat?
John McCain responded sharply to Obama's comments, saying, "The biggest national security challenge the United
States currently faces is keeping nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists. Should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, that
danger would become very dire, indeed. They might not be a superpower, but the threat the government of Iran poses is
anything but 'tiny.'"
In recent weeks, I have gotten messages from good folks saying I've been too harsh on Barack
Obama. How is one supposed to be gentle about a presidential candidate who is signaling that he is clueless about the
dangers facing our country? Why should we handle with kid gloves a candidate who believes it is ok to allow a child who
survives an abortion to be thrown in a trash can and left to die? (Obama blocked a bill in the Illinois state legislature that
would have protected children who were born alive after botched abortion attempts.) Obama wants to repeal the
Defense of Marriage Act, the only legislation now standing in the way of the California Supreme Court's ruling being
forced on every state in the union.
I don't see how any conservative activist or "Christian conservative leader" can say with a straight face, "It really doesn't
matter whether Barack Obama or John McCain gets elected as far as our issues are concerned."
Gary Bauer is founder of Campaign for Working Families
REWRITING HISTORY - AN EROSION OF OUR STANDARDS
By Mike Pearce
Nov. 7, 2007 - Today, in Texas schools, the study of our history is under assault by academic elites and education
bureaucrats under the guise of multiculturalism and political correctness.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has developed college readiness standards for the high school
curriculum. These proposed standards abandon the instruction of traditional history and replace it with vague feel-good
“diverse human perspectives and experiences.”
Texas parents must take a stand against this erosion and demand that our history be taught as it really happened.
America’s greatest generation, our World War II veterans, are dying at a rate of 1,000 per day. But you won’t find any
mention of them or their heroic deeds in the proposed social science standards. What you will find is a recommendation
that our students explain the impact of World War II on the African-American and Mexican-American civil rights
movements, how the policies changed our economy, and whether the decision to drop the atomic bombs was correct.
Our high school students will now study the impact of WW II, but not the war itself.
There are no recommendations on how industrialization led to the betterment of mankind. Instead, students must
evaluate the impact of the Industrial Revolution and rapid urbanization “on the environment.” Where is the standard that
asks one to evaluate the quality of life in America before and after industrialization? Our scholars in high school will be
figuring out much deeper problems, like “how climate change might affect the US economy.” So, the Industrial
Revolution is out and global warming is in.
The standards have no mention of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald
Reagan, or the Magna Carta. But what did make the list was a recommendation that students listen to Martin Luther
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and summarize five main points. While King’s historic speech is very worthy of tudy,
so are many other monumental events.
What the standards do is to provide an “approach” to questions under the guise of trying to make the students believe
that they are developing their own conclusions. It is the belief of the academic elite that the “broad” should be substituted
for the “narrow”; and they set the parameters of academic importance.
You will not find a standard that asks students to learn about the beautiful melting pot that is America; but our students
will study “xenophobia and its impact on immigration policies in the United States.” Our students will not be learning
about the Judeo-Christian values that were the foundation of our nation; but our students will “analyze how conflicting
religious values create social conflict in local communities.” Students will not learn about how the United States has
stood as a beacon of liberty for the world, but they will learn about various important civil rights cases, including
Lawrence v. Texas which mandated an end to anti-sodomy laws.
There were few things I enjoyed more about teaching American history than covering the Declaration of Independence.
From the philosophy of John Locke to the poetic words of Thomas Jefferson; from the faith in the idea that men had
divine rights rather than mere secular ones, to the notion that liberty was an institution for which all men yearned. Now,
under these proposed standards, our children will no longer hear any of that. Instead, they will “analyze the Declaration
of Independence from the perspective of men and women, and people of Native American, European, and African
descent.” In other words, The Declaration of Independence was merely a document wrought with chauvinism, racism,
and could just as easily be viewed as a “declaration of treason” by the British.
Texas parents must stand up to this erosion of our historical standards now. The Higher Education Coordinating Board
is accepting public comments online now through Dec.10 at www.thecb.state.tx.us. We must teach our students
integrity, leadership and character and use the heroic figures in our history as models. If we allow the purveyors of
political correctness to re-write our history, we sentence our greatest patriots to death through their expulsion from our
history books.
Mike Pearce is a former Texas public school social studies teacher who taught for ten years.
NORTH AMERICAN INFLUENZA PLAN
VIOLATES RIGHTS OF U.S. CITIZENS
By Phyllis Schlafly
Sept. 12, 2007 - It's now leaking out that there was more going on than met the eye at the Security and Prosperity
Partnership Summit in Montebello, Canada, in August. The three amigos -- President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime
Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon -- finalized and released the "North American Plan
for Avian & Pandemic Influenza."
The "Plan" -- that's what they call it, with a capital P -- is to use the excuse of a major flu epidemic to shift powers from
U.S. legislatures to unelected, unaccountable "North American" bureaucrats.
This idea was launched on September 14, 2005, when Bush announced the "International Partnership on Avian and
Pandemic Influenza." He was speaking to the United Nations General Assembly.
We might have thought that idea had some merit because the influenza partnership called for "transparency in reporting of
influenza cases in humans and in animals" and the "sharing of epidemiological data and samples." That's very different
from the Security and Prosperity Summit, where transparency has always been conspicuously avoided like the plague.
This year's Security and Prosperity Summit in Canada morphed the Influenza Partnership into the North American Plan.
Now we discover that the Plan is not only about combating a flu epidemic but is far-reaching in seeking control over U.
S. citizens and public policy during an epidemic.
The Plan repeatedly features the favorite Bush word "comprehensive" - it calls for a "comprehensive, coordinated North
American approach." The Plan would give authority to international bureaucrats "beyond the health sector to include a
coordinated approach to critical infrastructure protection," including "border and transportation issues."
The Plan is a wordy 44-page document, much of which sounds innocuous. It is helpful to exchange information about
disease and take precautions against letting foreign diseases enter the United States.
However, self-government and sovereignty are at risk when control over these matters is turned over to a newly created
North American body headed by the representative of another country. It's an additional problem when the entire Plan
is a spin-off of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, an arrangement created in secret solely by White House press
releases, without Congressional approval or even oversight.
The 2007 Plan acknowledges that it is based not only on the Influenza Partnership, but also on the guidelines, standards
and rules of the World Health Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, the World Trade Organization,
and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
"Decision Makers"
The Plan sets up a "senior level coordinating body to facilitate the effective planning and preparedness within North
America for a possible outbreak of avian and/or human pandemic influenza under the Security and Prosperity
Partnership." The Plan identifies this Security and Prosperity Partnership coordinating body as "decision-makers."
The Plan then (ungrammatically) states: "The chair of the Security and Prosperity Partnership coordinating body will
rotate between each national authority on a yearly basis." Thus, a foreigner will be the "decision maker" for Americans in
two out of every three years.
What powers will this foreign-headed coordinating body exercise? The Plan suggests that these include "the use of
antivirals and vaccines; ... social distancing measures, including school closures and the prohibition of community
gatherings; ... isolation and quarantine."
Will this foreign-headed coordinating body respect the First Amendment "right of the people peaceably to assemble"? Or
will the rules of the Plan, Security and Prosperity Partnership, World Health Organization, World Organization for
Animal Health, World Trade Organization and NAFTA take precedence?
Health Powers
In evaluating the Plan, it is instructive to recall the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, an anti-epidemic plan
launched by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Oct. 23, 2001. Designed to be passed by all state
legislatures, the model bill was primarily written by Lawrence O. Gostin, a former member of U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton's discredited Task Force on Health Care Reform, and was promoted by the Bush administration during its first
year.
The proposed Emergency Health Powers Act would have given each governor sole discretion to declare a public health
emergency and grant himself extraordinary powers. He would have been able to restrict or prohibit firearms, seize
private property and destroy it in many circumstances, and impose price controls and rationing.
Governors would have been given the power to order people out of their homes and into dangerous quarantines.
Children could have been taken from their parents and put into public quarantines.
Governors could even have demanded that physicians administer certain drugs despite individuals' religious or other
objections. The Emergency Health Powers Act was based on the concept that decision-making by authoritarian bosses
and unelected bureaucrats is the way to go in a time of crisis.
The proposed Emergency Health Powers Act roused a nationwide storm of protest because it was an unprecedented
assault on the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens, as well as on the principle of limited government, and so it never
passed anywhere in its original text. Will similar totalitarian notions now bypass legislatures and be forced upon us by
Security and Prosperity Partnership press releases?
PARENTAL CONSENT THREATENED BY FEDERAL ABORTION BILL
Oct. 7, 2007 - The hard-fought right of parents to give or withhold consent before their minor daughters may have an
abortion is in danger of being lost under HR-1964, the Federal abortion rights bill recently introduced in the U.S. House.
The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) provides that neither the Federal government nor any state or local government
may “deny or interfere with” a woman’s right to abort her baby even after viability if necessary to protect her life or
health. As a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Doe v Bolton, health is defined broadly enough to remove any limits
whatsoever on the right to abortion.
An advisory sheet prepared by the National Organization for Women and other groups, complains that “parental consent
or notification statutes have been used as a tool to deny access to abortion services for minors.” These statutes, the
sheet advises, would violate FOCA.
Also at risk if FOCA passes, are laws that prohibit taxpayer funding of abortion including counseling and referrals. A
major target of abortion supporters has been the Hyde amendment, a Federal law named for its chief advocate, former
Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.). Passed by Congress in 1976, the Hyde Amendment excludes abortion from the medical care
provided to low-income persons by the Federal government through Medicaid except in cases of rape, incest, or when
the mother’s life is in danger. In addition to the Hyde amendment, many states – including Texas – have passed laws
prohibiting the use of tax money to pay for abortions.
A refusal to publicly fund abortions is not the only state policy that would be prohibited by FOCA. In addition, FOCA
would prohibit “the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.” Some states – again including
Texas – require doctors to provide certain information about the fetus to the mother before an abortion is performed.
