Union president's aggressive rant on Common Core

http://www.myfoxny.com/story/2623680...on-common-core

Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, represents all 75,000 public school teachers in New York City. He made some pretty aggressive threats saying, he would punch people in the face and push them in the dirt if they were against Common Core.

"If someone takes something from me, I'm going to grab it right back out of their cold, twisted, sick hands and say it is mine," he said.

continued...

Just like toilets and light bulbs, if the FedCoats can ban and regulate school bake sales, there is nothing that they cannot ban or regulate. Not a good day in the Soyuz, if something is not being banned.

Put Down the Cupcake: New Ban Hits School Bake Sales
At Chapman School in Nebraska, resourceful students hawk pizza and cookie dough to raise money for school supplies, field trips and an eighth-grade excursion to Washington. They peddle chocolate bars to help fund the yearbook.

But the sales won't be so sweet starting this fall. Campus bake sales—a mainstay of school fundraisers—are going on a diet. A federal law that aims to curb childhood obesity means that, in dozens of states, bake sales must adhere to nutrition requirements that could replace cupcakes and brownies with fruit cups and granola bars.

Jeff Ellsworth, principal of the kindergarten through eighth-grade school in Chapman, Neb., isn't quite sure how to break the news to the kids. "The chocolate bars are a big seller," said Mr. Ellsworth.

<snip>

The restrictions that took effect in July stem from the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by first lady Michelle Obama and her "Let's Move!" campaign. The law overhauled nutrition standards affecting more than 30 million children. Among the changes: fatty french fries were out, while baked sweet potato fries were deemed to be fine.

Full story: http://online.wsj.com/articles/schoo...ightTopStories

Yeah yeah yeah, I know...still.

26 July 2014 -- Economic inequality in the United States has been receiving a lot of attention. But it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too.

The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. Those are the figures for a household at the median point in the wealth distribution — the level at which there are an equal number of households whose worth is higher and lower. But during the same period, the net worth of wealthy households increased substantially.

The Russell Sage study also examined net worth at the 95th percentile. (For households at that level, 95 percent of the population had less wealth.) It found that for this well-do-do slice of the population, household net worth increased 14 percent over the same 10 years. Other research, by economists like Edward Wolff at New York University, has shown even greater gains in wealth for the richest 1 percent of households.

For households at the median level of net worth, much of the damage has occurred since the start of the last recession in 2007....

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/bu...less.html?_r=1

SOMERSET, Ky. (AP) — Somerset's city hall ventured into the retail gas business Saturday, opening a municipal-run filling station that supporters call a benefit for motorists and critics denounce as a taxpayer-supported swipe at the free market.

The Somerset Fuel Center opened to the public selling regular unleaded gas for $3.36 a gallon, a bit lower than some nearby competitors. In the first three hours, about 75 customers fueled up at the no-frills stations, where there are no snacks, no repairs and only regular unleaded gas.

The mayor says the station was created in response to years of grumbling by townspeople about stubbornly high gas prices in Somerset, a city of about 11,000 near Lake Cumberland, a popular fishing and boating haven.

The venture got a thumbs-up from customers who let their vehicles reach near-empty in anticipation of the city-run station's opening.

"I'm tickled to death that they're trying to do something," Ed Bullock said as he filled up his car. "I'm glad they made the investment."

The venture unnerved local filling station and convenience store operators suddenly competing with the city in this Republican stronghold. Critics said the government has no business imposing itself into the private sector, and one store owner branded it as socialism.

Continued: http://news.yahoo.com/kentucky-town-...150442278.html

Pot may be legal, but homeowner agreements can ban

By KRISTEN WYATT, Associated Press | July 25, 2014 | Updated: July 25, 2014 2:15am

http://www.chron.com/news/us/article...an-5645965.php

DENVER (AP) — Pot may be legal in some states — but the neighbors don't have to like it.

Marijuana and hemp have joined wacky paint colors and unsightly fences as common neighborhood disputes facing homeowners' associations. Though a few HOAs have willingly changed their rules to accommodate for legal marijuana use or home-growing, many more are banning home pot smoking.

Homeowners' associations can't ban members from using marijuana in their homes when it's legal. But if neighbors can see or smell weed, the law is clear — HOAs have every right to regulate the drug as a nuisance, or a threat to children along the lines of a swimming pool with no fence.

"The fact that people may be legally entitled to smoke doesn't mean they can do it wherever they want, any more than they could walk into a restaurant and light up a cigarette," ....

Continued: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article...an-5645965.php

Great read from Eric Peters.

Clover’s Grampa
by eric • July 23, 2014 •

http://ericpetersautos.com/2014/07/23/positive-law/

It’s easy to get hung up on what’s legal vs. illegal.

Clovers are completely hung up on it.

