/PRNewswire/ -- On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4247, the Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act. The bill's purpose is to ensure that teachers do not use physical, mechanical or chemical means of restraint against students. The bill significantly increases federal oversight of schools that receive federal funding, including many Catholic parochial schools and independent private schools, and it has been strongly opposed by the Council for American Private Education and the American Association of Christian Schools.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement about H.R. 4247:
"This bill is another example of misguided federal legislation. It increases federal paperwork and oversight to the point that there could be substantial interference with faith-based education.
"Teachers generally care for their students. Should they be punished because a few teachers overstep already accepted guidelines for how teachers and students can interact? A federal mandate is unnecessary.
"Further, if Congress is so concerned with the well-being of students, why did it shut down the Washington, D.C. school choice program, which gave underprivileged students the ability to attend successful private schools instead of failing union-run public schools in the District?
"If Congress is concerned about student safety, it should begin by removing 'Safe Schools Czar' Kevin Jennings from office, not adding to his federal oversight of education. Kevin Jennings, as the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), played an integral role in promoting homosexuality in public schools. His history demonstrates disregard for our obligations to safeguard the health and well-being of the student population. He is unfit for the post to which he's been assigned, and he should be removed at once."
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Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Friday, March 5, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Nonprofit Warns Candidates Against Accepting Support From The Chamber of Commerce for Midterm Elections
/PRNewswire/ -- The StopTheChamber.com campaign (www.stopthechamber.com) today issued the following warning to any 2010 candidate who accepts any direct or indirect money, advertising support, or lip service from the United States Chamber of Commerce or any of its astroturf front operations: The Chamber and its CEO Tom Donohue are toxic assets plagued by scandal, criminal investigations, shareholder lawsuits, NGO criminal complaints, the National Scrooge Award, control by big business insiders, defections by responsible companies, and the antipathy of the general public. Any Chamber-supported candidate will be tied to these scandals during the midterm elections.
Tom Donohue, president and chief executive of the Chamber, promised the "largest, most aggressive voter education and issue advocacy effort in our nearly hundred-year history." In fact, Chamber is poised to spend upwards of $50 million to manipulate the 2010 mid-term elections. That money will go toward electing candidates who support polluters, robber barons, deniers of health care, warmongers, and those who ravage the environment. This money is, in addition to the billion or more dollars the Chamber has spent during the last decade, gutting the economy by helping companies ship American jobs overseas and raising CEO pay at the expense of workers. America is much worse off because of the Chamber's anti-American policies. Job losses are staggering, while businesses supporting the Chamber, its CEO, and an army of lobbyists pocket obscene profits and bonuses with no regard whatsoever for the American worker.
"The Chamber wants to buy Congress at a time when people are hurting, dying, losing their homes and jobs, and seeing their children unable to attend college," said StopTheChamber.com spokesperson and lawyer Kevin Zeese. "However, Americans have had enough of robber barons, and they are not going to take it anymore. If a candidate gets support from the Chamber, we are going to call him or her out for accepting tainted money -- money from big business that is not going into creating jobs, providing health care, and cleaning up Wall Street. We will demand that candidates renounce the Chamber's support, return any funding, and condemn the Chamber's advertisements and policies. If they do not, we will expose them as a friend of Tom Donohue, the man who repeatedly met with the leaders of Communist China to outsource good American jobs, the man who is under investigation by the SEC for insider trading and false reporting, the man who has lied to Congress about the Chamber's membership and small business support, the man who has created patriotic sounding front groups to mislead trusting Americans, the man who schemed with the likes of Jack Abramoff and Ken Lay to betray the public trust, and the man who has justified crime after crime committed by dues-paying members of the Chamber."
StopTheChamber urges all 2010 candidates to run clean election campaigns, untainted by money, laundered through the Chamber of Commerce. Neither the Chamber membership nor its board votes on how the Chamber spends money on elections. Instead, the decisions are made by a tightly knit group of big business insider tycoons led by Tom Donohue. But those businesses -- multinational corporate banks, Wall Street, insurance companies, big energy, and big pharma -- top the list of the most hated companies in America. They pay billions upon billions in bonuses to multi-millionaire executives who squeeze the lifeblood out of hardworking Americans. Candidates who ignore this reality and sell their vote for greed over the common good will find that the antipathy of American voters presently directed toward Wall Street and the Chamber will be directed at them.
StopTheChamber will be launching an ad campaign next week to spread this message to all candidates running in the 2010 midterm elections.