Some have waiting periods, and some require abortion clinics to pass sanitary and health standards as hospitals.
According to the NOW advisory, FOCA would nullify the the Federal law -- and any state laws -- banning partial-birth
abortion. In this procedure, the baby is delivered feet first and when all but the head has been removed, the baby is
stabbed in the neck with a scissors and the brains sucked out. Several states have outlawed this method of abortion and
the U.S. Supreme court has recently upheld a Federal ban. In addition to upholding the Federal law, the Supreme Court
ordered lower Federal courts to review their decisions overturning state bans in Virginia and Missouri because they
lacked exceptions for the health of the mother.
Legislation similar to FOCA was proposed in 1992 but did not pass. The impetus for reviving FOCA is the fear among
abortion supporters that the addition of John roberts and Samuel alito to the Supreme Court will result in the reversal of
Roe v Wade. FOCA is seen as restoring the status of abortion to what it was after that ruling – no limits or restriction at
all.
FOCA has 58 co-sponsors including Rep. Jackson-Lee of Texas and Dennis Kucinich, a candidate for the Democratic
presidential nomination. It has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee which s chaired by Rep. John Conyers,
Democrat of Michigan
FOCA, if passed, would supersede any existing laws contrary to its terms regardless of what level of government passed
such laws. The sweeping impact of FOCA is embodied in the language of the bill which states. “This Act applies to
every Federal, State, and local statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, decision, policy, practice, or other
action enacted, adopted, or implemented before, on, or after the date of enactment of this Act.”
TEACHERS RESISTING LEFTIST UNION
By Connie Sadowski
Published in School Reform News by The Heartland Institute
Oct. 7, 2007 - Rank-and-file teachers are so fed up with the far-left policies the National Association of Education
adopted at its annual convention in Philadelphia that some are planning to become delegates themselves in order to
change the union's makeup.
Sissy Jochmann, a second-grade teacher in Pittsburgh, took issue with non-educational recommendations adopted by
the NEA Board of Directors --such as incorporating sexual orientation and gender identity in teacher education
standards; enhancing gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) partnerships; expanding the union's GLBT web
page; and supporting federal hate crimes legislation.
During the meeting of the Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identification, Jochmann -- an NEA convention
delegate since 2001 and chair of the NEA Conservative Educators Caucus -- said all the research presented and the
discussion that followed were "one-sided from a gay-affirming viewpoint," because the committee was "not interested in
hearing research contrary to their viewpoint."
The Board of Directors subsequently adopted the GLBT policies in a closed session, literally behind closed doors.
Conservative teachers must not "sit idly back and pay dues," Jochmann said. "It's unconscionable," she continued, for
state members to do nothing while the NEA continues to "adopt non-education policies regarding social issues like
abortion and homosexuality."
NEA spokesperson Will Potter repeatedly declined comment.
Need for Accountability
According to the organization's website, approximately one-third of the NEA's three million teacher members are
conservatives.
NEA delegates should more closely represent members' views and be more accountable to members for the policies
they adopt, said Judy Bruns, an Ohio delegate and middle-school teacher. The NEA should institute policies to "ensure
annual meeting delegates invite members' input before attending the meeting and then to report back to members after
the meeting," but her recommendation was defeated, she said.
The NEA is making an effort to reach out to its conservative base, said Diane Lenning, former chair of the NEA
Republican Educators Caucus and a retired Orange County, California high school teacher. A delegate to the annual
meeting each year between 2000 and 2006, this year she was one of 80 teachers attending the NEA's first Republican
Leaders Conference in Minneapolis August 2-5.
An NEA news release said the conference was "part of NEA's commitment to bipartisanship in its political and legislative
advocacy" and its "initiative to increase its presence in [the] Republican Party."
Calls for Vouchers
Lenning said she hopes NEA leaders will work to arrive at "common-ground positions" regarding some "historically
adversarial issues such as school choice and reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, curriculum content, school safety,
improving the high school graduation rate, reducing the dropout rate, and teaching each generation about the processes
of democracy.
"When education and political leaders are adversarial and indecisive, the kids suffer," Lenning added. "We want our
students across the nation to succeed with an accessible, quality education."
Reflecting increasing public dissatisfaction with the NEA's growing disdain for mainstream American values, some social
conservative groups, which historically have been silent on the issue of school choice, are beginning to take up the
banner. One of these is the American Family Association (AFA), based in Mississippi, which asked in a July 31 e-mail
alert to its 3.3 million constituents, "is it time for school vouchers?"
"The NEA has consistently passed very leftist resolutions and held very liberal political positions over the years," so AFA
decided to "promote public policies that support a parent's right to choose their child's school and to work to raise the
profile of politicians who support such policy," AFA President Tim Wildmon explained. "The vast majority of people
who take surveys on our Web site favor vouchers."
Connie Sadowski (connie@ceoaustin.org) directs the Education Options Resource Center at the Austin CEO
Foundation.
SCHOOL DROPOUTS A PROBLEM FOR ALL
By Peggy Venable
Right here in America, every 29 seconds another student gives up on school, resulting in more than one million high
school students dropping out every year. Every hour of every day, 93 Texas students drop out of public schools. The
majority are inner city minority males.
It is a story that goes largely untold, because these are not the children of the powerful or politically connected. And it
doesn’t have a happy ending.
The numbers represent more than the failure of a one-size-fits-all system of education, but a tremendous cost to our
economy and an even greater human tragedy, as many of these dropouts slip between the crevices of productive society.
According to the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the 2007 class of high school dropouts in
Texas will cost state taxpayers $377 million this year and every year over the course of their lifetimes.
The real travesty is our inability to provide educational options to students most vulnerable. Two-parent households
usually have the resources to select the school of their choice either by moving into a specific district or paying private
school tuition. Inner city minority youth from single-parent, low-income households have no options.
Nearly one-third of all public high school students — and nearly one half of all African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native
Americans — fail to graduate from public high school with their classes. Why are students dropping out? More than 80
percent said they might have stayed in school if classes had been more interesting and provided opportunities for real-
world learning. The most frequently given reason for dropping out is “Didn’t like school in general or the school they
were attending.” The “one size fits all” approach didn’t fit the kids that dropped out. Clearly, something must be done.
From the very beginning, school choice has been a civil rights issue, according to Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael
Williams, a former assistant secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.
Our failure to recognize choice as a civil rights issue comes at tremendous cost. The NCPA study finds that a modest
school choice program would reduce public school dropout rates and save taxpayers up to $53 million a year in costs
associated with dropouts. More important, it would be the opportunity for at-risk youth to get an education.
Choice provides an environment for new models to emerge that would serve specific populations. Today, some charter
schools operate noon to 6 p.m., or hold evening, weekend, and online classes. Choice is powerful. It provides the
flexibility to serve various needs. With choice, providers will tailor education to the needs and interests of the customers.
Public education could do that, but already has wasted a lot of time. The current bureaucratic system still doesn’t “get it”
and fails to treat the parents and students as customers.
Recent dropout numbers don’t lie. We are miserably failing a very vulnerable student population. These students and
parents need a safety valve – they deserve options that more affluent students enjoy. Time is running out for thousands of
minority students. We can’t afford to wait. But are Texans ready to make changes?
A recent Texas Lyceum poll revealed that almost two-thirds of the Texans surveyed support a program “in which
parents are given taxpayer money by the government that they can use to pay for a child’s tuition at the school of their
choice.” Interestingly, when reviewing the racial breakdowns, whites were more likely to oppose school choice and
African-Americans and Hispanics more likely to support the idea. Younger Texans were more supportive than older
ones.
No significant and meaningful change will come easily. The major obstacle will be the education community. Millions of
taxpayer dollars will be spent opposing taxpayers having choice. Mainstream media may attempt to vilify individuals who
provide their hard-earned resources to providing children with a way out. But those dollars are minuscule in comparison
to the millions of our tax dollars that will be spent to maintain the status quo.
What should be concerning us most is that many in education fear that, given an option, our public schools would
experience a mass exodus as parents choose to exercise choice and leave public schools. The argument acknowledges
that even the education bureaucracy has little confidence in their ability to provide customers satisfaction.
Will choice end the public schools as we know it? Certainly not, but those who rely on the current monopoly system
would lead the public to think it would. Let’s face it. The dropout rates indicate there is little likelihood we can do worse
than we are now, particularly for minority students. The figures provide a wake up call – much as the study “A Nation at
Risk” did in the early 1980’s. That study prompted tinkering with the system, more studies were done, accountability
measures were instituted, and more testing was mandated. Nothing changed.
The No Child Left Behind program was enacted, but clearly students are still being left behind. Time has run out for
millions of minority youth. It’s time legislators give parents a choice and students a chance.
Peggy Venable is director of Americans for Prosperity-Texas.
EFFORT TO TOLL INTERSTATES SHOULD BE STOPPED
Sept. 4, 2007 - the Texas Department of Transportation has come up with an elaborate scheme to squeeze the public
for more toll money. The department is asking Congress to change the law to permit the state to “buy back” Interstate
highways and charge us toll to drive on them.
And, there is every possibility that TXDOT, if it gains ownership of the Interstate, will lease them out to private
companies who will then charge whatever tolls the traffic will bear. And, to make sure the traffic will bear quite a lot,
there may even be one of those infamous “no compete clauses in the agreement. This would prohibit the state from
building an alternative road to the privately owned toll road even if the growth in traffic volume over the years more than
justifies another highway.
State Sen. John Carona ( R-Dallas) called it “a dreadful recommendation by the department. He said it would be asking
taxpayers to pay for the highways twice. He’s almost right. Taxpayers would be paying not twice but three times. We
paid to build those highways, now TXDOT wants us to pay a second time to buy them from the Feds, and then pay yet
again to drive on them.