And this may be – probably is – calculated, deliberate. The desired object. A very clever trick, to keep the minds of people occupied on the irrelevant and the pointless. Kind of like the false choice presented by the duopoly – Democrat vs. Republican. Heads or tails, left or right – the same side wins, regardless.

The government side.

The people going at one another on either side of this false divide get nowhere because they’re arguing about non-essentials. What government will do. Not whether government ought to be doing it.

Continued....

The Leader of the Unfree World

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...ors_picks=true



<snip>

That graph is from a recent report by Prison Policy Initiative, an invaluable resource on mass incarceration. (PPI also has a disturbing graph comparing state incarceration rates with those of other countries around the world, which I highly recommend looking at here.) "Although our level of crime is comparable to those of other stable, internally secure, industrialized nations," the report says, "the United States has an incarceration rate far higher than any other country."

Some individual states like Louisiana contribute disproportionately, but no state is free from mass incarceration. Disturbingly, many states' prison populations outrank even those of dictatorships and illiberal democracies around the world. New York jails more people per capita than Rwanda, where tens of thousands await trial for their roles in the 1994 genocide. California, Illinois, and Ohio each have a higher incarceration rate than Cuba and Russia. Even Maine and Vermont imprison a greater share of people than Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, or Egypt.

Legal Defense Fund Information:

h/t to KC Indy.



Free Shaneen Allen!

William Norman Grigg

https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog...shannen-allen/

Philadelphia resident Shaneen Allen is a 27-year-old single mother who works two jobs to provide for her two children. Acting on the wise advice of a relative she bought a gun, took a gun safety course, and obtained official permission to exercise her innate right to self-defense. However, she made the mistake of crossing from Pennsylvania into a different tax jurisdiction called New Jersey, which is ruled by a different criminal clique through a different set of arbitrary edicts.

After being stopped by a costumed revenue farmer for violating one of New Jersey’s manifold official restrictions on the right to travel, Shaneen made the tragic mistake of being entirely candid when asked if she had any weapons in her possession. As a result she has been charged with the second-degree felony of “unlawful possession” of the means of self-defense. She faces the prospect of three years in a cage and the loss of her children.

The officer who abducted Shaneen actually admitted that she was being punished for her honesty. The same admission was made by the judge at her arraignment. Despite the fact that Shaneen has no criminal record, and clearly displayed no criminal intent, Atlantic County Prosecutor Jim McClain is refusing to offer her entry into a diversionary program that would allow her to avoid prison.

“When law and morality contradict each other,” wrote Frederic Bastiat, “the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.” Shaneen Allen has never broken the law in any sense; the edict that she ignorantly violated has no moral validity. Her case offers infuriating, albeit redundant, proof of the maxim that the only thing governments “make” are criminals out of innocent people, and corpses out of living human beings.

Becky Aker - “Det. Sgt. Patrick Ryder, head of the Nassau [County, New York State] police asset forfeiture and intelligence section, which ended 2013 with $28 million in forfeiture funds, the highest of any agency outside New York City” dismisses his department’s legalized theft by sneering, “”These are ill-gotten gains … The objective of what we do is to remove the profit from the crime. I’m your modern-day Robin Hood. I steal from the rich, the drug dealers, to give to the poor, the police,’ Ryder said.”

Hmmm. I don’t know about you, but where I come from, $28 million not only qualifies one as rich but super-rich. Maybe Ryder’s suffering a bout of Hillary Syndrome.

Meanwhile, our ”modern-day Robin Hood’s” victims disagree with his blithe assessment.....

Continued: https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/todays-quote-3/

I've seen this in a few places now, so I'm more inclined to believe it.

Becky Akers -- A hammer cannot mend torn cloth. If you rip your shirt, the fact that you’ve misplaced or broken your hammer is irrelevant.

Likewise, the TSA’s policies cannot and do not protect aviation.

So when someone breaks those rules, whether a passenger or the TSA itself, it doesn’t matter.

Yet even critics of the TSA often pretend otherwise.

To wit: “Illegal aliens are being allowed to fly on commercial airliners without valid identification, according to the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC). ‘The aliens who are getting released on their own recognizance are being allowed to board and travel commercial airliners by simply showing their Notice to Appear forms,’ NBPC’s Local 2455 Spokesman, Hector Garza, told Breitbart Texas.”

Continued: https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog...irborne-serfs/

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Neighbors are tattling on neighbors for wasting water and some are taking their drought shaming to social media.

If you’ve ever had the feeling you’re being watched while you water your lawn, there’s a good chance you are during this historic drought.

In Sacramento, water wasters can face fines, and the enforcer may be someone who lives right next door.

Terrance Davis with the city department of utilities says he’s seeing a trend of drought shaming.

Continued: http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/...-social-media/