Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.

'In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.'
Theodore Roosevelt 1907

An Obama classmate speaks out

Yes, Wayne Allyn Root’s statement below has been “Correctly Attributed.”

The link to Snopes.com is at the end of his statement.

If Obama is re-elected in 2012, the US is finished.

The following is in simple language that everyone can understand.

Not the gibberish that our government keeps telling people.

Please read this carefully and make sure you keep this message going.

This needs to be emailed to everyone in the USA ...

By Wayne Allyn Root

Barack Hussein Obama is no fool.  He is not incompetent.

To the contrary, he is brilliant.  He knows exactly what he’s doing.

He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. Economy to create systemic
failure, economic crisis and social chaos – thereby destroying
capitalism and our country from within.

He is a devout Muslim; do not be fooled. Look at
his Czars.... Anti-business…anti-American.

As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Barack Hussien Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University ... They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands.

Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming.  Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival... And can be counted on to always vote for even bigger government.

Why not?  They have no responsibility to pay for it.

Universal health care!

The health care bill had very little to do with health care.

It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health
care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will
join government employee unions).

Obama doesn’t care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt.

What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government.

Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression?

Cap and trade!

Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and
trade has nothing to do with global warming.  It has everything to do with
redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal
payoff to Obama’s biggest contributors.

Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants. They will kick-back hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power.

The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses helps Obama “spread the wealth around.”

Make Puerto Rico a state.  Why?

Who’s asking for a 51st state?  Who’s asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression?

Certainly not American taxpayers!  But this has been Barack Hussien Obama’s plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressmen and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.

(This will tip the balance of those living off the government to
more than those who must pay for it; and we’re done for)

Legalize 12 million illegal Mexican immigrants.

Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care
alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America .

But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can
be counted on to support big government.

Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps,
free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security...

(see note above re:  Puerto Rico)

Stimulus and bailouts.  Where did all that money go?

It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country.

It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues.

It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions)..

A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues).

All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America ...

The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama,
the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful.

The ends justify the means.

Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators.  Put
the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income,
punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama).

Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government.

Barack Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition.

With the acts outlined above, Barack Hussein Obama and his regime have created a vast and
rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class
of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system.

Add it up and you’ve got the perfect Marxist scheme – all devised by my Columbia
University college classmate Barack Hussein Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan...

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/overwhelm.asp

May Trayvon Martin Rest in Peace. 

Meanwhile, I was hoping that we would get some peace long before the passage of the last month.
But, just as I was being provoked into expressing my opinion on that tragedy, here comes the excellent commentary by Shelby Steele, published in the WSJ Thursday, April 5, 2012, pA15, entitled: "The Exploitation of Trayvon Martin". 
And for those who may vehemently disagree with Mr. Steele, I am reminded of the exclamation by Jack Nicholson's movie character:

"You want the truth?  You can't take the truth!"

ANOTHER EDITION OF "AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY OPINIONS".

• AFGHANISTAN AND THE OTHER  "-STANS".  Yes, America does need a continuing presence in that region, based upon the established principle of "pre-emptive self-defense".  Anyone who questions that should re-visit the World Trade Center site...which can happen again.  But we don't need our regular forces to stand around there with targets on their backs.  We lost the opportunity to really make an impression there when we declined to destroy the entire opium crop and replace it with an actual cash crop for the peasants - and not for the arms dealers.  Just use Special Forces and drones as needed - and To Hell with the objections from both "allies" and enemies. 
• RUSSIA.  A lost cause for ever being an ally - for a generation at least.  Treat it that way.
• CHINA.  More pragmatic.  Treat it that way: never accept a "quid" without a "quo".
• INDIA.and most of the other nations of the Far East, despite their Muslim leanings...are actual or potential allies in stabilizing that region, a prime goal of those nations. 
• JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA.  Invaluable, present and future.  Let's deal with them in that way. 
• IRAN.  Should we risk another World War over their ability to "build the  Bomb"...rather than their clear ability  simply to buy one from the likes of Professor Khan?  I think not. 
• THE OTHER NATIONS OF THE MID-EAST: a boiling cauldron of centuries-long religious and ethnic rivalries that can be addressed only by themselves.  Only Moderate Muslims can bring the fundamentalist Muslim crazies to heel...for their own primary good. 
• ISRAEL.  I have said this many times before: "He who seeks equity must do equity",  And they have not done "equity" for decades.  We in America should stop signing blank checks payable to whatever increasingly theocratic government is in power. 
• EUROPE.  Now "therein hangs a tale"...that can wag our dog.  The Western  "Powers" there are rapidly getting to the point of need another "Marshall Plan"...but this time one of tough love.  We cannot afford to continue to be enablers for their broken experiments with Socialism, with Islam and with the denigration of Christianity. 
• THE U.N.  "Expletive Deleted".
• GREAT BRITAIN AND THE COMMONWEALTH NATIONS.  Common interests...and in this case good friends also. 
• POLITICS IN AMERICA NOW.  Seriously and dangerously divided.  The vast majority of moderate Americans are being drawn and quartered by the extremes on the Left and on the Right.  The only non-negotiable on the Right must be regarding the abomination of Abortion.  The only non-negotiable on the Left must be a fair and manageable "safety-net" for the truly and deserving under-served - and only for as long as they need it despite their best efforts.  For all the rest of the "leaders" and demagogic wannabees who espouse impossible and stupid positions...throw the bums out!!
• THE "CULTURE WARS".  Unfortunately not a figment of fevered imaginations.  Natural Law vs. Positivist - Secularism...which has become a religion in itself for its practitioners.  It need not be this way.  This is a land of Freedom.  We can all "live and let live", even zapping by all the crap on TV and in the other media, so long as one side does not try to impose its will on the other.  And here we must understand one thing: this country has never been in danger of a totalitarianism from the Right.  That real danger comes from the Left. 

