Currently viewing the tag: “Tell”
By Neal McCluskey
I probably shouldn’t do this on April Fool’s Day — it would be the one day they might go along with it, only to renounce it as a joke later — but Jay Greene’s recent exchange with the Fordham folks reminded me of my call a few weeks ago: Fordham and other national standards supporters should declare publicly and loudly that there should be no federal involvement in “common” standards or anything associated with them. If they really mean what they say — that they want adoption of national standards and curricula to be ”purely” voluntary for states — they should not only stop asking for federal involvement, they should declare any federal meddling utterly unacceptable.
Unfortunately, Jay had to repeat that call because, so far, Fordham hasn’t heeded it:
The claim that Kathleen and Fordham want no more than to nationalize standards without touching curriculum, pedagogy, or assessment is simply disingenuous. For example, Checker once again made common cause with the AFT, Linda Darling-Hammond, etc., … in backing the Shanker Manifesto, which calls for “Developing one or more sets of curriculum guides that map out the core content students need to master the new Common Core State Standards.” Checker may claim that this effort is purely voluntary, but that would only be credible if he and Fordham clearly and forcefully opposed any effort by the national government to “incentivize,” push, prod, or otherwise require the adoption of national curriculum based on the already incentivized national standards.
Come to think of it, even if it were an April Fool’s stunt, having Fordham and other national-standards crusaders renounce federal arm-twisting to get their way would be a big step forward. Heck, at least then everyone would acknowledge that it was a joke.
Postscript: It would be a joke, by the way, sort of like this, which I saw Fordham put up right after I initially submitted this post. I mean, my vocab is always certified family-friendly!
Those Fordham folks — you just never know when they’re being serious…
No Foolin’: Tell the Feds to Butt Out is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
USA Today |
Barry Bonds's Doctor Testifies Aide Didn't Tell Him Player Took Steroids
Bloomberg Home-run king Barry Bonds's orthopedic surgeon testified that he was never told by the former San Francisco Giants outfielder's assistant that his patient was taking banned anabolic steroids. … Bonds surgeon: I gave legal steroids to slugger Live chat: Lunch at the Barry Bonds perjury trial with Mark Purdy, Day 8 Bonds Trial Update: A very yawny Wednesday |
USA Today |
Ex-Auburn players tell of cash handshakes, sexual favors
USA Today This 2005 file photo shows Auburn wide receiver Stanley McClover speaking with the media after a practice for the Capital One Bowl. Four former Auburn players have told HBO that they received thousands of dollars while being … Auburn to investigate claims Ex-Westover, Auburn star Reddick: Tigers paid me Auburn players refute ex-players claims |
CBS News |
Tell us what we don't know about the Final Four
USA Today Kentucky had Adolph Rupp, Butler had Gordon Hayward who almost had the most legendary heave in tournament history, UConn had Richard Hamilton and Emeka Okafor and VCU's Shaka Smart is the youngest coach in the tournament. … Final Four: Madness continues, but Cinderella is no more Unthinkable NCAA foursome marches on Exploring VCU's unfathomable trek from the bubble to the Final Four |
Camille Paglia loved Elizabeth Taylor's body:
To me, Elizabeth Taylor's importance as an actress was that she represented a kind of womanliness that is now completely impossible to find on the U.S. or U.K. screen. It was rooted in hormonal reality — the vitality of nature. She was single-handedly a living rebuke to postmodernism and post-structuralism, which maintain that gender is merely a social construct. Let me give you an example. Lisa Cholodenko's "The Kids Are All Right" is a truly wonderful film, but Julianne Moore and Annette Bening — who is fabulous in it and should have won the Oscar for her portrayal of a prototypical contemporary American career woman — were painfully scrawny to look at on the screen. This is the standard starvation look that is now projected by Hollywood women stars — a skeletal, Pilates-honed, anorexic silhouette, which has nothing to do with females as most of the world understands them. There's something almost android about the depictions of women currently being projected by Hollywood.
