Remember, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, together with Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are committed to seeing Common Core education standards strictly enforced. They will be running campaign attack ads against anyone who opposes “Common Core”.
Throughout history the number one justification used to begin a geographic campaign for territory is the claim to protect a minority within the land mass you seek.
(Via Reuters) Russia signaled concern on Wednesday at Estonia’s treatment of its large ethnic Russian minority, comparing language policy in the Baltic state with what it said was a call in Ukraine to prevent the use of Russian.
Russia has defended its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula by arguing it has the right to protect Russian-speakers outside its borders, so the reference to linguistic tensions in another former Soviet republic comes at a highly sensitive moment.
Russia fully supported the protection of the rights of linguistic minorities, a Moscow diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, according to a summary of the session issued by the U.N.’s information department. (more…)
Nothing empowers aggressive action like telling the bully you’ll do nothing to stop him.WASHINGTON – The White House said Wednesday that President Obama is not actively considering military force as an option in the crisis in Ukraine.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said military action is “certainly not at the forefront of discussions” among the president and his top advisers, saying that Mr. Obama is looking instead at imposing further economic sanctions against Russian leaders for the takeover of Crimea. “You can expect further costs to be imposed on Russia,” Mr. Carney said. (link)
Trying to stop the publicity of this is why Obama DID THIS. He’s trying to buy time by saying the feds will ramp up payments to insurance carriers – so please don’t tell people their rates are going up. WASHINGTON DC – Health industry officials say ObamaCare-related premiums will double in some parts of the country, countering claims recently made by the administration.
The expected rate hikes will be announced in the coming months amid an intense election year, when control of the Senate is up for grabs. The sticker shock would likely bolster the GOP’s prospects in November and hamper ObamaCare insurance enrollment efforts in 2015.
The industry complaints come less than a week after Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sought to downplay concerns about rising premiums in the healthcare sector. She told lawmakers rates would increase in 2015 but grow more slowly than in the past. (more…)
In essence the analysis points to this:
The United States knows by now [Boeing – Aircraft Health Monitoring System – AHMS], and can more-likely prove, by now [Satellite Optical Locating], where the physical location of the flagged Malaysian airliner is. That’s not really the big issue.
The bigger issue shifts, “what now”?
Think about it. If you are a state government, and this plane is physically located in your nation, and your ambassador has been called to an office within the U.S. security apparatus, and you’ve been told (perhaps shown) the evidence that this plane is sitting in your country, what are you going to do ?
It’s not an issue as long as no-one knows where it is. But once discovered…. No-one, *NO-ONE*, wants to be the nation of location.
Regardless of your nation’s political ideology – the outcome of your nation attached to this plane’s disappearance on day #12 is disconcerting in infinite magnitudes. It matters not whether or not your central governing body had anything to do with it – we’re beyond the point where that would make a difference. (more…)
Our working theory is essentially HERE. While it represents a rough outline to explain the Malaysian Government reaction – it’s supported by more recent confirmations including: the passports of the two Iranian Nationals were used the year before to obtain Chinese entry visa’s in June of 2013. In addition, a commercial flight fitting the profile of a Boeing 777 was potentially spotted flying through the Southern Maldives; just south of heavy shipping lanes which one would seek to avoid if flying dark.
Regardless of whether the Northern Route (through Western China/Himalayas) or Southern Route (around India – Maldives report) was taken, the destination becomes the real question.
Detection, or more aptly the ability to escape detection, is really a no-brainer. No-one who actually has experience in intelligence or military disputes the ability to fly undetected into an autonomous region – “if you know what you are doing”. The U.S. Military does it all the time with surveillance flights and drones.
If the theory of Islamists taking the flight is maintained – the supporting state/nation then becomes the larger issue. Iran or Pakistan ? Both are within flight distance, and both have ideological elements within them which would support such an agenda.
So lets look at what Retired General McInerney has to say: (more…)
KANSAS CITY – Kansas City Zoo goers described Tuesday afternoon running for their lives after hundreds of teens were involved in fights inside the zoo and shots were fired in a zoo parking lot. “It was very scary,” Liberty resident Jaimi Heckadon said. “All hell broke loose.”
As she and her group bolted for the exit, Heckadon said she heard people screaming about officers using pepper spray. “The problem was these teenagers. None of them were escorted by an adult,” she said.
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(more…)
The only thing the aggrieved New York Minorities have to do to get a windfall of money is show that they took the FDNY service exam. Hizzoner claims it was racist to make firefighter applicants take a written test, since Blacks and Hispanics do not perform as well as whites and Asians on academic tests. Ergo competency tests present a “disparate impact”.
DeBlasio is taking $98 million of taxpayer funds and redistributing it to blacks and Hispanics as “back pay” for work they never did, for a job they were never qualified for. While simultaneously announcing that he is creating new positions in the FDNY that will solely exist to ensure that blacks and Hispanics do not have to pass the same intelligence and competency exams as Whites and non-minorities.
NEW YORK – The de Blasio Administration today announced an agreement to settle the 2007 Vulcan Society’s lawsuit against the City of New York over two civil service exams found to be discriminatory against African American and Hispanic applicants.
The City has agreed to pay approximately $98 million in back pay and benefits to African American and Hispanic firefighter applicants who took two civil service exams in 1999 and 2002, and will implement additional reforms in the FDNY’s recruiting policies in an effort to further diversify the ranks of the organization to make them more representative of the city’s population. (more…)
WASHINGTON DC – It’s Sunshine Week, so perhaps some enterprising White House reporter will ask press secretary Jay Carney why President Obama rewrote the Freedom of Information Act without telling the rest of America.
The rewrite came in an April 15, 2009, memo from then-White House Counsel Greg Craig instructing the executive branch to let White House officials review any documents sought by FOIA requestors that involved “White House equities.”
That phrase is nowhere to be found in the FOIA, yet the Obama White House effectively amended the law to create a new exception to justify keeping public documents locked away from the public. (more…)
(Via Front Page Mag) When the left finally cracks up, the few survivors will have a really good laugh.
According to a Facebook post, Somali staffers that work at Minneapolis City Hall declared February 28 “Hijab Day” at City Hall and convinced the police chief and female city council reps to wear hijabs on the job.
Pictures include: Minneapolis police chief Janee Harteau (who recently married her favorite female sergeant – not very hijab like), city council members Elizabeth Glidden and Lisa Bender as well as other staffers. (more…)