New London's budget is destined to go to voters

By David Collins

Publication: The Day

REGARDING "SAME-SEX MARRIAGE"

The following is the most clear and concise statement against "same-sex marriage" that I have seen to date. 
In fact, although the practice of Marriage Annulment in the Catholic Church has received a deserved poor reputation as the result of  modifications to relevant criteria in recent decades, one point is crystal - clear and represents a "failure of Consideration" in the formation of the Marriage Contract: if either or both of the parties to the Contract have no intention to beget and raise a child or children, the Contract fails for lack of Consideration and thus never existed in the first place. 

So, where do I stand on this subject?

• "Same-Sex Marriage"........NO.
• "CIVIL UNION"................... YES.
• HOMOSEXUALITY.............. A BIOLOGIC VARIANT AND NOT A LIFE-STYLE CHOICE. 
• CHILD ADOPTION BY A LOVING, COMMITTED, MONOGAMOUS, STABLE SAME-SEX COUPLE............YES.

State Sen. Stillman defends revisions in education reform package

By JC Reindl

Publication: The Day

Hartford - Democratic Sen. Andrea Stillman of Waterford spent her Sunday evening last week on the top floor of the Capitol office building, crafting what arguably has become the biggest setback to date for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's legislative agenda.

Joining her at the conference table were bill-writing lawyers and Stillman's fellow Education Committee co-chairman, Rep. Andrew Fleischmann, D-West Hartford.

If they cared to sleep that night before their morning committee meeting and vote, the veteran lawmakers had only a few hours to decide what to do about the controversial parts of Senate Bill 24 - the governor's 163-page education reform package.

Negotiations earlier that weekend between the Malloy administration and the two state teachers' unions failed to produce any grand compromise. That left the hard decisions to them.

By night's end, the pair had finished a dramatic rewrite to Malloy's bill that has since drawn praise from the teachers' unions for fairness and criticism from reform activists and school administrators' groups, who dismiss the revised bill as "watered down" legislation that better serves union members than schoolchildren.

Governor: 'A work in progress'

The Education Committee passed the new Senate Bill 24 on a 28-5 vote Monday. But as Malloy soon emphasized, the language in the bill isn't final and likely will change again in the legislative process.

The bill has until 12:01 a.m. on May 10 to be voted on by the full House and Senate. And Malloy indicated Friday that he won't sign the bill if it lacks what he considers to be real reforms to the teacher tenure system in public schools.

"This is a work in progress," the governor said last week. "I never served in the legislature, but I did make sausage for a summer job, and it's a bit like that."

Yet for the moment, the most anticipated state education bill in decades stands as what emerged from Stillman's committee.

A coalition of five education groups and the Connecticut Business and Industry Association issued a joint statement last week criticizing the revised bill. The coalition includes principals, superintendents and charter school activists who say they wrongly were left out of the process.

"The new version of S.B. 24 fails to move forward with several of the bold proposals Governor Malloy put forth, and it signals a lack of urgency to fix the fundamental issues that plague Connecticut's public school system," their statement read. "The result is a bill that reflects compromises that appear to be brought on by pressure from the teacher unions."

In an interview, Stillman denied the coalition's claim - echoed by Republican leaders and numerous editorial and blog writers - that she and Fleischmann "capitulated" to the powerful teachers' unions in the final hours.

"I don't think that was it at all," said the state senator, whose district includes New London, East Lyme, Montville, Old Lyme, Old Saybrook, Salem and Waterford. "I'd like to set the record straight."

A 'facilitating' role

For Stillman, the decision to scale back the governor's most ambitious proposals was born from numerous conversations with teachers and from reading their emails and hand-written letters.

"Who better to give you advice on how to run a classroom than those people who are in it?" she said.

She heard from teachers at group meetings about the bill, during and after public hearings, and some teachers even approached her in the aisles of Stop & Shop and the Waterford CVS to share their thoughts. Stillman said these teachers care deeply about quality schools and closing the achievement gap, but many felt parts of the original bill were misguided and might not work.

"I was hearing from people who are in the classroom doing the work, who are trying to handle children who come from dysfunctional homes, and disruptive children, and children who are mainstreamed into schools, and children who want to learn but can't because the teacher can't attend to everybody's need at once," Stillman said.