Carona expressed confidence the state legislators lawmakers would be “overwhelmingly” opposed and he’s probably
right. But we shouldn’t expect too much from them. They opposed some of TXDOT’s more outrageous schemes
during the last session but were outmaneuvered by the agency with the support of Gov. Rick Perry.
And this new scheme appears to have the support of the governor. The AP reports that Robert Black, spokesman for
Perry, said the plan doesn't contradict Perry's promise that free highways will not be converted to toll roads. That’s
because the free roads wouldn’t be converted, he said, without approval of local voters. That is not persuasive since the
governor said it wouldn’t happen, not that it would be up to local voters.
If Carona is right and the Legislature does attempt to block this scheme to purchase and toll the Interstates, we can
expect the governor to veto it.
That leaves Congress. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has introduce a bill to derail TXDOT’s effort to change Federal law
to permit the state to buy the highways and toll them. She, and every other member of the Texas congressional
delegation should hear from the citizens of the state.
Since the Legislature seems incapable of standing up to the agency and the governor, Congress should tell the
Department of Transportation to take a hike.
HOUSTON PUPILS GAIN FROM COMPETITION
BY JAMIE STORY
Sept. 22, 2007 - While the public school lobby has traditionally opposed any introduction of
competition into the education system, the state’s largest school district seems to have embra embraced it.
In Houston, 80 state-authorized charter schools enroll approximately 20,000 students. That’s one charter student for
every 10 students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Few school districts in the country face this
degree of competition—and even fewer have risen to the challenge like HISD.
At a recent forum hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, HISD Chief Academic
Officer Dr. Karen Soehnge emphasized that “we fundamentally, as an organization, embrace choice.” That’s not
something you typically hear from a public school administrator. But HISD has responded to competition by maximizing
choice within the public school system.
In HISD, students can choose to attend any school where space is available. Campus funding is based on enrollment – if
a school doesn’t compete to keep students, it loses the dollars that go with them. And students have a wide variety of
learning environments from which to choose, since HISD has created specialized magnet schools and virtual courses that
maximize student flexibility.
HISD has also responded by establishing a network of district-authorized charter schools. Today, 29 district charters
enroll approximately 11,000 students. By comparison, the state as a whole only contains 54 district charters, meaning
more than half of the state’s district charters are in HISD.
What are the results of this movement toward choice? In 2005, HISD had 31 campuses rated unacceptable, and only six
rated exemplary. In 2007, the district had 15 of each. For its size, Houston has half as many unacceptable schools as
either Fort Worth or Dallas, and fewer even than Austin, a property-rich district.
A study by the Texas Public Policy Foundation found that traditional public schools facing competition from charters
outperform those public schools that do not face competition. HISD provides concrete proof to support this unsurprising
finding.
It is no coincidence that HISD, with its significant charter competition, is one of the most innovative urban districts in the
country. If charter schools were allowed to expand more freely throughout the state, other Texas districts might be
motivated to undertake similar reforms in response to competition from charters. Unfortunately, a legislative limit on the
number of state-authorized charters has hampered the effects of competition.
But despite this limitation, school districts are still within their power to increase student choice. Charters authorized by
school districts and universities do not fall under the state mandated cap, so district charters can proliferate elsewhere
like they have in Houston.
Even more important, parents have the power to demand choice within their children’s districts. According to a little-
known portion of the education code, the majority of parents and teachers of an existing public school may petition their
school board to grant a charter to the campus. While the school board is not required to honor the petition, they are not
allowed to arbitrarily deny the request either. To date, this authorization option has not been utilized by parents and
teachers, but it holds great promise for increasing parental choice within the public school system.
“We are not threatened at all by competition,” Dr. Soehnge said at the TPPF forum. When more Texas school districts
adopt that same attitude and embrace choice, parent satisfaction and student performance will soar.
Jamie Story is an education policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit,
free-market research institute based in Austin.
LAW PROMOTES GAY AGENDA IN CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS
By Paul M. Weyrich.
Oct. 25, 2007 - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law three bills which, the opposition argues, introduce the
radical homosexual agenda into educational institutions.
The traditional purpose of public education is to teach reading, writing, math and other fundamentals necessary for well-
rounded intellectual development. Instead, these institutions apparently will be laboratories for redefining nature,
implementing “gender theory” and experimenting with the effects of sexual lifestyles.
SB 777
The first bill, SB 777, evidently bans anything in public schools that can
be interpreted as discriminating against or critical of homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality or any other alternative
lifestyle choice.
It prohibits any classroom instruction or school-sponsored activity that “promotes a discriminatory bias” against “sexual
orientation” and “gender,” which includes cross-dressing, sex changes and any other behavior “not stereotypi-cally
associated with one’s assigned sex at birth.”
Forget any book, reference or teaching aid which shows marriage as only between a man and a woman (the definition
California voters approved several years ago); materials which say people are born male or female (not in-between or
subject to change); sources which fail to include a variety of transsexual, bisexual and homosexual historical figures; and
sex ed materials which fail to offer the option of sex changes.
Homecoming kings can now be either male or female, as can homecoming queens. Students, whether male or female,
must be allowed to use the restroom and locker room of the sex with which they choose to identify.
AB 394
AB 394 requires the State Dept. of Education to monitor adherence to anti-discrimination and anti-harassment re-
quirements involving “actual or perceived gender identification and sexual orientation” in local schools. Schools must
adopt policies which prohibit discrimination and harassment based upon sexual identity or orientation and a process to
receive and investigate complaints in these cases.
Schools have to provide classroom handouts (including some for parents) and display information in the halls, lounges
and on websites that specifically address “bias-related discrimination and harassment” against homosexuality, bisexuality,
transsexual-ity or other “alternative lifestyle choices.”
AB 14
The final bill, AB 14, prohibits state funding for any program that does not support a range of alternative sexual practices,
including state-funded social services run by churches. Day-cares, preschools, after-school programs, food and housing
programs, senior services, anti-gang efforts, job programs and others must all teach and accept homosexuality,
bisexuality, transsexuality and all the other sexualities.
It forces every hospital, even private and religious hospitals, to adopt policies of support for the aforementioned
sexualities and opens up non-profit organizations to lawsuits if they exclude members who engage in any such sexual
conduct.
Schwarzenegger rejected a bill to authorize same-sex marriage. Also, a year ago he vetoed bills similar to SB 777, AB
394 and AB 14, stating that existing state law already provided penalties for discrimination. Why he reversed himself
now is unclear. But the harm his decision will do is clear if the law becomes effective on January 1, 2008 and is
interpreted and implemented literally. It would turn California’s children over to those who want to indoctrinate them in
perversion in order to validate their own lifestyle choices.
Parents who can afford to pull their children from public schools and place them in private schools or homeschool them
will probably do so. Most families cannot afford to do so. They will be forced to send their children to schools that
expressly contradict their values.
Sex has no place in educational institutions. It belongs at home, where parents have a responsibility to teach their children
about it. But California politicians, intent upon using the power of law and manipulating public institutions to deny nature,
control thought, speech and action, and force their perversion on others, want sex everywhere in public schools.
The Capitol Resource Institute in California has launched a referendum campaign to overturn SB 777. The group will
need to secure 433,971 valid voter signatures within 90 days to qualify for the June 2008 ballot.
If the referendum is unsuccessful, be prepared for some momentum to spread east because California’s resources and
population make California enormously influential. Textbook publishers will take note of this new legislation and amend
their books accordingly in order to stay in business in the State. And we must be prepared for the “tolerant” left to begin
persecuting those who advocate social and cultural positions opposed to theirs. This is as gross an abuse of power as I
have ever seen.
Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation
By CLIFF KINCAID
Oct. 9, 2008 - The man pictured here is Frank Marshall Davis, known in the
media as a mentor for Barack Obama. A new book, The Dream Begins, claims
Davis was "demonized" as a Communist but that he helped shape Obama's views.
I will leave it to you to decide what influence he had over Obama. But I do have
the shocking truth about Davis. He was not only a documented member of the
Communist Party USA, but a sex pervert, homosexual and pornographer. I have
the entire 600-page FBI file on Davis. I also have excerpts from and an analysis
of Davis's pornographic Sex Rebel book.
When you read our reports on Davis, you will be absolutely astounded. You will ask yourself:
Why haven't I been told this until now? Why the cover-up?
My name is Cliff Kincaid. I am editor of the Accuracy in Media (AIM) Report. Conservative
media personalities such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have given me credit for unearthing
the facts about the Global Poverty Act, a notorious foreign aid welfare giveaway bill. I am a
journalist by training and have been a writer, analyst and researcher in Washington, D.C. for 30
years. My agenda is uncovering the truth.
I also serve as president of America's Survival, Inc. (ASI), a foreign affairs watchdog group. It
was in this capacity, as we were researching the bloody legacy of international Communism, that
I came upon the hard and cold facts about Frank Marshall Davis and his influence.
Please understand that we don't take a stand for or against any candidate. We have no affiliation
with any political campaign. Our purpose is to educate the public about the role played by global
movements and institutions on America. I came to the conclusion that we wouldn't be true to our
mission if we didn't put all of our information about Frank Marshall Davis and his international
communist connections on the record for you to consider. You can come to your own
conclusions about the extent of his influence.
Simply put, we discovered that Davis was a key high-level operative in a Soviet-sponsored
network in Hawaii. His FBI file suggests that he may have been involved in espionage activities
on behalf of the Soviet Union.
We disclosed our initial findings at a May 22 news conference in Washington, D.C., where we
released our two reports on communist influence in Hawaii and Chicago. These reports are
available at our website. However, major organs of the national news media have seen fit to
either ignore Davis or play down his communist affiliations. That tendency is clearly at work in
the new book, The Dream Begins.
When America entered into our current economic crisis, I reviewed a copy of a 1932 book,
Toward Soviet America, by then-CPUSA boss William Z. Foster. He explained how socialism
will come to America. It is frightening to realize that Davis was part of that movement. Davis's
communist activities began in 1931 and continued into the 1970s. He passed away in 1987. He
never stopped being a communist.
