Next Meeting

February 26; more to follow soon.

HERO OR VILLAN

Snowden has raised a world controversy over his outing or whistle blowing. The question is being asked on talk radio for opinions. The big question is does the US or any government need the voluminous or meta-data (or mega data) being collected? The data is so large that the question is how much will it cost to search the product?  Snowden claims the collection has not stopped a terrorist attack. The attached link is a partial of his interview on German TV.

The story at The Lede Blog at the New York Times

Meeting Postponed

Sorry, but tonight's meeting, January 22, 2014, is canceled. Watch for next meeting schedule.

A change of subject

Now that winter is on us, there is a chance for us to clear our minds from the political concerns to something more easy on the nerves.
There is a winter visitor to our state that is beautiful to watch. The Tundra Swan arrives here for wintering and has become an annual bird watching interest at a place called WHITESBOG. It is located off route 70 in Burlington County. The best viewing is in February or any time the old cranberry bogs are not frozen solid.
http://www.whitesbog.org/calendar-2/
The swans depart on St. Pattys Day. View before early March.

Look up the google map for directions.

After viewing you might head south to the Forsythe Sanctuary off route 9. Around this time of the year you might be treated to the snow geese.

https://www.facebook.com/ForsytheNWR

What We Have Forgotten?

The Japanese were our enemy in WWII. From their very first attack on us their rulers were guilty of collective treachery. Throughout the war the Japanese committed brutal individual and collective acts.

That does not mean that every Japanese soldier was without honor. Hiroo Onoda died today at 91. He spent 29 years hiding from Allied Forces in the Philippine jungles, and only surrendered in 1974, full of tears, when his commanding officer found him and ordered him to give himself up.

Had Mr.Onoda died during the Reagan administration, there would have been a statement of respect for a valiant enemy. Nowadays there is silence at the White House for a veteran of a close ally.

Who do you think had a better concept of honor? This enemy of ours? Or the man in the White House sworn to uphold our Constitution?

Or are the progressives in our regime just so, like, beyond honor and all that?

Common Core, Why? with comments added!

Common Core will track information of a student without a parents consent. In my opinion a student is a person. Is a person entitled to privacy?

Below are the hundreds and hundreds of data points you’ll find there; my favorites include:

 your child’s name
nickname, Why?religious affiliation, Why?
birthdate
ability grouping, Why?GPA, Why?
physical characteristics, Why?IEP, What does the government need?attendance
telephone number
bus stop times, What will this information be used for? What if you child decides to walk?
allergies
diseases
languages and dialects spoken, Is this possibly a bit prejudicial or racist?
number of attempts at a given assignment. Is this between the teacher and the parent?
delinquent status. School Administration's business between parent and child. referral date
nonschool activity involvement, School Administration's business between parent and child.
meal type
screen name, Why?maternal last name, What are they looking for?voting status, Nobody's business!martial status
– even cause of death.

How they justify tracking students even beyond academics, even beyond death, I do not know. I can foresee the Federal government adding a bureaucracy of truant officers 

Comment; The four hundred points that were collected also included MRIs and IRIS  scans<a Fla. school district already used this on their students without parental knowledge>Medical info, diseases,  Biological scans were noted in the DOE's booklet entitled "Promoting Grit Tenacity and Perseverance" and on page 44 the gov't provided pictures of the devices which included pressure mouse, padded electronic sensor chair on posture, facial recognition camera, and wrist sensor. Remember this list can be found at the National Data Collection Model from the National Center for ed Statistics - a federal agency; keep in mind that it is illegal under the GEPA law and under the Constitution, to have a federal database for innocent citizen surveillance; it is a national data base parading as 50 independent ones. The feds paid the states to create an interoperable state longitudinal data base. The Data Quality Campaign and the Common Educational Data Statistics sites also collect the info. The feds can then subpoena the testing companies to get the info - PARCC and SBAC. More importantly, Duncan had the FERPA law changed to allow 3rd party access, "educational vendors" and "educational researchers" access yo the info stored in the "cloud" - check inBloom the monopoly on the cloud computing storage! And this list is collected from PreKindergarten to the age of 20 at which point the individual is in the workforce - then its the IRS, NSA data bases...

How they twist the news.

The headline unemployment rate fell to 6.7%, the lowest level in five years. But the rate fell primarily because hundreds of thousands of people left the workforce unable to find jobs, according to figures released Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Economists had predicted 196,000 new jobs last month and that the rate would remain unchanged at 7%http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/files/2013/11/08/unemployment-rate-vs-labor-force.jpg

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows 91,521,000 people not in the work force as of November 2013, as compared to 89,221,000 in November 2012. Where did the 2,300,000 workers go? Who needs to be told they are unemployed? Watch government TV adds tell us to sign up for Obama Care.