Some of these teachers feared losing their jobs or income if they scored a low mark one year on the new evaluations. There were other concerns as well. "I couldn't believe how many teachers spoke about the fact that principals are not always being honest in their evaluations," Stillman said.

"I think it's the most difficult job to be a teacher and manage all those young minds - especially in the public schools," the senator said. "And it's very different in charter schools - many of them - because many of them cherry-pick the kids they take."

But the Stillman-Fleischmann capitulation theory gathered force amid reports that the co-chairmen participated in lengthy closed-door meetings last weekend with the state teachers' unions - the Connecticut Education Association and AFT Connecticut.

Stillman confirmed that those meetings with union leaders occurred March 24 at an office building near the Capitol. But she maintains that she and Fleischmann generally had a "facilitating" role in eleventh-hour negotiations between Malloy administration officials and the unions regarding the two most controversial parts of the proposal: a teacher tenure overhaul and a new turnaround program for low-performing schools.

"We were just sitting there, taking notes, sharing copies of things and listening in," Stillman said.

The negotiations between the two parties ended at 1:30 a.m. without a deal, leaving Stillman and Fleischmann to reconvene that Sunday night to rewrite the bill.

"We sat down and filled in the blanks," Stillman recalled. There was no one present at that point from administration or union ranks, she said.

Up in their conference room, the committee leaders discarded Malloy's proposal for an immediate overhaul to the teacher tenure system that would have linked certification and salary guidelines to a new evaluation system.

Tenure reform

The full details of the evaluation system are still being finished by a council of teachers, principals and school board members. But the council agreed this winter to a framework that's 45 percent tied to student "learning indicators," with one-half of that based on standardized tests.

Another 40 percent is based on observations of teacher performance; 10 percent comes from peer or parent surveys, and 5 percent on student feedback or "whole-school" learning indicators.

Teachers currently gain tenure after working four years in the same district. Once tenured, they only can be dismissed for one of six reasons, including "inefficiency or incompetence."

Malloy's proposal called for a new, four-level performance scale that would make it easier to fire dismal teachers who are just coasting above incompetency. It required teachers to achieve two top ratings in three years, or a combination of three top or third-level ratings in five years.

Tenured teachers would then receive regular evaluations and could be dismissed for just one low rating or two second-level ratings in two consecutive years.

Stillman recalled her reluctance to proceed with Malloy's plan to link teacher tenure and certification to the new evaluations because the evaluation system has not yet been tried, and isn't even scheduled to be finished until late June.

"Just because a teacher might have a bad evaluation in one school, doesn't mean they should lose their license to teach," Stillman said, adding that she heard many stories of teachers who went on to great success after switching districts.

Calls were made that Sunday night, March 25, to Democratic leaders in the legislature, and Stillman and Fleischmann ultimately opted to "decouple" tenure from performance evaluations and instead have Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor head up a study about linking the new evaluations to teachers' employment status. The study must be completed by January.

"Our respective leadership in the House and the Senate suggested we just put in that we're going to study it," Stillman said. "So we thought, right now, that is the best way to write the bill." If the commissioner's study comes back positive, the legislature would have the option to act on it next year, she said.

They also significantly scaled back the proposed "Commissioner's Network" turnaround program that would have given Commissioner Pryor broad authority to reorganize 25 low-performing schools in the state.

Teachers unions feared that the program, as first proposed, would allow Pryor to break collective-bargaining contracts and could clear the way for management companies to swoop in and force teachers at those schools to reapply for their jobs.

The Stillman-Fleischmann rewrite delayed implementation of the Commissioner's Network by ordering another study. But the version of the bill that passed their committee included a last-minute amendment that allows Pryor to proceed this fall with 10 network schools, although without the authority to act unilaterally and compromise union contracts.

"That was perhaps the most interesting thing," Malloy said the day after the vote. "They apparently bought into the idea that there should be no Commissioner's Network. And then they understood that you can't go back to the people of Connecticut and say that we're going to tolerate the lowest performing schools years after year after year, so then they said 'do something about 10 of them,' but then they didn't give the tools that we need to do something about the 10 of them."

The Commissioner's Network suffered another blow Thursday when the Appropriations Committee revised Malloy's budget proposal by cutting the program's funding to $10.8 million from $22.9 million.

"That is a problem," Mark Ojakian, the governor's chief of staff, said Friday. "They clearly have made a statement as to where their funding priorities are."

Stillman said she believes her committee passed a good bill, yet she agrees with the governor that it likely will change between now and May. She noted how her committee doubled to 1,000 the new number of early childhood education slots in needy districts, and sped up the termination process for bad teachers from a maximum 155 days down to 115 days.

She acknowledged the bill contains less funding for alternative schools than first proposed, but still increases the state per-student funding levels. Some of that charter schools money was redirected to early education, she said.

Despite her role in diluting the governor's reform plan, Stillman said she and Malloy remain on good terms. They recently saw one another in the Capitol complex cafeteria. "We were very cordial with each other. He didn't show any animosity or anything, but he said 'we'll get it done.'"