Let me caution you. When you go to our website and read some of this material, especially the
information about Davis's perverted sexual activities, you will be sickened and disgusted. This
material is for adults only! I do not provide it to titillate or amuse you. I provide it so that you
will understand that this is someone who should never have been put in charge or control of any
young person.
It is necessary to put this on the public record because there is a coordinated effort to suppress the
truth about Davis. The book I previously mentioned is only the latest example of a media trend to
depict this hard-core communist agent as some kind of civil rights activist. Nothing could be
further from the truth. He was a Communist pervert.
When you go to our website -- www.usasurvival.org -- and examine our reports on Davis and
related matters, you will see for yourself the terrible truth.
WHO IS SARAH PALIN?
By Butch King -- Alaskan Bush Pilot and Guide
Sept. 9, 2008 - Sarah “Barracuda” Palin is a straight shooting, hard charging, get it done gal. She knows when to listen,
how to analyze the facts and how to make a decision, then implement the plan. She doesn’t do a poll before jumping in
with both feet like too many of the Washington types.
She has little legislative experience because she has always held the executive position; in private life, as mayor of
Anchorage’s largest bedroom community and more recently as governor. She is a smart, attractive home grown Alaska
girl with excellent moral and family values. She can see what needs to be done and does not hesitate to get it done.
One of our state’s major problems is that its capital is in Juneau, 500 miles from the nearest road and 800 air miles from
the population base which is Anchorage, Wasilla and Fairbanks. Our legislature and most of the state government is in
Juneau and they ALL behave like a bunch of freshmen in a college town. It has been this way since statehood in 1959.
When Sarah moved to Juneau, so did accountability and responsibility. When the oil revenue started flowing and a
barrel of North Slope Crude hit $23, these people began spending money like drunken sailors. You can only imagine
what was happening when oil hit $100 a barrel, about the time Sarah took command. My wife Kathy has first-hand
experience with this fiasco, as her father and her ex-husband were Alaska legislators.
About the time Sarah took the helm as governor of Alaska, about half of the state legislature was in the pocket of big oil
companies or contractors doing big projects for native corporations around Alaska, all funded by state oil revenue.
Alaska government was nothing but a good old boys club riding the perpetual wave of prosperity. This filtered down
from the legislature, through the Department of Natural Resources, Department of Labor and even spilled into the Public
Safety who are supposed to “preserve and protect”.
When Sarah walked into the Governor’s Mansion, she promptly dismissed the state trooper detachment assigned to
governor and had her and her husband’s gun case brought in from Wasilla. Then, she got rid of the former governor’s
state jet and told legislators there were no more free rides, they would have to fly Alaska Airlines just like her and her
family if they wanted
to travel.
Next came the the Barracuda part. The heads that rolled were too numerous to name, but when Sarah finished cleaning
house, a number of our legislators ended up in jail on corruption charges, or tendered their resignations along with
numerous department heads and those who had been riding the gravy train for way too long. And then she had lunch.
By the end of the day, Sarah Palin had saved the people of Alaska millions and has not yet slowed down.
She has truly brought CHANGE to Juneau. I personally know several persons in the private sector in Alaska, that hold
her in high esteem. She surrounds herself with smart people, many from my hometown of Anchorage. She listens to
them but makes her own decisions. Sarah Palin is a no B.S. politician. It is refreshing that there is such a thing anymore.
You want to talk about change? You should see a before and after picture of the state government in Alaska.
That’s change!
Sarah will bring a number of things to the election. I am sure she will appeal to many voters who otherwise could have
gone the other direction on election day. We need what Sarah will bring, first to the election and second, what she will
bring to Washington D.C. John McCain has been advised well, Let’s just hope the American people can get the
straight scoop on her in the weeks
ahead.
This is just the opinion of one Alaska Bush Pilot and Guide, who pays attention to national politics, watches the news and
is deathly afraid of the direction our nation is headed. I guarantee that if Sarah gets a chance to dig her spurs into the
flanks of the liberal Washington types, they will know that she is in the saddle.
CHARTER SCHOOLS SURGING ACROSS U.S.
By Robert Holland
July 5, 2008 - There has been a bumper crop of charter school stories this graduation season. What's more, the articles
have been largely positive, a sign that these independently managed public schools are gaining popularity.
In Greenfield, Mass., the first graduating class at Four Rivers Public Charter School -- 26 strong -- celebrated the fact
that six years ago they had gathered as seventh graders, along with their parents, on
an overgrown field. Their school hadn't even been built yet. They took a leap of faith and fashioned a new school
together.
A start-up success story on a larger scale comes from New Orleans, where charter schools have brought an
entrepreneurial spirit to education restoration in a city devastated by Hurricane Katrina three years ago. Charters now
handle 53 per cent of the city's post-hurricane enrollment; pre-Katrina, they had just two per cent.
Charters are booming in the state with the longest track record. Although overall public school enrollment in Minnesota is
declining, charter schools last year experienced their largest increase since 1991-92, the year the nation's first charter
school opened in Minnesota.
Charter schools are free of most of the rules that hamstring other public schools, including regulations pushed by teacher
unions to benefit their members instead of students. This freedom allows charter schools to tailor programs to children's
real needs.
The University of Minnesota's Joe Nathan, one of the authors of the Center for School Change's report on "Enrollment
and Demographic Trends for MN Charter and District Public Schools," offered these reasons for the rise in charter
enrollments:
"First, small size of the schools. Secondly, safer schools. Third, distinctive programs, whether
they're language immersion, ... the arts, things like that. Fourth, there's a feeling of great respect
from teachers to parents and from teachers to students" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, June 19).
It also doesn't hurt that charters are public schools that parents can actually choose.
In Rochester, members of the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper's editorial board visited True North Rochester
Preparatory School to learn how it's racking up some of the highest math scores in New York State. The answer is
shorter than the school's name: discipline.
On Principal Stacey Shells' watch, students do not talk in the hallways and must walk a straight line to and from the
lunchroom. There are carrots, too, in the form of rewards for good conduct and high achievement.
"After all, it's impossible to teach amid disorder," the board noted in a June 19 editorial. "Too many City School District
teachers know that all too well. Many tell disturbing stories of constant disruptions by students uninterested in learning.
They create chaotic environments that make it almost impossible for other students to pursue knowledge."
There is abundant statistical evidence of the impact of the charter movement. EdSource, an
independent research organization, recently found charter middle and high schools performed
much better than regular public schools on California's 2007 achievement tests. Oakland's charter
middle schools scored an eye-popping 210 points higher than the city's noncharters on an
800-point scale (Oakland Tribune, June 19).
In Denver a group of angry parents came to a school board meeting last month demanding to know why the same choice
was not available to them. "We want this for our kids and our families," said Luci Saenz, mother of a child at Valdez
Elementary. "We are ready to fight. We believe in our children, and we believe they deserve it" (Denver Post, May 7).
The successes of charter schools are grabbing attention within the education establishment, but for a different reason.
Vested interests want less competition from excellent schools, not more. Thus the Delaware State Education Association
(DSEA), the state's teachers union, expropriated its members' dues to commission a Washington, DC public relations
firm to craft a slick strategy for halting further charter start-ups in the state.
If the likes of the DSEA get their way, students and parents won't be the only parties with diminished choice. Teachers
will join them--unless, that is, success stories just keep coming in and eventually overwhelm the selfish resistance.
Robert Holland is a senior fellow for education policy at The Heartland Institute, Chicago, Ill.
STATE OFFERS DEATH, NOT REMEDY
June 27, 2008 - Anyone who finds the liberal depictions of universal medical care provided by the government appealing
should consider the plight of Barbara Wagner, a 64-year-old lung cancer patient living in a low-income apartment in
Springfield, Oregon.
World Net Daily reports that the Oregon Health Plan will not pay for the drug her doctor has prescribed for her, but it
will pay for assisted suicide.
Wagner was notified of this decision in a letter from LIPA, the private company contracted to administer the state
program. Wagner, according to a local paper, was “devastated” when she learned of the state’s refusal to pay for her
life-saving medicine. "To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live,
it's cruel," Wagner told the newspaper.
Dr. John Sattenspiel, senior medical director for LIPA, told the paper, "We had no intent to upset her,” but the company
had to inform her of “her options” under the Oregon Health Plan. Her sole option, of course, was to die but at least the
state would pay someone to “assist” her.
Dr. Walter Shaffer, a spokesman for the state Division of Medical Assistance Programs, explains the state’s
position, "We can't cover everything for everyone.”
Despite the state’s macabre proposal, Wagner will receive the drug she needs to save her life. She reported
receiving a notice from the pharmaceutical company that it will provide the drug, which costs $4,000 a month, for at least
a year. At the end of the year, the local paper noted, she can apply for further treatment from the company.
Part of the irony in this situation is that pharmaceutical companies rank just below oil companies in the liberal
rogue’s gallery, while government care is touted as the answer to everything. the incident also reveals what we can
expect when "assisted suicide" is legal.
TAKE ACTION AGAINST CPS
By Christopher Robinson
August 26, 2008 - On May 29, 2008, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the 3rd Court of Appeals ruling which found the
State had no right to seize the FLDS children from the ranch in Eldorado because it failed to prove either abuse or
neglect. The Supreme Court held "removal of the children was not warranted."
This case is not about whether you agree with the FLDS or not; it is about whether you value your liberty. I do not
agree with the FLDS lifestyle and belief system, but I do value family and liberty and oppose any attempt by the
government to abuse its authority with respect to either Protective Services (formerly CPS) has done just that -
overstepped its authority.
And did you catch this headline: "Senate panel suggests taking FLDS sect's assets to cover costs." A legislative panel
suggested that the state explore garnisheeing the religious organization's assets to recoup the costs of caring for the
children they seized! Said Sen. Bob Deuell, "Why should we be footing the bill when they've got assets?" So, they can
wrongly take our children from our homes and then consider charging us for their care!