Kevin Sessums procured the following tidbit out of her about James Dean, which Kevin didn't publish at the time:
"I loved Jimmy. I'm going to tell you something, but it's off the record until I die. OK? When Jimmy was 11 and his mother passed away, he began to be molested by his minister. I think that haunted him the rest of his life. In fact, I know it did. We talked about it a lot. During Giant we'd stay up nights and talk and talk, and that was one of the things he confessed to me."
Another tortured soul with whom she worked was Montgomery Clift. There was a quality to her AIDS activism that was not only warrior-like but also maternal, and I confessed to her myself that afternoon that it was as if she were turning to all of us who were HIV positive and saying, as she did to Clift, in A Place in the Sun, in the cinema's most famous closeup, "Tell Mama…"
She touched my hand and stopped me. She leaned forward. "Tell Mama all…" she finished the line for me with the most fervent of whispers.
(Photo: Flowers are placed on actress Elizabeth Taylor's Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on March 23, 2011 in Hollywood, California. By Michael Buckner/Getty Images.)
◼ UPDATED – Beck: “Clear case of economic terrorism” – glennbeck.com
◼ CAUGHT ON TAPE: Former SEIU Official Reveals Secret Plan To Destroy JP Morgan, Crash The Stock Market, And Redistribute Wealth In America – Business Insider
And after you listen to tape – think about what you have heard in the wake of Wisconsin’s battle – who did you hear saying the very words you just heard this man explain was part of the plan? “We are not broke.” Who said it? Put your answers in the comments.
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Next Wednesday, March 29, you can take action to strengthen Social Security by calling your U.S. Senators and urging them to support the Social Security Protection Amendment.
The amendment is part of a small business bill (S. 493) and it’s language is straightforward. It says:
Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiaries should not be cut and Social Security should not be privatized as part of any legislation to reduce the Federal deficit.
Congressional Republicans led by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) are demanding Social Security cuts as part of any deficit reduction legislation, even though Social Security has not contributed a penny to the deficit and has a $ 2.6 trillion surplus today.
Nearly two-thirds of older Americans who receive Social Security count on it for more than half of their income. Click here for more facts on Social Security.
Mark March 29 on your calendar and click here and our friends at the coalition Strengthen Social Security—Don’t Cut It—will send you a reminder to make the call.
USA Today |
NFL Owners Tell Court They Oppose Player Bid to Halt Lockout
BusinessWeek March 21 (Bloomberg) — National Football League owners told a US judge they oppose a bid by 10 NFL players who want an order blocking their lockout while the parties battle over a new collective bargaining agreement. … NFL, Roger Goodell the face of calm as owners meetings come to close Don't expect a speedy resolution to NFL's labor woes Eye-opener: How do you feel about the NFL's new kickoff rules? |
And so Mike Huckabee, who two weeks ago jettisoned his status as Republican conservative who could be supported by many independent voters when he dove into being a birther (and later tried to partially walk the comments back) has now come full circle: he is now just one more Republican pandering to the party’s right wing. Who ever thought you’d see the day when Mike Huckabee would say that if he was President he might re-instate “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?”
Apparently Mike Huckabee – if it’ll sell his books and win him votes:
Former Arkansas governor and Fox News host Mike Huckabee said Tuesday he would support re-imposing the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military if elected president.
“I would — because that’s really what the military wants,” Huckabee told OneNewsNow. “There’s been some talk that the military is fine with having same-sex orientation people. But if you really surveyed the combat troops, that is not at all the case.”
“I don’t think that these are decisions that politicians should make,” the potential Republican 2012 presidential candidate added. “These are decisions that soldiers should make. And when the soldiers in the foxholes make the decisions, they choose something different — and we should listen to them.”
A 267-page Department of Defense report [PDF] published in November 2010 concluded that “the risk of repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to overall military effectiveness is low” but added that the implementation of the repeal could “bring about some limited and isolated disruption to unit cohesion and retention.”
The report found that 70 percent of troops surveyed said having a gay or lesbian member in their unit would have positive, mixed or no effect on the unit’s ability to “work together to get the job done.”
The report also found that 69% of troops surveyed believed they had worked in a unit with someone who was homosexual and 92% of those who believed they worked in a unit with someone who was homosexual rated the ability of unit to work together as very good, good or neither good nor poor.