CNN Money:

https://www.google.com/#q=http:%2F%2Fmoney.cnn.com%2F2014%2F01%2F10%2Fnews%2Feconomy%2Fdecember-jobs-report%2Findex.html

As copied from DRUDGE:

 

 

Is this the Federal over-ruling the States?

Holder’s DOJ Wants a Veto over Parents’ Choice of School

By JASON BEDRICK

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Though the U.S. Department of Justice partially backed down on its lawsuit against Louisiana’s school choice program in November, yesterday the DOJ filed its proposal to oversee the program. The program provides school vouchers to low-income families with children otherwise assigned to failing government schools. Among many proposed regulations, the DOJ wants the state of Louisiana to give the federal government the following information about each school choice applicant: 

1. Name

2. Student ID number

3. Address

4. Grade

5. Race

6. School applicant attends in current school year, if any

7. Louisiana School Performance Score (letter grade) for school in (6), above, if applicable

8. Public school district of the school in (6), if applicable

9. District public school applicant would be assigned to attend for the upcoming school year if applicant does not receive a voucher

10. Louisiana School Performance Score (letter grade) for school in (9), above

11. Student enrollment in the school in (9), above, for the current school year, by race

12. Public school district for (9), above

13. Student enrollment in the public school district in (12), above, for the current school year, by race

14. Whether applicant is attending a voucher school during the current school year, and if so, the name of the voucher school

15. The list of voucher schools, in order of stated preference, identified on the student’s application form

16. Whether the State determined that the applicant failed to meet the criteria for participation in the voucher program

17. Reason for determination that the applicant failed to meet the criteria for participation in the voucher program, if applicable

18. Reason, if any, for preference in proposed award of voucher (e.g., sibling)

19. School to which the State intends to assign the applicant through the Voucher Program (“proposed voucher school”) 

20. Student enrollment of the proposed voucher school in (19), for the current school year, by race

The state would be required to give all of this information over to the federal government at least 45 days before awarding school vouchers and the federal government would have the authority to veto the award of any voucher. Given that the vast majority of students participating in the program are African-American, the DOJ essentially seeks the power to keep low-income black kids in failing government schools.

The state of Louisiana’s counter-filing argued that the DOJ’s demands are unreasonable since the state already takes steps to ensure that there is no segregation in private schools. The state declared that it is:

willing to share relevant information in its possession on a schedule that does not disrupt the operation of the Scholarship program, the State will not agree to terms that would cede its sovereign authority over the Scholarship program or the public schools, it will not agree to permit the United States to participate in the administration of the program, and it will not agree to demands for information that the State does not have or schedule changes that would disrupt the Scholarship program.

The state’s counterfiling also noted that the DOJ fundamentally misunderstands the school choice program. In item #19 above, the DOJ assumes that the state “assigns” students to a given school. The state corrected that error:

Contrary to the repeated claim made by the United States, the State does not “assign” Scholarship students to participating private schools; rather, Scholarship awards are based on parental choice. […] 

Families choose which private school students will attend under the Scholarship program. The State’s role in the Scholarship program is limited to three functions: verifying eligibility, conducting a lottery to determine whether the student will receive an award when necessitated by excess demand, and disbursing the student’s scholarship to his or her school on a quarterly basis. The State never imposes a binding assignment and never prohibits a student from attending a school. The only authority that “assigns” a child to a school is the child’s local school district, which gives every student under its jurisdiction a publicschool assignment. Faced with a public school assignment from the school district and a scholarship award from the State, families decide where their students will attend school.

The counter-filing also took the DOJ to task for wanting to restrict parents’ choices of schools based on their race:

[The] United States apparently believes that the State should restrict the choices made by families participating in the Scholarship program based on their race and the racial composition of the schools they wish to attend…

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal responded harshly to the DOJ’s demands:

 “President Obama’s Department of Justice is continuing its attempt to red-tape and regulate the Louisiana Scholarship Program to death.  The Department’s request for a 45-day review period for every scholarship award shows the Justice Department believes bureaucrats in Washington know better than Louisiana parents. 

 

I am also shocked to learn that the Justice Department is now asking for the state to provide an analysis of the racial composition of our states private schools.  The federal government’s new request is a frightening overreach of the federal government and shows it knows no bounds.

 

President Obama’s Department of Justice has admitted it cannot prove that Louisiana school choice is violating desegregation efforts, yet it continues to seek the ability to tell a parent their child cannot escape a failing school because their child is not the ‘right’ race.

 

The Department of Justice proposal reeks of federal government intrusion and proves the people in Washington running our federal government are more interested in skin color than they are in education.”