Who will be next? What if CPS comes knocking on your door? Do you or your family hold beliefs or practice a
lifestyle that may be considered "counter-cultural" or against "mainstream" society? Do you or a loved one home
school? Are you a born-again Christian? Are you leery of the environmental extremist agenda? Do you hold certain
beliefs or practice a lifestyle that would be considered today or in the near future "harmful" or against modern society?
We live in a world where the definition of "normal" or "acceptable" is quickly changing. Family values are no longer
upheld as they once were. The definition of marriage has changed. You are "strange" if you go to church more than once
a week. Same-sex relationships are applauded, and equal rights are demanded for them. If you disagree, you could be
found guilty of "hate crimes."
We are on a slippery slope. It would be easy for this case to fade into the background because popular opinion does
not favor FLDS. "Yeah, they're strange, who cares what happened to them." But if we don't let our governor and our
legislators know that we strongly disapprove of the strong-arm tactics employed by CPS, who will be next? An
unverified phone call was all it took for the DFPS to raid the ranch in Eldorado. We must call for an overhaul of this
agency.
If you love liberty, if you value family, and you don't want to see the state trample on either - please take a moment to
contact Gov. Perry and your legislators. Don't be apathetic. Take action today. If we don't speak up, we may lose our
opportunity to do so in the future.
"When they came for us, there was no one left to protest. . . ."
Christopher Robinson is a Lubbock attorney and home school father.
WHO KNEW FREE ENERGY COULD BE SO EXPENSIVE?
By Drew Thornley
May 24, 2008 - The Electric Reliability Council of Texas recently estimated that billions of dollars will be needed to
transmit wind-generated electricity from the areas of Texas most suitable for wind generation -- West Texas and the
Panhandle -- to the areas of the state that need energy the most -- the I-35 corridor and the upper Gulf Coast.
These costs will be borne by Texas ratepayers. How did we get here?
Renewable energy mandates and subsidies have paved the way for Texas’ wind energy boom. Texas leads the nation in
installed wind power capacity, adding 1,708 megawatts (MW) in 2007, bringing its total to 4,446 MW by the end the
year. California is a distant second, with 2,439 MW by year’s end. In 2007, just 0.77 per cent of the nation’s electric
generation came from wind energy; in Texas, wind accounts for two per cent of generation.
Robust wind power expansion is expected, as Texas producers are required to generate 5,880 MW of renewable
energy by 2015 and face a 10,000-MW target for 2025. To this end, $700 million went into new wind Texas farms in
January.
Wind energy proponents extol wind as free, safe, and clean, but these characterizations miss the point. Energy users
expect reliability, and challenges dot the path from wind to the electric grid to the energy consumer.
For wind turbines to produce power the wind must blow. Because the wind does not blow constantly, wind turbines
produce a fraction of their potential generating capacities.
Furthermore, wind blows the least during the summer months when power is needed the most. ERCOT relies on just 8.7
per cent of wind power’s capacity when determining available power during peak summer hours. Also,
due to wind’s intermittency, wind farms must rely on conventional power sources to back up their supply.
Besides generous federal subsidies and tax incentives, Texas entices wind developers with tax exemptions and
deductions; yet wind power remains more expensive per kilowatt-hour than conventional energy sources.
ERCOT’s estimates for transmitting West Texas wind energy, under four different scenarios, range from $3.78
billion to $6.28 billion.
ERCOT estimated costs by using straight-line lengths for transmission cables. Thus, transmission costs were estimated
using a best-case-scenario approach and, as such, should be considered minimums. Add to this ERCOT’s estimates of
$410 million to $1.03 billion for connecting wind generation to the new collection substations.
Wind energy also comes with legitimate environmental concerns. Wind farms require vast tracts of land,
disrupting farming acreage and animal habitats; and turbine blades kill thousands of birds each year, including
protected species.
ERCOT estimates Texas’ electricity demand will rise 20 per cent by 2015 and 43 per cent by 2025. Texas must
remain focused on providing its residents with affordable, reliable energy and not turn its back on fossil fuels,
which can meet our needs and are cleaner than ever before.
Wind alone cannot meet the increasing demand we face. Rather, wind is one stick in a bundle of larger sticks,
all of which can and should contribute to meeting energy demands. Wind should be part of a diversified
portfolio of energy resources, anchored by the traditional energy sources that have the capacity to meet Texas’’
burgeoning energy needs.
Drew Thornley is a natural resources policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market
research institute based in Austin.
OBAMA’S ANTI-MARRIAGE AGENDA
By Gary Bauer
March 4, 2008 - As the campaign for the Democrat nomination heats up, Barack Obama is moving aggressively to
outflank Hillary Clinton on her left. To rally the radical base, he is now pandering to the militant homosexual rights
movement, advocating policies that would effectively clear the way for the imposition of same-sex "marriage" across the
country.
In advance of the Ohio and Texas primaries the Obama campaign released an "open letter" to the homosexual
community. Here are some key excerpts:
"...throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans. In Illinois, I co-sponsored a
fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending
protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored
bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal
employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard
Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination
on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. As your president, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat
same-sex couples with
full equality in their family and adoption laws.
"...I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) - a position I have held since before arriving
in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute
altogether. ... I have also called for us to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and I have worked to improve the Uniting
American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our
immigration system."
"Complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act," would enable radical judicial activists to impose same-sex "marriage"
across the country at their whim. The Defense of Marriage Act did not ban homosexual "marriage." It created an
exemption from the Constitution's full faith and credit clause, giving states the right to refuse to recognize same-sex
"marriages" performed in other states.
Right now, if you are married in California and move to Florida, you do not have to get remarried, because
legally valid marriages of one state are recognized in other states due to the Constitution's full faith and credit
clause. Without the exemption created by the Defense of Marriage Act, one federal judge could declare the
same-sex "marriages" performed in Massachusetts legal in all 50 states. No state would be exempt, because
state constitutional amendments are still subject to federal review, and without DOMA, even the 27 states that have
enacted marriage protection amendments would be extraordinarily vulnerable.
Conservative columnist Terry Jeffrey noted that Obama justifies his position scripturally, as well. Yesterday, he told a
gathering in Ohio, "I think that it [same-sex "marriage"] is a legal right that they should have that is
recognized by the state. If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the
Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans."
Just to be clear about how radical and controversial Obama's position is, in 1996 DOMA passed the House of
Representatives on a vote of 342-to-67 (83 per cent in favor), passed the Senate 85-to-14 and was signed into law by
Bill Clinton. So in order to get to Hillary's left with the most radical elements of the Democrat Party,
Obama is willing to embrace a position overwhelmingly rejected by Congress, a Democrat president and 27
states that have passed marriage protection amendments by an average vote of 69 per cent.
Gary Bauer is the founder of Campaign for Working Families
ENGLISH COALITION LOBBY GETS A SPANKING
By Ken Mercer
May 31, 2008 - If you are mean, lie, or cheat, you deserve a spanking. That is exactly what
happened to the “Coalition” lobby at the May 21 - 23 meeting of the Texas State Board of
Education (SBOE).
That Coalition supports whole language, holistic scoring of essays, project-based learning,
inventive spelling, and no direct systematic instruction of grammar/usage. The results of the
powerful Coalition philosophy are devastating. The Commission for a College Ready Texas
reported that 50 per cent of college freshmen in Texas are unprepared and are enrolled in
remedial or developmental education. At the May 21, 2008, SBOE meeting, a parent and
her son testified about the failures of the current reading, writing, and grammar standards.
As at prior public meetings, the Coalition was repeatedly cautioned by SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy (R-College
Station) to refrain from rude outbursts and intimidating testifiers. In the real world, if you ever treated a concerned
customer that way, you would be fired.
In the same meeting, a retired educator testified in favor of strong phonics and back-to-basics grammar, only to be met
by Coalition members who hatefully stuck out their tongues. What wonderful role models for our Texas children these
Coalition members were!
Last fall, the Texas Education Agency contracted StandardsWork (SW), a nationwide professional facilitator, to help
bring forth the final standards document. The SBOE in their March 2008 meeting voted 15-0 to make the SW
document the base document upon which the teacher workgroups (meeting the first week of May 2008) were to make
their final changes.
However, thanks to the intense questioning at the May 22 SBOE meeting by McLeroy, Gail Lowe (R-Lampasas), Terri
Leo (R-Spring), and David Bradley (R-Beaumont) the truth came out. The March document passed unanimously by the
SBOE was switched to a new, never before seen Coalition document. The Coalition retained control of their document
for several days after the teacher workgroups completed their meeting, perhaps making further changes before giving it
to the TEA or SBOE.
Member Geraldine Miller (R-Dallas) protested strongly that the Coalition had hijacked the process, and Cynthia Dunbar
(R-Richmond) stated the Coalition had made a mockery and a "circus" out of the process. Member Barbara Cargill (R-
The Woodlands) said she was ashamed and embarrassed to learn that SW had found Texas to be the most difficult state
in the nation
with which to work.
That is why I made the motion (passed 9 to 6) to accept the SW document that: (1) had two and one-half years of
educator input, (2) passed 15-0 at the March SBOE meeting, (3) met the legal requirement of being posted on the Texas
Register, and (4) allowed 23 million Texans the legally required thirty days to review the proposed new standards. The
hijacked Coalition document failed to meet any of those requirements.
SBOE Member Rick Agosto (D-San Antonio) successfully amended my motion to include the input of previously
agreed-upon Hispanic experts.
Member David Bradley then notified the SBOE that he intended to bring, on May 23, a substitute amendment which was
the exact document the SBOE just passed plus the important grammar/usage input from teacher workgroups.
To ensure a fair and transparent conclusion, I voted for Member Lawrence Allen’s (D-Houston) motion that ultimately
resulted in almost three additional hours of section-by-section review before the vote on the final document was taken.