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Tom Donohue, president and chief executive of the Chamber, promised the "largest, most aggressive voter education and issue advocacy effort in our nearly hundred-year history." In fact, Chamber is poised to spend upwards of $50 million to manipulate the 2010 mid-term elections. That money will go toward electing candidates who support polluters, robber barons, deniers of health care, warmongers, and those who ravage the environment. This money is, in addition to the billion or more dollars the Chamber has spent during the last decade, gutting the economy by helping companies ship American jobs overseas and raising CEO pay at the expense of workers. America is much worse off because of the Chamber's anti-American policies. Job losses are staggering, while businesses supporting the Chamber, its CEO, and an army of lobbyists pocket obscene profits and bonuses with no regard whatsoever for the American worker.
"The Chamber wants to buy Congress at a time when people are hurting, dying, losing their homes and jobs, and seeing their children unable to attend college," said StopTheChamber.com spokesperson and lawyer Kevin Zeese. "However, Americans have had enough of robber barons, and they are not going to take it anymore. If a candidate gets support from the Chamber, we are going to call him or her out for accepting tainted money -- money from big business that is not going into creating jobs, providing health care, and cleaning up Wall Street. We will demand that candidates renounce the Chamber's support, return any funding, and condemn the Chamber's advertisements and policies. If they do not, we will expose them as a friend of Tom Donohue, the man who repeatedly met with the leaders of Communist China to outsource good American jobs, the man who is under investigation by the SEC for insider trading and false reporting, the man who has lied to Congress about the Chamber's membership and small business support, the man who has created patriotic sounding front groups to mislead trusting Americans, the man who schemed with the likes of Jack Abramoff and Ken Lay to betray the public trust, and the man who has justified crime after crime committed by dues-paying members of the Chamber."
StopTheChamber urges all 2010 candidates to run clean election campaigns, untainted by money, laundered through the Chamber of Commerce. Neither the Chamber membership nor its board votes on how the Chamber spends money on elections. Instead, the decisions are made by a tightly knit group of big business insider tycoons led by Tom Donohue. But those businesses -- multinational corporate banks, Wall Street, insurance companies, big energy, and big pharma -- top the list of the most hated companies in America. They pay billions upon billions in bonuses to multi-millionaire executives who squeeze the lifeblood out of hardworking Americans. Candidates who ignore this reality and sell their vote for greed over the common good will find that the antipathy of American voters presently directed toward Wall Street and the Chamber will be directed at them.
StopTheChamber will be launching an ad campaign next week to spread this message to all candidates running in the 2010 midterm elections.
-----
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Confronting AIDS Pandemic Obama's Newest Dilemma as White House Strategy Imminent Say Ed Koch, Robert Weiner, Jordan Osserman
/PRNewswire/ -- Confronting the ongoing AIDS pandemic for his upcoming first national HIV/AIDS Strategy is President Obama's newest dilemma, say former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, former White House Drug Policy spokesman Robert Weiner, and Dartmouth College Coalition for Progress president Jordan Osserman.
In a guest column in today's New York Observer entitled "The Epidemic Continues", Koch, Weiner, and Osserman assert that Americans' "sense of urgency" about AIDS has "fallen considerably" even though 33 million people are now living with HIV worldwide, over one million in the U.S.
The authors point out that in New York City, more than 100,000 people live with HIV. The City's Health Department calls New York the "epicenter" of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The writers assert, "This year, one million people around the world won't receive treatment for AIDS and 2.9 million HIV-positive women won't receive services to prevent mother-child transmission."
They contend, "We've cut polio by 99% throughout the world, and we can do the same for AIDS."
They say it's an "understatement for the City's Health Department to say on its website, 'More must be done.' "
They commend Bill Clinton for creating the country's first "AIDS Czar" and now, in his post-presidential foundation, expanding medications and reducing AIDS drug costs around the world.
They assert, "The Administration must keep Barack Obama's repeated promise to fully fund the Global Fund to Fight AIDS. The Administration did not request the $2.7 billion for the Global Fund from Congress as the U.S. share of the support agreed to by the G-8."
On the "home front," massive education is needed: "It's an honest if indelicate statement to point out that most AIDS would be prevented if new and multiple partners used a condom; up to a third of HIV comes from intravenous drug abuse." Though "it's a tough sell when the entire federal health bill's budget is being criticized by the right," in New York City alone, "hundreds of millions of dollars" could be used for treatment, prevention, and education.
They conclude, "In a weak economy, healthy markets depend on a healthy populace...As he develops his HIV/AIDS strategy, making the case for additional funding is Obama's latest dilemma."