 

IRS and tipping snatching

First we had the 'affordable care' snatching insurance coverage. Now we have the IRS monitoring tips demanded by restaurants that add mandatory tips for larger than ordinary dinner parties. Of course if a waitress or a waiter is tipped by your inclusion in the credit card payment, the tip is recorded for wages. Wages will be on the W-2 at year end. I hope the waiters and waitresses can work forty hour weeks without being yanked into Obama Care.

This seems, and should be, to be an issue for the nice people who appreciate friendly and good service. On New Year’s Eve my wife and I dined at a Gloucester County restaurant. The service was good and the meal was enjoyable. I tipped outside of the credit card. The waitress expressed her thank you. It gave me pleasure to know that her year might have ended nicely. Please pass the words, don’t tip through the credit card payment. Please reduce the paper work on the restaurant owner. If service is unworthy use your credit card, and tip accordingly.

CINDY WILLIAMS begrudges a $1350 raise; SNOPES says FALSE

The following was posted on January 5, 2014. According to research on SNOPES the purported article is FALSE.

 

 Military Pay

If you get this more than once, feel honored that you know more than one person who supports our military and appreciates what they do.

 

If you don't forward it, you don't deserve their sacrifice.

 

 

CINDY WILLIAMS was appointed by Obama as an Assistant Director for NATIONAL SECURITY in the Congressional Budget Office.....

 

This is an Airman's response to Cindy Williams' editorial piece in the Washington Times about MILITARY PAY, it should be printed in all newspapers across America .

 

Ms. Cindy William wrote a piece for the Washington Times denouncing the pay raise(s) coming service members' way this year citing that she stated a 13% wage increase was more than they deserve.

 

A young airman from Hill AFB responds to her article below. He ought to get a bonus for this.

 

"MS Williams:

I just had the pleasure of reading your column, "Our GI's earn enough”, and I am a bit confused. Frankly, I'm wondering where this vaunted overpayment is going, because as far as I can tell, it disappears every month between DFAS (The Defense Finance and Accounting Service) and my bank account. Checking my latest earnings statement I see that I make $1,117.80 before taxes per month. After taxes, I take home $874.20. When I run that through the calculator, I come up with an annual salary of $13,413.60 before taxes, and $10,490.40 after.

 

 

 

 

A1C Michael Bragg, Hill AFB AFNCC

Quote of the day by Dianne Feinstein

One  worth reading.

  Dianne Feinstein: "All vets are mentally  ill in some way and
government should prevent them from owning  firearms."
  Yep, - she really said it on Thursday in a  meeting in front of the
Senate Judiciary  Committee......
  and the quote below from the LA Times is  priceless. Sometimes even
the L.A. Times gets it  right.

  Kurt Nimmo: "Senator Feinstein insults all  U.S. Veterans as she
flays about in a vain attempt to save her  anti-firearms bill."

  Quote of the Day from the Los  Angeles Times:

  "Frankly, I don't know what it is  about California , but we seem to
have a strange urge to elect really  obnoxious women to high office.
  I'm not bragging, you  understand, but no other state, including
Maine , even comes  close.
  When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to  Washington , we're Number
One.
  There's no getting around  the fact that the last time anyone saw
the likes of Barbara Boxer,  Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy
Pelosi, they were stirring  a cauldron when the curtain went up  on
'Macbeth'.

  The four of them are like jackasses  who happen to possess the gift of
blab.
  You don't know if  you should condemn them for their stupidity or
simply marvel at their  ability to form words."

  Columnist Burt  Prelutsky,
  Los Angeles Times

  Be sure  to forward this to all of the “mentally ill” vets you  know.
=

Make 2014 our year

What does the government do well? We have programs that help the poor or financially strapped. We have controls on industry reaching from; banking, crime, food, health-care, retirement, mortgages, stocks, housing, public access, taxes and the list is never ending. Some programs and regulations work well. Some have major faults and cause cataclysmic results.

Banking protects small investors up to hundreds of thousands. This works hand and hand with the SEC. However the bank loans called mortgages became defaults and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac along with banks placed our economy at risk. The FBI ran an operation called Fast and Furious. The Federal Reserve is printing money while the Treasury issues Bonds that continually add to the National Debt. The National Debt escalates while the Senate and the President refuse to lower spending, or negotiate the Budget. The Congress dreamed up a Nationalization of health care by one party rule and put its control into the hands of the IRS and HHS. The Department of State was working behind the scenes and risked the lives of our Libyan Ambassador, from which phony stories were fed to the public. NSA supposedly is protecting our security at home while they mine and retrieve “mega-data”.

Are these bloated systems working for us?

We as Tea Party adherents protest this octopus like government get called radical and racist.

Wake up!

Write to the talking heads and the news people who are feeding the lines that government is great.

.We need to have 2014 our year.

Protest all growth of government unless it is truly necessary.