The SBOE voted 9 to 6 for strengthened phonics, grammar, and ten reading comprehension sections. We soundly
defeated desperate pro-coalition amendments to water down phonics and add the failed whole-language reading
“strategies” to the main document.
I wish to say to the hard-working classroom teachers that the intimidating actions of the Coalition lobby embarrassed the
entire education field. It is my belief that the Coalition lobby was mean, they lied, and they cheated. In the end, they got
a very well deserved spanking; and the school children and educators of Texas have content-rich standards for phonics,
reading, writing, and grammar.
Ken Mercer was elected to the State Board of Education in 2007. He chaired the 2008 Teacher
of the Year Committee and is Vice-Chair of the Committee on School Initiatives.
IS BARACK OBAMA ‘BIG BROTHER’?
By Gary Bauer
May 20, 2008 - If exit polls are to be believed, Barack Obama may be popular with college-educated liberals, but he is
having trouble connecting with blue-collar workers, the "Reagan Democrats" who live and work in "Main Street, U.S.A."
-- and it's not hard to understand why.
In addition to his remarks about "bitter" people clinging to faith and guns, Obama made this startling statement: "We can't
drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72
degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."
If that's any indication of what we can expect from a President Obama, the American people better start asking some
tough questions before Election Day. What kind of big government policies would a President Obama propose to
implement such a statement? Would an Obama administration ban SUVs? Would it impose rationing at the grocery
store, like World War II-era restrictions? California officials are already contemplating the use of remote control devices
to control the thermostats in new homes and businesses.
Is this what "Big Brother Barack" has in mind for all of us?
Liberals insist that the government has no interest in defining the meaning of marriage and family, or preserving the
sanctity of life. Those are personal "choices" and matters of individual orientation that somehow rise to the level of
cherished constitutional rights. But Barack Obama thinks government can tell us what to drive, what to eat and where to
set our thermostats!
But wait, there’s more.
A Vision Of The Future
If you're still thinking of staying home on Election Day, let me give you a vision of the future. During a mass mass rally,
Obama told the crowd, "Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose
a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us." Here were 80,000 people listening to "President
Obama" telling them that Iran is a "tiny" nation that poses no significant threat to us. That's the mindset that will guide his
face-to-face negotiations with our enemies.
Let me be clear about this: Iran is sitting astride of the world's energy supply. It is feverishly working to acquire nuclear
weapons and is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. Its Holocaust-denying dictator has vowed to "wipe Israel
off the map," called our ally a "stinking corpse," and has also prayed for the destruction of America. And Barack Obama
sees no serious threat?
John McCain responded sharply to Obama's comments, saying, "The biggest national security challenge the United
States currently faces is keeping nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists. Should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, that
danger would become very dire, indeed. They might not be a superpower, but the threat the government of Iran poses is
anything but 'tiny.'"
In recent weeks, I have gotten messages from good folks saying I've been too harsh on Barack
Obama. How is one supposed to be gentle about a presidential candidate who is signaling that he is clueless about the
dangers facing our country? Why should we handle with kid gloves a candidate who believes it is ok to allow a child who
survives an abortion to be thrown in a trash can and left to die? (Obama blocked a bill in the Illinois state legislature that
would have protected children who were born alive after botched abortion attempts.) Obama wants to repeal the
Defense of Marriage Act, the only legislation now standing in the way of the California Supreme Court's ruling being
forced on every state in the union.
I don't see how any conservative activist or "Christian conservative leader" can say with a straight face, "It really doesn't
matter whether Barack Obama or John McCain gets elected as far as our issues are concerned."
Gary Bauer is founder of Campaign for Working Families
REWRITING HISTORY - AN EROSION OF OUR STANDARDS
By Mike Pearce
Nov. 7, 2007 - Today, in Texas schools, the study of our history is under assault by academic elites and education
bureaucrats under the guise of multiculturalism and political correctness.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has developed college readiness standards for the high school
curriculum. These proposed standards abandon the instruction of traditional history and replace it with vague feel-good
“diverse human perspectives and experiences.”
Texas parents must take a stand against this erosion and demand that our history be taught as it really happened.
America’s greatest generation, our World War II veterans, are dying at a rate of 1,000 per day. But you won’t find any
mention of them or their heroic deeds in the proposed social science standards. What you will find is a recommendation
that our students explain the impact of World War II on the African-American and Mexican-American civil rights
movements, how the policies changed our economy, and whether the decision to drop the atomic bombs was correct.
Our high school students will now study the impact of WW II, but not the war itself.
There are no recommendations on how industrialization led to the betterment of mankind. Instead, students must
evaluate the impact of the Industrial Revolution and rapid urbanization “on the environment.” Where is the standard that
asks one to evaluate the quality of life in America before and after industrialization? Our scholars in high school will be
figuring out much deeper problems, like “how climate change might affect the US economy.” So, the Industrial
Revolution is out and global warming is in.
The standards have no mention of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald
Reagan, or the Magna Carta. But what did make the list was a recommendation that students listen to Martin Luther
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and summarize five main points. While King’s historic speech is very worthy of tudy,
so are many other monumental events.
What the standards do is to provide an “approach” to questions under the guise of trying to make the students believe
that they are developing their own conclusions. It is the belief of the academic elite that the “broad” should be substituted
for the “narrow”; and they set the parameters of academic importance.
You will not find a standard that asks students to learn about the beautiful melting pot that is America; but our students
will study “xenophobia and its impact on immigration policies in the United States.” Our students will not be learning
about the Judeo-Christian values that were the foundation of our nation; but our students will “analyze how conflicting
religious values create social conflict in local communities.” Students will not learn about how the United States has
stood as a beacon of liberty for the world, but they will learn about various important civil rights cases, including
Lawrence v. Texas which mandated an end to anti-sodomy laws.
There were few things I enjoyed more about teaching American history than covering the Declaration of Independence.
From the philosophy of John Locke to the poetic words of Thomas Jefferson; from the faith in the idea that men had
divine rights rather than mere secular ones, to the notion that liberty was an institution for which all men yearned. Now,
under these proposed standards, our children will no longer hear any of that. Instead, they will “analyze the Declaration
of Independence from the perspective of men and women, and people of Native American, European, and African
descent.” In other words, The Declaration of Independence was merely a document wrought with chauvinism, racism,
and could just as easily be viewed as a “declaration of treason” by the British.
Texas parents must stand up to this erosion of our historical standards now. The Higher Education Coordinating Board
is accepting public comments online now through Dec.10 at www.thecb.state.tx.us. We must teach our students
integrity, leadership and character and use the heroic figures in our history as models. If we allow the purveyors of
political correctness to re-write our history, we sentence our greatest patriots to death through their expulsion from our
history books.
Mike Pearce is a former Texas public school social studies teacher who taught for ten years.
NORTH AMERICAN INFLUENZA PLAN
VIOLATES RIGHTS OF U.S. CITIZENS
By Phyllis Schlafly
Sept. 12, 2007 - It's now leaking out that there was more going on than met the eye at the Security and Prosperity
Partnership Summit in Montebello, Canada, in August. The three amigos -- President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime
Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon -- finalized and released the "North American Plan
for Avian & Pandemic Influenza."
The "Plan" -- that's what they call it, with a capital P -- is to use the excuse of a major flu epidemic to shift powers from
U.S. legislatures to unelected, unaccountable "North American" bureaucrats.
This idea was launched on September 14, 2005, when Bush announced the "International Partnership on Avian and
Pandemic Influenza." He was speaking to the United Nations General Assembly.
We might have thought that idea had some merit because the influenza partnership called for "transparency in reporting of
influenza cases in humans and in animals" and the "sharing of epidemiological data and samples." That's very different
from the Security and Prosperity Summit, where transparency has always been conspicuously avoided like the plague.
This year's Security and Prosperity Summit in Canada morphed the Influenza Partnership into the North American Plan.
Now we discover that the Plan is not only about combating a flu epidemic but is far-reaching in seeking control over U.
S. citizens and public policy during an epidemic.
The Plan repeatedly features the favorite Bush word "comprehensive" - it calls for a "comprehensive, coordinated North
American approach." The Plan would give authority to international bureaucrats "beyond the health sector to include a
coordinated approach to critical infrastructure protection," including "border and transportation issues."
The Plan is a wordy 44-page document, much of which sounds innocuous. It is helpful to exchange information about
disease and take precautions against letting foreign diseases enter the United States.
However, self-government and sovereignty are at risk when control over these matters is turned over to a newly created
North American body headed by the representative of another country. It's an additional problem when the entire Plan
is a spin-off of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, an arrangement created in secret solely by White House press
releases, without Congressional approval or even oversight.
The 2007 Plan acknowledges that it is based not only on the Influenza Partnership, but also on the guidelines, standards
and rules of the World Health Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, the World Trade Organization,
and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
"Decision Makers"
The Plan sets up a "senior level coordinating body to facilitate the effective planning and preparedness within North
America for a possible outbreak of avian and/or human pandemic influenza under the Security and Prosperity
Partnership." The Plan identifies this Security and Prosperity Partnership coordinating body as "decision-makers."
The Plan then (ungrammatically) states: "The chair of the Security and Prosperity Partnership coordinating body will
rotate between each national authority on a yearly basis." Thus, a foreigner will be the "decision maker" for Americans in
two out of every three years.
What powers will this foreign-headed coordinating body exercise? The Plan suggests that these include "the use of
antivirals and vaccines; ... social distancing measures, including school closures and the prohibition of community
gatherings; ... isolation and quarantine."
Will this foreign-headed coordinating body respect the First Amendment "right of the people peaceably to assemble"? Or
will the rules of the Plan, Security and Prosperity Partnership, World Health Organization, World Organization for
Animal Health, World Trade Organization and NAFTA take precedence?
Health Powers
In evaluating the Plan, it is instructive to recall the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, an anti-epidemic plan
launched by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Oct. 23, 2001. Designed to be passed by all state
legislatures, the model bill was primarily written by Lawrence O. Gostin, a former member of U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton's discredited Task Force on Health Care Reform, and was promoted by the Bush administration during its first
year.