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In a guest column in today's New York Observer entitled "The Epidemic Continues", Koch, Weiner, and Osserman assert that Americans' "sense of urgency" about AIDS has "fallen considerably" even though 33 million people are now living with HIV worldwide, over one million in the U.S.
The authors point out that in New York City, more than 100,000 people live with HIV. The City's Health Department calls New York the "epicenter" of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The writers assert, "This year, one million people around the world won't receive treatment for AIDS and 2.9 million HIV-positive women won't receive services to prevent mother-child transmission."
They contend, "We've cut polio by 99% throughout the world, and we can do the same for AIDS."
They say it's an "understatement for the City's Health Department to say on its website, 'More must be done.' "
They commend Bill Clinton for creating the country's first "AIDS Czar" and now, in his post-presidential foundation, expanding medications and reducing AIDS drug costs around the world.
They assert, "The Administration must keep Barack Obama's repeated promise to fully fund the Global Fund to Fight AIDS. The Administration did not request the $2.7 billion for the Global Fund from Congress as the U.S. share of the support agreed to by the G-8."
On the "home front," massive education is needed: "It's an honest if indelicate statement to point out that most AIDS would be prevented if new and multiple partners used a condom; up to a third of HIV comes from intravenous drug abuse." Though "it's a tough sell when the entire federal health bill's budget is being criticized by the right," in New York City alone, "hundreds of millions of dollars" could be used for treatment, prevention, and education.
They conclude, "In a weak economy, healthy markets depend on a healthy populace...As he develops his HIV/AIDS strategy, making the case for additional funding is Obama's latest dilemma."
-----
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Political News You Can Use
Friday, October 30, 2009
FRC Responds to Dept. of Education Request; Urges Kevin Jennings Removal
Earlier this month, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins received an invitation to participate in a discussion of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools (OSDFS) scheduled to take place today. Perkins declined the invitation and instead sent a letter which includes detailed recommendations and specific concerns about the office, its programs, and its leadership.
Perkins made the following comments in a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan:
"The drug prevention program you now administer was created by Congress to
combat the illegal use of drugs. Since this was its original purpose, it should remain the principal one. Unfortunately, the life and writings of Kevin Jennings, whom you appointed as Assistant Deputy Secretary to direct OSDFS, have contradicted this Congressionally mandated message. In his memoir, Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son, he wrote several times about his own use of alcohol and marijuana as a high school and college student...
"While many people may experiment with drugs and alcohol in their youth and later come to regret it when they have reached a higher level of maturity, the light-hearted tone of these excerpts-written only three years ago-does not suggest any regret whatsoever...
"Surely we can agree that all students deserve to attend 'safe schools' that are free of violence. Therefore, I urge you to reject initiatives such as the model legislation proposed under Mr. Jennings' leadership at GLSEN-namely, to create special categories of protection...We should extend protection to all students based on the nature of the victimizing conduct, rather than the characteristics of the victim.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Jennings' own behavior in an incident when he was a teacher, which he has recounted on a number of occasions, draws into sharp question his willingness and ability to fulfill [these] recommendations. By his own (conflicting) accounts, it appears that when he met with a male student (aged 15 or 16) who admitted to finding a same-sex sexual partner in the bus station in Boston, Mr. Jennings'only advice to him was, 'I hope you knew to use a condom.'
"...However, for America to have confidence in his commitment to the 'safety' of our children, it is vital for him to enumerate in greater detail what he should have done...
"Unless Mr. Jennings is willing to admit that he should have taken most or all of the steps listed...I would submit that he is unfit to protect the 'safety' of American school children, and he should resign or you should remove him from office."
To read the full letter, click here.
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Perkins made the following comments in a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan:
"The drug prevention program you now administer was created by Congress to
combat the illegal use of drugs. Since this was its original purpose, it should remain the principal one. Unfortunately, the life and writings of Kevin Jennings, whom you appointed as Assistant Deputy Secretary to direct OSDFS, have contradicted this Congressionally mandated message. In his memoir, Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son, he wrote several times about his own use of alcohol and marijuana as a high school and college student...
"While many people may experiment with drugs and alcohol in their youth and later come to regret it when they have reached a higher level of maturity, the light-hearted tone of these excerpts-written only three years ago-does not suggest any regret whatsoever...