Clearly, the GOP is now in a quadry. Just as Barack Obama risks falling into an international quagmire in Libya, the GOP could find itself knee-deep in one politically in 2012.
It is evident that many Americans are disappointed in either some of Barack Obama’s policies (going too far, going not far enough) or his style (not quite the JFK or FDR redux that they hoped) or how the economy has performed on his watch. Yet, it will most assuredly spawn a host of anti-GOP candidate votes if its candidates are running around America asking to re-instate “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” in effect trying to rip the bandage off one of America’s raw political wounds to revive the wedge issue of gays in the military.
It’s likely that there’s little left that many independents will say to Huckabee except: “Enjoy your tea, dude, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever enjoy it sitting in the oval office. And you may gain some readers of your books but you’ll lose some others. But you’ll still make a lot of money and get good ratings..”
The petition demanding that Apple remove Exodus International’s “ex-gay” app now has over 135,000 signatures. Watch the below video in which Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out blows the lid off the lies and hate group affiliations of Exodus.
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The petition demanding that Apple remove Exodus International’s “ex-gay” app now has over 135,000 signatures. Watch the below video in which Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out blows the lid off the lies and hate group affiliations of Exodus.
Subscribe to Joe.My.God.![]()
The petition demanding that Apple remove Exodus International’s “ex-gay” app now has over 135,000 signatures. Watch the below video in which Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out blows the lid off the lies and hate group affiliations of Exodus.
Subscribe to Joe.My.God.![]()
Washington (CNN) – The story of the Libyan intervention may pain some of the most ardent believers in the proposition that it is America’s role to take the lead, all of the time, everywhere.
But when the French and the British began the first sorties into Libyan airspace, it made an awful lot of sense: It’s their neighborhood after all. And when the Arab League decided to support some kind of allied intervention, it seemed a powerful consensus was developing.
Ty Myers, owner of Fenix Tattoo, has a message for Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn.
The 7×15 foot sign hanging outside his Pioneer Square shop reads: “Parking $ 3.50, Small business $ 0, (Expletive) you Mayor McGinn.”
The mayor has changed parking rates and times on local businesses in Pioneer Square (Seattle), and one owner in particular told them how he really feels. This is, of course, against the sign laws, but I don’t think he cares.
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Tens of thousands of working people under attack from Republican governors in 12 states received some high-level support and encouragement today. In a virtual town hall meeting this evening, Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told the workers the Obama administration will stand with them and will stay with them to make sure their rights are protected.
Joined by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in the call, the Vice President opened with a quote from President Obama saying that “We can’t have a strong middle class without unions.” Then Vice President Biden added:
You built the middle class. This fight is not about wages or benefits; it’s about trying to break unions. We absolutely, positively need collective bargaining.
Solis also said our leaders should be focused on creating good jobs and helping working families get back to work.
That’s important to remember now that as states and cities grapple with enormous fiscal challenges and everyone we know is making sacrifices and meeting those challenges. But some states’ leaders have gone too far. Budget sacrifices are one thing, but having union members give up their rights is another.
As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said:
I truly believe this moment will be what we make of it. The teachers and firefighters and nurses and EMTs and snowplow drivers on the ground in a dozen states have provided the inspiration and shown us the way. Now we need to carry it forward – the attacks on workers’ rights are huge, but the courage and activism we’re seeing are even bigger. Together we can build a movement for real change.
Trumka urged all the listeners to take the next step toward building that movement by talking with their friends and co-workers about what’s at stake. And he invited them to join thousands of people across the country on and around April 4 for a time of solidarity and action to say, “We Are One, Respect Our Rights.” (If you’re planning an event, whether public or private, click here and post it at our We Are One site.) Find out more about April 4 here.
The virtual town hall was sponsored by the unions of the AFL-CIO, SEIU, the National Education Association (NEA), Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the Teamsters.
While the workers on the town hall phone call live in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Florida, Missouri, New Hampshire, Maine, Minnesota, Iowa and New Jersey, the attacks on workers are nationwide. Across the country, Republican governors and state legislators have proposed a variety of anti-worker measures that would cut bargaining rights, end prevailing wages, enact so-called right to work laws and a host of other measures.