The proposed Emergency Health Powers Act would have given each governor sole discretion to declare a public health
emergency and grant himself extraordinary powers. He would have been able to restrict or prohibit firearms, seize
private property and destroy it in many circumstances, and impose price controls and rationing.
Governors would have been given the power to order people out of their homes and into dangerous quarantines.
Children could have been taken from their parents and put into public quarantines.
Governors could even have demanded that physicians administer certain drugs despite individuals' religious or other
objections. The Emergency Health Powers Act was based on the concept that decision-making by authoritarian bosses
and unelected bureaucrats is the way to go in a time of crisis.
The proposed Emergency Health Powers Act roused a nationwide storm of protest because it was an unprecedented
assault on the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens, as well as on the principle of limited government, and so it never
passed anywhere in its original text. Will similar totalitarian notions now bypass legislatures and be forced upon us by
Security and Prosperity Partnership press releases?
PARENTAL CONSENT THREATENED BY FEDERAL ABORTION BILL
Oct. 7, 2007 - The hard-fought right of parents to give or withhold consent before their minor daughters may have an
abortion is in danger of being lost under HR-1964, the Federal abortion rights bill recently introduced in the U.S. House.
The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) provides that neither the Federal government nor any state or local government
may “deny or interfere with” a woman’s right to abort her baby even after viability if necessary to protect her life or
health. As a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Doe v Bolton, health is defined broadly enough to remove any limits
whatsoever on the right to abortion.
An advisory sheet prepared by the National Organization for Women and other groups, complains that “parental consent
or notification statutes have been used as a tool to deny access to abortion services for minors.” These statutes, the
sheet advises, would violate FOCA.
Also at risk if FOCA passes, are laws that prohibit taxpayer funding of abortion including counseling and referrals. A
major target of abortion supporters has been the Hyde amendment, a Federal law named for its chief advocate, former
Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.). Passed by Congress in 1976, the Hyde Amendment excludes abortion from the medical care
provided to low-income persons by the Federal government through Medicaid except in cases of rape, incest, or when
the mother’s life is in danger. In addition to the Hyde amendment, many states – including Texas – have passed laws
prohibiting the use of tax money to pay for abortions.
A refusal to publicly fund abortions is not the only state policy that would be prohibited by FOCA. In addition, FOCA
would prohibit “the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.” Some states – again including
Texas – require doctors to provide certain information about the fetus to the mother before an abortion is performed.
Some have waiting periods, and some require abortion clinics to pass sanitary and health standards as hospitals.
According to the NOW advisory, FOCA would nullify the the Federal law -- and any state laws -- banning partial-birth
abortion. In this procedure, the baby is delivered feet first and when all but the head has been removed, the baby is
stabbed in the neck with a scissors and the brains sucked out. Several states have outlawed this method of abortion and
the U.S. Supreme court has recently upheld a Federal ban. In addition to upholding the Federal law, the Supreme Court
ordered lower Federal courts to review their decisions overturning state bans in Virginia and Missouri because they
lacked exceptions for the health of the mother.
Legislation similar to FOCA was proposed in 1992 but did not pass. The impetus for reviving FOCA is the fear among
abortion supporters that the addition of John roberts and Samuel alito to the Supreme Court will result in the reversal of
Roe v Wade. FOCA is seen as restoring the status of abortion to what it was after that ruling – no limits or restriction at
all.
FOCA has 58 co-sponsors including Rep. Jackson-Lee of Texas and Dennis Kucinich, a candidate for the Democratic
presidential nomination. It has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee which s chaired by Rep. John Conyers,
Democrat of Michigan
FOCA, if passed, would supersede any existing laws contrary to its terms regardless of what level of government passed
such laws. The sweeping impact of FOCA is embodied in the language of the bill which states. “This Act applies to
every Federal, State, and local statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, decision, policy, practice, or other
action enacted, adopted, or implemented before, on, or after the date of enactment of this Act.”
TEACHERS RESISTING LEFTIST UNION
By Connie Sadowski
Published in School Reform News by The Heartland Institute
Oct. 7, 2007 - Rank-and-file teachers are so fed up with the far-left policies the National Association of Education
adopted at its annual convention in Philadelphia that some are planning to become delegates themselves in order to
change the union's makeup.
Sissy Jochmann, a second-grade teacher in Pittsburgh, took issue with non-educational recommendations adopted by
the NEA Board of Directors --such as incorporating sexual orientation and gender identity in teacher education
standards; enhancing gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) partnerships; expanding the union's GLBT web
page; and supporting federal hate crimes legislation.
During the meeting of the Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identification, Jochmann -- an NEA convention
delegate since 2001 and chair of the NEA Conservative Educators Caucus -- said all the research presented and the
discussion that followed were "one-sided from a gay-affirming viewpoint," because the committee was "not interested in
hearing research contrary to their viewpoint."
The Board of Directors subsequently adopted the GLBT policies in a closed session, literally behind closed doors.
Conservative teachers must not "sit idly back and pay dues," Jochmann said. "It's unconscionable," she continued, for
state members to do nothing while the NEA continues to "adopt non-education policies regarding social issues like
abortion and homosexuality."
NEA spokesperson Will Potter repeatedly declined comment.
Need for Accountability
According to the organization's website, approximately one-third of the NEA's three million teacher members are
conservatives.
NEA delegates should more closely represent members' views and be more accountable to members for the policies
they adopt, said Judy Bruns, an Ohio delegate and middle-school teacher. The NEA should institute policies to "ensure
annual meeting delegates invite members' input before attending the meeting and then to report back to members after
the meeting," but her recommendation was defeated, she said.
The NEA is making an effort to reach out to its conservative base, said Diane Lenning, former chair of the NEA
Republican Educators Caucus and a retired Orange County, California high school teacher. A delegate to the annual
meeting each year between 2000 and 2006, this year she was one of 80 teachers attending the NEA's first Republican
Leaders Conference in Minneapolis August 2-5.
An NEA news release said the conference was "part of NEA's commitment to bipartisanship in its political and legislative
advocacy" and its "initiative to increase its presence in [the] Republican Party."
Calls for Vouchers
Lenning said she hopes NEA leaders will work to arrive at "common-ground positions" regarding some "historically
adversarial issues such as school choice and reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, curriculum content, school safety,
improving the high school graduation rate, reducing the dropout rate, and teaching each generation about the processes
of democracy.
"When education and political leaders are adversarial and indecisive, the kids suffer," Lenning added. "We want our
students across the nation to succeed with an accessible, quality education."
Reflecting increasing public dissatisfaction with the NEA's growing disdain for mainstream American values, some social
conservative groups, which historically have been silent on the issue of school choice, are beginning to take up the
banner. One of these is the American Family Association (AFA), based in Mississippi, which asked in a July 31 e-mail
alert to its 3.3 million constituents, "is it time for school vouchers?"
"The NEA has consistently passed very leftist resolutions and held very liberal political positions over the years," so AFA
decided to "promote public policies that support a parent's right to choose their child's school and to work to raise the
profile of politicians who support such policy," AFA President Tim Wildmon explained. "The vast majority of people
who take surveys on our Web site favor vouchers."
Connie Sadowski (connie@ceoaustin.org) directs the Education Options Resource Center at the Austin CEO
Foundation.
SCHOOL DROPOUTS A PROBLEM FOR ALL
By Peggy Venable
Right here in America, every 29 seconds another student gives up on school, resulting in more than one million high
school students dropping out every year. Every hour of every day, 93 Texas students drop out of public schools. The
majority are inner city minority males.
It is a story that goes largely untold, because these are not the children of the powerful or politically connected. And it
doesn’t have a happy ending.
The numbers represent more than the failure of a one-size-fits-all system of education, but a tremendous cost to our
economy and an even greater human tragedy, as many of these dropouts slip between the crevices of productive society.
According to the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the 2007 class of high school dropouts in
Texas will cost state taxpayers $377 million this year and every year over the course of their lifetimes.
The real travesty is our inability to provide educational options to students most vulnerable. Two-parent households
usually have the resources to select the school of their choice either by moving into a specific district or paying private
school tuition. Inner city minority youth from single-parent, low-income households have no options.
Nearly one-third of all public high school students — and nearly one half of all African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native
Americans — fail to graduate from public high school with their classes. Why are students dropping out? More than 80
percent said they might have stayed in school if classes had been more interesting and provided opportunities for real-
world learning. The most frequently given reason for dropping out is “Didn’t like school in general or the school they
were attending.” The “one size fits all” approach didn’t fit the kids that dropped out. Clearly, something must be done.
From the very beginning, school choice has been a civil rights issue, according to Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael
Williams, a former assistant secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.
Our failure to recognize choice as a civil rights issue comes at tremendous cost. The NCPA study finds that a modest
school choice program would reduce public school dropout rates and save taxpayers up to $53 million a year in costs
associated with dropouts. More important, it would be the opportunity for at-risk youth to get an education.
Choice provides an environment for new models to emerge that would serve specific populations. Today, some charter
schools operate noon to 6 p.m., or hold evening, weekend, and online classes. Choice is powerful. It provides the
flexibility to serve various needs. With choice, providers will tailor education to the needs and interests of the customers.
Public education could do that, but already has wasted a lot of time. The current bureaucratic system still doesn’t “get it”
and fails to treat the parents and students as customers.
Recent dropout numbers don’t lie. We are miserably failing a very vulnerable student population. These students and
parents need a safety valve – they deserve options that more affluent students enjoy. Time is running out for thousands of
minority students. We can’t afford to wait. But are Texans ready to make changes?
A recent Texas Lyceum poll revealed that almost two-thirds of the Texans surveyed support a program “in which
parents are given taxpayer money by the government that they can use to pay for a child’s tuition at the school of their
choice.” Interestingly, when reviewing the racial breakdowns, whites were more likely to oppose school choice and
African-Americans and Hispanics more likely to support the idea. Younger Texans were more supportive than older
ones.