"Surely we can agree that all students deserve to attend 'safe schools' that are free of violence. Therefore, I urge you to reject initiatives such as the model legislation proposed under Mr. Jennings' leadership at GLSEN-namely, to create special categories of protection...We should extend protection to all students based on the nature of the victimizing conduct, rather than the characteristics of the victim.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Jennings' own behavior in an incident when he was a teacher, which he has recounted on a number of occasions, draws into sharp question his willingness and ability to fulfill [these] recommendations. By his own (conflicting) accounts, it appears that when he met with a male student (aged 15 or 16) who admitted to finding a same-sex sexual partner in the bus station in Boston, Mr. Jennings'only advice to him was, 'I hope you knew to use a condom.'
"...However, for America to have confidence in his commitment to the 'safety' of our children, it is vital for him to enumerate in greater detail what he should have done...
"Unless Mr. Jennings is willing to admit that he should have taken most or all of the steps listed...I would submit that he is unfit to protect the 'safety' of American school children, and he should resign or you should remove him from office."
To read the full letter, click here.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Group Says Bill Ayers Got His Job the 'Chicago Way'
/PRNewswire/ -- On the heels of a state investigation into how hundreds of students were improperly granted admission to the University of Illinois because of high-level political and financial connections, the public policy group America's Survival, Inc. (ASI) will hold a news conference on Thursday in Washington, D.C. to examine how Barack Obama associate Bill Ayers became a "Distinguished Professor" at the same university.
Ayers had been a leader of the Weather Underground organization and worked with Obama on educational issues.
"The evidence so far points to his rich father, Thomas Ayers, who sat on the board of the Tribune Company, which publishes the Chicago Tribune, as providing the 'clout' to get his son ensconced at the University of Illinois," said ASI President Cliff Kincaid, a veteran journalist who serves as editor of Accuracy in Media. "There is no other reasonable explanation for how Ayers got this job. Thomas Ayers may also have played a role in getting Ayers' wife Bernardine Dohrn a teaching job at Northwestern University in the Chicago area. Thomas Ayers had been the chairman of the board of trustees at Northwestern."
In a report to be released at the "Communism in the Classroom" conference, Professor Mary Grabar explains that "Bill Ayers' rehabilitation from fugitive to 'Distinguished Professor' of Education earning a $126,000 salary at a public Chicago university remains something of a mystery." However, considering his lack of credentials for the post and his flaunting of academic standards, she asks, "Was Ayers' appointment part of the 'Chicago Way?'"
Another speaker, noted author and Professor Paul Kengor, will speak on "Anti-Anti-Communism in the Academy."
Copies of syllabi from Ayers' courses, obtained under the state Freedom of Information Act, will be released for the first time, and several reports on the activities of Ayers' and his comrades in academia will be provided as well. One report will examine a controversial trip made by Ayers and Dohrn to Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.
The event will be held on August 20 at 12:30 p.m. in the First Amendment Lounge of the National Press Club (13th floor, 529 14th St., NW) in Washington, D.C.
The conference is free of charge and open to the press and the public. But reservations are requested at 443-964-8208 or Kincaid@comcast.net.
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Ayers had been a leader of the Weather Underground organization and worked with Obama on educational issues.
"The evidence so far points to his rich father, Thomas Ayers, who sat on the board of the Tribune Company, which publishes the Chicago Tribune, as providing the 'clout' to get his son ensconced at the University of Illinois," said ASI President Cliff Kincaid, a veteran journalist who serves as editor of Accuracy in Media. "There is no other reasonable explanation for how Ayers got this job. Thomas Ayers may also have played a role in getting Ayers' wife Bernardine Dohrn a teaching job at Northwestern University in the Chicago area. Thomas Ayers had been the chairman of the board of trustees at Northwestern."
In a report to be released at the "Communism in the Classroom" conference, Professor Mary Grabar explains that "Bill Ayers' rehabilitation from fugitive to 'Distinguished Professor' of Education earning a $126,000 salary at a public Chicago university remains something of a mystery." However, considering his lack of credentials for the post and his flaunting of academic standards, she asks, "Was Ayers' appointment part of the 'Chicago Way?'"
Another speaker, noted author and Professor Paul Kengor, will speak on "Anti-Anti-Communism in the Academy."
Copies of syllabi from Ayers' courses, obtained under the state Freedom of Information Act, will be released for the first time, and several reports on the activities of Ayers' and his comrades in academia will be provided as well. One report will examine a controversial trip made by Ayers and Dohrn to Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.
The event will be held on August 20 at 12:30 p.m. in the First Amendment Lounge of the National Press Club (13th floor, 529 14th St., NW) in Washington, D.C.
The conference is free of charge and open to the press and the public. But reservations are requested at 443-964-8208 or Kincaid@comcast.net.
-----
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