No significant and meaningful change will come easily. The major obstacle will be the education community. Millions of
taxpayer dollars will be spent opposing taxpayers having choice. Mainstream media may attempt to vilify individuals who
provide their hard-earned resources to providing children with a way out. But those dollars are minuscule in comparison
to the millions of our tax dollars that will be spent to maintain the status quo.
What should be concerning us most is that many in education fear that, given an option, our public schools would
experience a mass exodus as parents choose to exercise choice and leave public schools. The argument acknowledges
that even the education bureaucracy has little confidence in their ability to provide customers satisfaction.
Will choice end the public schools as we know it? Certainly not, but those who rely on the current monopoly system
would lead the public to think it would. Let’s face it. The dropout rates indicate there is little likelihood we can do worse
than we are now, particularly for minority students. The figures provide a wake up call – much as the study “A Nation at
Risk” did in the early 1980’s. That study prompted tinkering with the system, more studies were done, accountability
measures were instituted, and more testing was mandated. Nothing changed.
The No Child Left Behind program was enacted, but clearly students are still being left behind. Time has run out for
millions of minority youth. It’s time legislators give parents a choice and students a chance.
Peggy Venable is director of Americans for Prosperity-Texas.
EFFORT TO TOLL INTERSTATES SHOULD BE STOPPED
Sept. 4, 2007 - the Texas Department of Transportation has come up with an elaborate scheme to squeeze the public
for more toll money. The department is asking Congress to change the law to permit the state to “buy back” Interstate
highways and charge us toll to drive on them.
And, there is every possibility that TXDOT, if it gains ownership of the Interstate, will lease them out to private
companies who will then charge whatever tolls the traffic will bear. And, to make sure the traffic will bear quite a lot,
there may even be one of those infamous “no compete clauses in the agreement. This would prohibit the state from
building an alternative road to the privately owned toll road even if the growth in traffic volume over the years more than
justifies another highway.
State Sen. John Carona ( R-Dallas) called it “a dreadful recommendation by the department. He said it would be asking
taxpayers to pay for the highways twice. He’s almost right. Taxpayers would be paying not twice but three times. We
paid to build those highways, now TXDOT wants us to pay a second time to buy them from the Feds, and then pay yet
again to drive on them.
Carona expressed confidence the state legislators lawmakers would be “overwhelmingly” opposed and he’s probably
right. But we shouldn’t expect too much from them. They opposed some of TXDOT’s more outrageous schemes
during the last session but were outmaneuvered by the agency with the support of Gov. Rick Perry.
And this new scheme appears to have the support of the governor. The AP reports that Robert Black, spokesman for
Perry, said the plan doesn't contradict Perry's promise that free highways will not be converted to toll roads. That’s
because the free roads wouldn’t be converted, he said, without approval of local voters. That is not persuasive since the
governor said it wouldn’t happen, not that it would be up to local voters.
If Carona is right and the Legislature does attempt to block this scheme to purchase and toll the Interstates, we can
expect the governor to veto it.
That leaves Congress. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has introduce a bill to derail TXDOT’s effort to change Federal law
to permit the state to buy the highways and toll them. She, and every other member of the Texas congressional
delegation should hear from the citizens of the state.
Since the Legislature seems incapable of standing up to the agency and the governor, Congress should tell the
Department of Transportation to take a hike.
HOUSTON PUPILS GAIN FROM COMPETITION
BY JAMIE STORY
Sept. 22, 2007 - While the public school lobby has traditionally opposed any introduction of
competition into the education system, the state’s largest school district seems to have embra embraced it.
In Houston, 80 state-authorized charter schools enroll approximately 20,000 students. That’s one charter student for
every 10 students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Few school districts in the country face this
degree of competition—and even fewer have risen to the challenge like HISD.
At a recent forum hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, HISD Chief Academic
Officer Dr. Karen Soehnge emphasized that “we fundamentally, as an organization, embrace choice.” That’s not
something you typically hear from a public school administrator. But HISD has responded to competition by maximizing
choice within the public school system.
In HISD, students can choose to attend any school where space is available. Campus funding is based on enrollment – if
a school doesn’t compete to keep students, it loses the dollars that go with them. And students have a wide variety of
learning environments from which to choose, since HISD has created specialized magnet schools and virtual courses that
maximize student flexibility.
HISD has also responded by establishing a network of district-authorized charter schools. Today, 29 district charters
enroll approximately 11,000 students. By comparison, the state as a whole only contains 54 district charters, meaning
more than half of the state’s district charters are in HISD.
What are the results of this movement toward choice? In 2005, HISD had 31 campuses rated unacceptable, and only six
rated exemplary. In 2007, the district had 15 of each. For its size, Houston has half as many unacceptable schools as
either Fort Worth or Dallas, and fewer even than Austin, a property-rich district.
A study by the Texas Public Policy Foundation found that traditional public schools facing competition from charters
outperform those public schools that do not face competition. HISD provides concrete proof to support this unsurprising
finding.
It is no coincidence that HISD, with its significant charter competition, is one of the most innovative urban districts in the
country. If charter schools were allowed to expand more freely throughout the state, other Texas districts might be
motivated to undertake similar reforms in response to competition from charters. Unfortunately, a legislative limit on the
number of state-authorized charters has hampered the effects of competition.
But despite this limitation, school districts are still within their power to increase student choice. Charters authorized by
school districts and universities do not fall under the state mandated cap, so district charters can proliferate elsewhere
like they have in Houston.
Even more important, parents have the power to demand choice within their children’s districts. According to a little-
known portion of the education code, the majority of parents and teachers of an existing public school may petition their
school board to grant a charter to the campus. While the school board is not required to honor the petition, they are not
allowed to arbitrarily deny the request either. To date, this authorization option has not been utilized by parents and
teachers, but it holds great promise for increasing parental choice within the public school system.
“We are not threatened at all by competition,” Dr. Soehnge said at the TPPF forum. When more Texas school districts
adopt that same attitude and embrace choice, parent satisfaction and student performance will soar.
Jamie Story is an education policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit,
free-market research institute based in Austin.
LAW PROMOTES GAY AGENDA IN CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS
By Paul M. Weyrich.
Oct. 25, 2007 - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law three bills which, the opposition argues, introduce the
radical homosexual agenda into educational institutions.
The traditional purpose of public education is to teach reading, writing, math and other fundamentals necessary for well-
rounded intellectual development. Instead, these institutions apparently will be laboratories for redefining nature,
implementing “gender theory” and experimenting with the effects of sexual lifestyles.
SB 777
The first bill, SB 777, evidently bans anything in public schools that can
be interpreted as discriminating against or critical of homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality or any other alternative
lifestyle choice.
It prohibits any classroom instruction or school-sponsored activity that “promotes a discriminatory bias” against “sexual
orientation” and “gender,” which includes cross-dressing, sex changes and any other behavior “not stereotypi-cally
associated with one’s assigned sex at birth.”
Forget any book, reference or teaching aid which shows marriage as only between a man and a woman (the definition
California voters approved several years ago); materials which say people are born male or female (not in-between or
subject to change); sources which fail to include a variety of transsexual, bisexual and homosexual historical figures; and
sex ed materials which fail to offer the option of sex changes.
Homecoming kings can now be either male or female, as can homecoming queens. Students, whether male or female,
must be allowed to use the restroom and locker room of the sex with which they choose to identify.
AB 394
AB 394 requires the State Dept. of Education to monitor adherence to anti-discrimination and anti-harassment re-
quirements involving “actual or perceived gender identification and sexual orientation” in local schools. Schools must
adopt policies which prohibit discrimination and harassment based upon sexual identity or orientation and a process to
receive and investigate complaints in these cases.
Schools have to provide classroom handouts (including some for parents) and display information in the halls, lounges
and on websites that specifically address “bias-related discrimination and harassment” against homosexuality, bisexuality,
transsexual-ity or other “alternative lifestyle choices.”
AB 14
The final bill, AB 14, prohibits state funding for any program that does not support a range of alternative sexual practices,
including state-funded social services run by churches. Day-cares, preschools, after-school programs, food and housing
programs, senior services, anti-gang efforts, job programs and others must all teach and accept homosexuality,
bisexuality, transsexuality and all the other sexualities.
It forces every hospital, even private and religious hospitals, to adopt policies of support for the aforementioned
sexualities and opens up non-profit organizations to lawsuits if they exclude members who engage in any such sexual
conduct.
Schwarzenegger rejected a bill to authorize same-sex marriage. Also, a year ago he vetoed bills similar to SB 777, AB
394 and AB 14, stating that existing state law already provided penalties for discrimination. Why he reversed himself
now is unclear. But the harm his decision will do is clear if the law becomes effective on January 1, 2008 and is
interpreted and implemented literally. It would turn California’s children over to those who want to indoctrinate them in
perversion in order to validate their own lifestyle choices.
Parents who can afford to pull their children from public schools and place them in private schools or homeschool them
will probably do so. Most families cannot afford to do so. They will be forced to send their children to schools that
expressly contradict their values.
Sex has no place in educational institutions. It belongs at home, where parents have a responsibility to teach their children
about it. But California politicians, intent upon using the power of law and manipulating public institutions to deny nature,
control thought, speech and action, and force their perversion on others, want sex everywhere in public schools.
The Capitol Resource Institute in California has launched a referendum campaign to overturn SB 777. The group will
need to secure 433,971 valid voter signatures within 90 days to qualify for the June 2008 ballot.
If the referendum is unsuccessful, be prepared for some momentum to spread east because California’s resources and
population make California enormously influential. Textbook publishers will take note of this new legislation and amend
their books accordingly in order to stay in business in the State. And we must be prepared for the “tolerant” left to begin
persecuting those who advocate social and cultural positions opposed to theirs. This is as gross an abuse of power as I
have ever seen.
Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation