The sinecure of the nomenclature

Caroline Kennedy Said to Be Candidate for Envoy to Japan

The curse of the Kennedy clan.

I think Woodward is beginning to see how mad is dear leader

BOB WOODWARD: A 'Very Senior' White House Person Warned Me I'd 'Regret' What I'm Doing

Bob Woodward said this evening on CNN that a "very senior person" at the White House warned him in an email that he would "regret doing this," the same day he has continued to slam President Barack Obama over the looming forced cuts known as the sequester.

CNN host Wolf Blitzer said that the network invited a White House official to debate Woodward on-air, but the White House declined.

"I think they're confused," Woodward said of the White House's pushback on his reporting.

Earlier today on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Woodward ripped into Obama in what has become an ongoing feud between the veteran Washington Post journalist and the White House. Woodward said Obama was showing a "kind of madness I haven't seen in a long time" for a decision not to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf because of budget concerns.

The Defense Department said in early February that it would not deploy the U.S.S. Harry Truman to the Persian Gulf, citing budget concerns relating to the looming cuts known as the sequester.

"Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, 'Oh, by the way, I can't do this because of some budget document?'" Woodward said on MSNBC. 

"Or George W. Bush saying, 'You know, I'm not going to invade Iraq because I can't get the aircraft carriers I need?'" Or even Bill Clinton saying, 'You know, I'm not going to attack Saddam Hussein's intelligence headquarters,' ... because of some budget document?"

Last weekend, Woodward called out Obama for what he said was "moving the goal posts" on the sequester by requesting that revenue be part of a deal to avert it.

This helps to explain the lack of media opposition to the Obama administration

A Marxist thinks that everything should be used for political gain

BOB WOODWARD: Obama Is Showing 'A Kind Of Madness I Haven't Seen In A Long Time'

MNSBC

The Washington Post's Bob Woodward ripped into President Barack Obama on "Morning Joe" today, saying he's exhibiting a "kind of madness I haven't seen in a long time" for a decision not to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf because of budget concerns.

"Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, 'Oh, by the way, I can't do this because of some budget document?'" Woodward said. 

"Or George W. Bush saying, 'You know, I'm not going to invade Iraq because I can't get the aircraft carriers I need?'" Or even Bill Clinton saying, 'You know, I'm not going to attack Saddam Hussein's intelligence headquarters,' ... because of some budget document?"

The Defense Department said in early February that it would not deploy the U.S.S. Harry Truman to the Persian Gulf, citing budget concerns relating to the looming cuts known as the sequester.

"Under the Constitution, the President is commander-in-chief and employs the force. And so we now have the President going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement. 'I can’t do what I need to do to protect the country,'" Woodward said.

"That’s a kind of madness that I haven't seen in a long time," he said.

Woodward's harsh criticism came after he stirred controversy last weekend by calling out Obama for what he said was "moving the goal posts" on the sequester by requesting that revenue be part of a deal to avert it.

Here's the clip, via Mediaite:

There are still some folks with self respect out there

Jobless Indiana teenager rewarded for long walk in the snow

An unemployed teenager who embarked on a 10-mile walk through the snow for a job interview saw his dedication pay off after another restaurant owner, impressed with his work ethic, offered him a job at his business.

Jhaqueil Reagan's story has been shared nearly 4,000 times  

Mark Hughes in New York

6:21PM GMT 26 Feb 2013

Jhaqueil Reagan, 18, was walking to an appointment at Dairy Queen, a fast food chain, in Indianapolis, when he approached Art Bouvier to ask directions.

Mr Bouvier, the owner of a Cajun restaurant, told the teenager that he was still about seven miles from his destination.

“I said, 'You’d be better off on a bus especially in this weather.’ He just said, 'Okay, thank you.’ And he kept going,” Mr Bouvier told local television station WLFI.

Later the same morning, while driving to a coffee shop, Mr Bouvier saw Mr Reagan walking by the side of the road and offered him a lift.

“I said, well how come you’re not on the bus?” Mr Bouvier said. “He said, 'I can’t afford the bus until I get a job.’

“I’m thinking to myself, here’s a kid walking almost 10 miles in the ice and slush and snow for the hope of a job at minimum wage. That’s the kind of story your parents used to tell, my parents used to tell.”

After dropping him off, Mr Bouvier asked for Mr Reagan’s phone number and later posted the entire story on his Facebook page, prompting a huge response. The story has been shared nearly 4,000 times and attracted hundreds of positive comments.

That evening Mr Bouvier called Mr Reagan, who did not get the job he initially applied for, and offered him a job at his Papa Roux Cajun Cooking restaurant.

Mr Reagan told local television stations that he had struggled to find work since he left school two years ago when his mother died. He completed his secondary education while caring for his siblings.

Speaking about his new job, he added: “I’m really lucky I met him...He told me about it and I was just so surprised. I was awestruck. My heart’s just racing right now. I’m just too excited, just excited to start.”

Mr Bouvier added: “The next time somebody hands me a sob story about needing money for this or that, because they really want to make their lives better... I hope to be able to introduce them to Jhaquiel.”

8, 713 Libertarian/Conservative Friends

Anyone on Facebook who enjoys Best of the Web Today columnist James Taranto should check out the Fans of Best of the Web closed FB group.  Where as normal posting on FB is best kept - for the sake of a civil society - to the weather and cats, inside this enclave of the angry and the erudite riffing on government mismanagement and general idiocy of the left, let the posts and comments roll.  Anyone who finds herself a red dot in a blue sea will find the free air of this group especially invigorating. 

It was domestic terrorism and an act of treason

Lawmakers Determined to Override Obama’s ‘Workplace Violence’ Classification of Fort Hood

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, the court-martial of accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan will creep forward at its glacial pace with a motions hearing to hear defense requests on a change of venue and the makeup of the panel that will potentially hear the case.
Facing 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder — and potentially the death penalty — Hasan’s trial has been delayed several months by his growth of a beard not permitted on service members.
Still, the movement in Hasan’s case is swifter than the move toward any resolution of the grievances of victims and survivors of the Nov. 5, 2009, mass slaying.
Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), whose district includes Fort Hood, told PJM the base is soldiering on, but a recent ABC News interview ^[1] in which the officer who shot Hasan during the rampage says President Obama has “betrayed” the victims came as no surprise to him.
“Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of,” Kimberly Munley said. “In fact, they’ve been neglected.”
Carter just introduced yet again legislation to ensure that the victims and victims’ families in the Fort Hood attack are eligible for the same treatment, benefits, and honors as Americans killed or wounded in an overseas combat zone.
“I know I’ve got the votes if they bring it to the floor,” he said, adding he’s already talking with the majority leader about moving the bill forward. “The administration doesn’t want it to be bought to the floor.”
At issue is the Obama administration’s classification of the attack as “workplace violence” instead of terrorism, which the Pentagon said is vital terminology to not jeopardize the prosecution of Hasan.
Carter is called “Judge” up on the Hill because he served 21 years on the bench before coming to Washington. With seven death penalty cases and countless murder cases under his belt — and a longtime friendship with Army Secretary John McHugh, who has defended the classification — he’s not buying the Defense Department’s argument for avoiding the word terrorism.
“If I couldn’t try a case with somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 witnesses, I’d be a pretty lousy prosecutor,” Carter said.
His bill is not just about Purple Hearts for wounded soldiers, but opening eligibility for meritorious medals for those who protected others in the shooting rampage.
“It’s about time we meet obligations,” Carter said. “The enemy brought the battlefield to our own hometown.”
A co-sponsor of Carter’s bill, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), slammed the administration in a one-minute floor speech ^[2] in the House earlier this month, saying Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Obama “have failed the people, and continue to fail the people that were wounded and killed and the families of Fort Hood.”
Today, Wolf told PJM that the proof of Hasan’s terrorist intent can be found in the administration’s own drone strikes.
Hasan had email communications with senior al-Qaeda recruiter and Yemen-based cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, and there are even indications that al-Awlaki was one of the imams at the funeral of Hasan’s mother.
“Major Hasan was connected, influenced by Alwaki,” Wolf said. “The administration thought Awlaki was dangerous enough that they killed him with a drone missile… It’s got to be fairly significant, the fact that they did this to an American citizen.”
“The people at Fort Hood, the wounded have been getting a very, very bad deal with Panetta,” the congressman continued. “It clearly is a terrorist attack. It is not workplace violence and by not calling it that, it’s a failure.”
Wolf called the dragged-out prosecution of Hasan “ridiculous.”
“This is being dictated by the attorney general and the White House,” he said.
Carter said he understands why the defense is trying to keep Hasan from getting to trial as long as possible — “that’s their job; they delay as long as they can” — but said “it’s time to get this thing over with.”
Along with Wolf, co-sponsors to Carter’s bill are Texas GOP Reps. Bill Flores and Michael Burgess.
Similar legislation introduced by the Fort Hood representative days after the attack reaped 97 co-sponsors. Wolf said “the media let this thing go,” and there’s barely any heat on the administration as a result.
“Just what my mom would always say — just do the right thing — and they won’t do the right thing unless the media holds them accountable,” he said.
Last May, Carter lauded the inclusion of language from a bill by Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) granting Purple Hearts to Fort Hood victims in the National Defense Authorization Act. In dozens of concerns cited in the Office of Management and Budget’s veto threat was this language, which also included Purple Heart eligibility for the 2009 Little Rock military recruiting office shooting.
“The Administration objects to section 552, which would grant Purple Hearts to the victims of the shooting incidents in Fort Hood, Texas, and Little Rock, Arkansas,” the OMB wrote. “The criminal acts that occurred in Little Rock were tried by the State of Arkansas as violations of the State criminal code rather than as acts of terrorism; as a result, this provision could create appellate issues.”
Carter knows Obama will likely be poised with his veto pen if this long-overdue bill even gets to the Senate floor.
“I wouldn’t put anything past the president,” he said. “The right thing to do is award that medal to the people who were wounded in that particular skirmish.”
The Texan has another bill this Congress that would amend Title X of the U.S. Code “to extend whistleblower protections to a member of the Armed Forces who alerts Department of Defense investigation or law enforcement organizations, a person or organization in the member’s chain of command, and certain other persons or entities about the potentially dangerous ideologically based threats or actions of another member against United States interests or security.”
Carter said he wants members of the military to feel they can report extremism regardless of rank, without fear of a black mark on their records.
Hundreds have reported witnessing bizarre behavior or hearing questionable Islamist statements from Hasan, yet congressional probes since the Fort Hood shooting determined that political correctness was a factor that stood in the way of addressing the threat.
Hasan completed his psychiatric residency at Walter Reed, where he told ^[3] Army physicians in a senior-year presentation “it’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims.”
In the slideshow presentation, called “The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military,” he warned of “adverse events” if Muslim soldiers didn’t have the option of being released as conscientious objectors.
“If we’d have known that, maybe we wouldn’t have spent all that money on his medical training,” Carter said.

Why let facts get in the way of the narrative

ABC broadcast edits out Michelle Obama claim that Chicago teen was killed by an ‘automatic weapon’

In an interview with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts aired this morning, First Lady Michelle Obama recalled the tragic death of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton who was shot and killed in Chicago after performing during the President’s Inauguration celebration in Washington D.C.

“She was caught in the line of fire because some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need,” the First Lady explained. “I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.”

Chicago police reported, however, that Pendleton was shot by a man who “opened fire with a handgun before fleeing in a waiting car.”

It is extremely unlikely that the murder weapon was an automatic handgun, an extremely rare occurrence, even in the streets of Chicago. An overwhelming majority of handguns bought and sold in America are semi-automatic. Police officials have not recovered the firearm, but prosecutors stated that the accused attacker shot “at least six times” into the crowd.

For the broadcast, ABC’s Good Morning America producers edited out the First Lady’s “automatic weapon” line.

She was standing out in a park with her friends in a neighborhood blocks away from where my kids grow – grew – up, where our house is. She had just taken a chemistry test. And she was caught in the line of firebecause some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need. I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.

In the web edition of the story, however, Michelle Obama appears to be quoted in full:

“She was standing out in a park with her friends in a neighborhood blocks away from where my kids…grew up, where our house is. She had just taken a chemistry test. And she was caught in the line of fire because some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need,” she said. “I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.”

From a comment to this article which clearly describes Michelle Obama:

In the case of Michelle Obama, affirmative action did all three. The partners at Sidley Austin learned this the hard way. In 1988, they hired her out of Harvard Law under the impression that the degree meant something. It did not. By 1991, Michelle was working in the public sector as an assistant to the mayor. By 1993, she had given up her law license.

Had the partners investigated Michelle's background, they would have foreseen the disaster to come. Sympathetic biographer Liza Mundy writes, "Michelle frequently deplores the modern reliance on test scores, describing herself as a person who did not test well."

She did not write well, either. Mundy charitably describes her senior thesis at Princeton as "dense and turgid." The less charitable Christopher Hitchens observes, "To describe [the thesis] as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be 'read' at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language."

Michelle had to have been as anxious at Harvard Law as Bart Simpson was at Genius School. Almost assuredly, the gap between her writing and that of her highly talented colleagues marked her as an affirmative action admission, and the profs finessed her through.

Budget Cuts Explained

The Sexiest Scientists Alive!

Business Insider - Science | Feb. 25, 2013
Dina Spector and Jennifer Polland

It's hard to make microbes, telescopes, and math calculations appear sexy. But we found 50 scientists who pull it off fabulously.  These aren't your typical lab coat-wearing, messy-haired brainiacs — with the exception that they're all pretty brain-y.

Some of the people who made our list are rising stars. Others are already well-established in their field. All of them are making a difference (or on their way to) by improving our lives through research and new discoveries.

We thought this was important, to highlight the brains along with the beauty. But, they're not bad to look at, either.

Read more.

Obama policies: cut off Gulf of Mexico production; kill the Keystone pipeline

US oil imports from Middle East increase

The US was more reliant on the Middle East for its oil imports last year, underscoring the critical importance of the politically unstable region for the country despite the growing energy independence its shale gas revolution is bringing.

That domestic production boom has triggered intense debate over whether the US would still guard the world’s critical sea lanes, such as the Strait of Hormuz in two decades’ time – or whether China, whose dependence on Middle Eastern crude imports is rapidly rising, would replace it.

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However, recent oil import trends from the Gulf region suggest why the US might continue to play a critical security role in the region. While domestic production increased the most in 150 years last year, Washington will confirm later this week that oil imports from the Gulf region continued to rise.

By the end of November the US had already imported more than 450m barrels of crude from Saudi Arabia, more than it imported from Riyadh in the whole of 2009, 2010 or 2011, according to figures from the US energy department. For the first time since 2003, Saudi imports accounted for more than 15 per cent of total US oil imports. The Gulf as a whole accounted for more than 25 per cent, a nine-year high.

Other Gulf exporters are also seeing unusually strong US demand. By the end of November, Kuwait had shipped more oil to the US than in any year since 1998. Analysts are expecting annual figures to be released later this week to confirm the trend seen up to November.

New extraction techniques – most notably hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and horizontal drilling – have unlocked huge hydrocarbon resources in the US previously thought unrecoverable, raising expectations that over time US dependence on Middle East oil will drop.

These developments triggered debate about the long-term commitment of Washington to security in the Gulf, where the US Fifth Fleet has operated since 1995.

At an oil industry conference in London last week, Christof Rühl, chief economist at BP, raised the prospect of a US president, “15 years from now, seeing a problem in the Middle East and saying: ‘That’s no skin off my nose. I need very little oil and . . . I get it from Canada and Mexico.”

But at another conference earlier this year, Carlos Pasqual, co-ordinator for international energy affairs at the US state department, highlighted that oil was a global fungible commodity, saying Washington would remain involved in Middle Eastern oil security. “When there is instability or insecurity in any part of the world, it drives up the global prices of those commodities.”

Oil produced in shale fields like the Bakken in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford in Texas is of a light high-quality variety. But Gulf oil is still vital for the US because many US refineries are set up to process heavier crude oils. So while imports of light crudes from countries such as Nigeria have fallen dramatically, demand for Gulf crudes has not.

An expansion of the Motiva refinery in Texas has provided a fillip to US demand for Saudi oil. Motiva, which is now the largest refinery in the US by capacity, is jointly owned by Royal Dutch Shell and the Saudi national oil company, Saudi Aramco.

Part of Motiva’s expanded plant was temporarily shut down for repairs in the second half of 2012, but is expected to restart imminently.

Although oil imports from the Middle East have been rising, overall US demand for crude oil has declined slightly since 2004 because of a combination of efficiency measures, increasing use of natural gas and the financial crisis.

Imports of Saudi oil were equal to 9.3 per cent of all crude processed by US refineries in the year to November, while imports from the Gulf were equal to more than 14 per cent of the total. Both percentages were the highest since 2008.

"Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices..."

-- Nancy Pelosi, August 24, 2006 (it's still on her website!)

At what point does this do they have to register as an arm of the Democrat party?

Chris Matthews Offers To Help Hillary’s 2016 Campaign: ‘We’ll Get You In There’

According to TV critic David Zurawik, MSNBC's hiring of ex-Obama officials David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs makes the so-callend news network almost "a bona fide organ of state propaganda."

Hours after this was published Monday, Hardball's Chris Matthews offered his services to Hillary Clinton - along with those of MSNBC contributors Howard Fineman and Joan Walsh - in order to get her elected president in 2016 (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

At the end of a lengthy discussion about Clinton's chances in 2016 - never mind that Election Day is 44 months away! - Walsh said, "I think if she runs again, she really can't run as that front-runner. It cannot be that inevitability campaign that she ran in 2007, and she knows that. She's got to be about the future."

Matthews replied, "If you're watching, Madam Secretary, all three of us have brilliant ideas. All of us have great ideas. And I especially put myself in that group with Joan and David. We know how to do this, we’ll get you in there."

Although there may have been a little tongue in Matthews' cheek, everyone watching knew full well that he meant it, and that his mission in the next 44 months - as well as that of likely every MSNBC contributor and guest - is to get Clinton in the White House.

What's interesting is how the folks on this almost satirical news network don't even feel like they have to hide it anymore.

Sounding more like a banana republic every day

Carney Unable to Defend OFA Arrangement, Hurries Away From Podium

Daniel Halper

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that donating $500,000 to the group Organizing for Action will get one quarterly meetings with President Barack Obama. "Giving or raising $500,000 or more puts donors on a national advisory board for Mr. Obama’s group and the privilege of attending quarterly meetings with the president, along with other meetings at the White House," reported the Times.
Today, Jay Carney was unable to defend this arrangement at the White House press briefing, implausibly stating that the Obama group is somehow not related to Obama:

The group, Organizing for Action, grew out of the campaign that helped Obama get elected in 2008 and then reelected in 2012.
After a few minutes, Carney just hurries away from the podium, even as reporters still question him.

Of course because it's Obama it isn't selling influence, is it?

Government efficiency

Improperly assigned teachers a problem

Public schools across California have assigned thousands of teachers to classes without the proper credentials or legal authorization, a persistent problem that state and local education officials blame on mismanagement, budget shortages and a limited pool of qualified specialists.

Untrained teachers have been assigned to a variety of difficult classes, including those filled with English-language learners and others with special intellectual and physical needs. In many cases, these teachers lack training in a particular subject that they've been assigned to teach, such as English or math.

Nearly 1 in 10 teachers or certificated personnel - a total of more than 32,000 school employees - did not have the credentials or authorization for their positions from 2007 through 2011, according to data compiled by the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Besides teachers, credentialed employees include nurses, administrators and counselors.

The problem is greater at low-performing schools, where students are overwhelmingly low-income and Latino. The average rate of improperly assigned teachers at these schools was 16 percent over the same period.

"That isn't something that should be acceptable to anybody," said Brooks Allen, director of education advocacy at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

The problem is illustrated by some formal complaints filed with school districts. In one case, at the public Berkeley Technology Academy, a student failed the California High School Proficiency Examination after enrolling in a test-prep class.

The student later told her mother that the class included nothing she encountered on the exam, which allows students to receive the equivalent of a high school diploma.

"I paid good money for my daughter to participate ... only to find out that the teacher may have been unqualified to teach it, and that she did not adequately prepare the students to take the final exam," the student's mother wrote in a 2011 complaint to the Berkeley Unified School District. The mother's name was redacted by the school district.

In response, the district acknowledged that a noncredentialed staff member had taught the course. It offered the student 20 hours of private instruction and the option to enroll at the high school for a fifth year. Rather than find a qualified teacher, the school canceled the course.

Out of position

In the 2010-11 school year, more than 12,000 teachers and certificated personnel at more than 1,000 low-performing schools - including more than 400 employees at 107 Bay Area schools - served in positions they should not have held. On average at these schools, 82 percent of students qualified for free or reduced-price meals, and more than three-quarters were Latino, a California Watch analysis found.

This problem of "misassignments," as they're known, has improved dramatically since the 2005-06 school year, when the state began giving greater attention to teacher assignments at low-performing schools. At the time, 29 percent of teachers at these schools lacked licenses for their positions.

Landmark suit

Part of the success is due to more teachers obtaining authorization to teach English learners. There was also the settlement in Williams vs. California, a landmark class-action lawsuit that in 2004 required the state to ensure all students had qualified, credentialed teachers.

The Commission on Teacher Credentialing typically needs to work with only a handful of school districts that struggle to resolve improper assignments on their own, said Roxann Purdue, a consultant in the agency's professional services division.

Yet the lengthy, laborious and often paper-heavy process of monitoring assignments means that teachers and other staff can remain in the wrong positions for months.

County offices of education typically begin compiling paperwork from school districts in late fall or winter. Once they identify teachers who lack necessary credentials or authorization and notify the district, the district has 30 days to address the problems. By the time it's all resolved - teachers must be reassigned, get the appropriate credentials, receive emergency or short-term permits or local authorizations, obtain waivers or resign - the school year could be nearly over.

In the 2011-12 school year, for example, Alameda County notified the Oakland Unified School District on May 15 to correct any remaining teacher assignment problems by June 30 - 15 days after the school year ended, records show. A letter listed 50 teachers whose qualifications were unclear or who held inappropriate assignments.

"If we had a whole bunch of people working on it, we could identify the misassignment sooner. You're talking about one manager, one analyst - that's all we are," said Stephanie Tomasi, Alameda's credentials manager.

Improper assignments often are the result of school administrators who do not know that even elective or short-term courses require appropriate certification, Purdue said. Middle and high schools in particular, she said, are offering more experimental courses that are less straightforward to staff than, say, a physics class.

Still, even longtime teachers of core academic subjects can get caught up in the problem.

U.S. history

Charlie Parker had taught biology and math for more than 20 years, including 11 at McAlister High School in Los Angeles. The last time he took a social studies class, he was a teenager with an Afro and Jimmy Carter was president of the United States.

Yet, in 2009, he was assigned to teach U.S. history, world history and economics - subjects that he was not credentialed to teach and that never appealed to him when he learned them more than 30 years ago.

On his first day teaching social studies, Parker struggled to keep his course materials straight and handed a student the wrong textbook. Some days, his students' questions went unanswered or they were directed to the Internet. Later, Parker said, when his students took state tests, their scores were low.

After school, he said, "I was doing homework, just like the kids."

In some districts, incorrect assignments could reflect a shortage of teachers credentialed in subjects like math, science and special education. These shortages are most critical in schools concentrated with low-income and minority students and in districts with fewer resources, a state task force reported in September.

"You can't leave it up to local principals to find good teachers and well-prepared teachers if they don't exist," said Linda Darling-Hammond, chairwoman of the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, who also co-led the task force. "Ultimately, you have to invest in getting enough teachers in shortage fields and invest in getting enough teachers who will teach in shortage locations."

Months to find teacher

It took Oakland Unified five months last year to find a permanent teacher for a class of 12 severely disabled children at Fred T. Korematsu Discovery Academy. Seven substitutes led the class before a teacher from Washington state could take over Nov. 1, more than two months after the start of the school year.

Of the 30 to 40 applications Principal Charles Wilson saw prior to the teacher's hiring, seven applicants had appropriate credentials and three were interviewed. None was a good fit for the position, he said.

Low-performing schools like his are sometimes accused of "intentionally trying to hire young, kind of throwaway teachers because they're cheap," Wilson said. "But the reality of it is those kinds of (qualified, experienced) teachers don't apply to these kinds of schools. They don't take an interview."

Even though his elementary school has a positive reputation as being supportive of teachers, Wilson said, "people are scared. ... It's too much of a stress they don't want to take on."

California Watch is part of the independent and nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting, the country's largest investigative reporting team. For more, visit www.californiawatch.org. Lin can be reached at jlin@cironline.org

More proof of how the media is incurious about Obama

Robert Gibbs: As press secretary, I was ordered not to acknowledge the existence of the drone program

Felons are armed and left to prey on the unarmed

Las Vegas shooting suspect named: Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, 26

Police say the man responsible for the Thursday shooting attack that left three people dead on the Las Vegas Strip is armed, dangerous and still on the loose.

Ammar Harris, 26 -- also known as Ammar Asim Faruq Harris -- was identified by authorities Saturday night as their primary suspect.

Police think he got into an argument with a rapper, Ken Cherry, at a valet stand and later shot Cherry in a roadway attack, which resulted in a collision that killed a taxi driver and his passenger.

Harris has previously been arrested in Las Vegas on suspicion of kidnapping, sexual assault, being an ex-felon in possession of a gun and robbery, police said.

“And that’s just in our jurisdiction,” Las Vegas police spokesman Marcus Martin told the Los Angeles Times. “He has a habit of not appearing in court, too.”

Police Capt. Chris Jones told the Associated Press that Harris' black Range Rover was found Saturday afternoon at an apartment complex east of the Vegas Strip and impounded as evidence.

Cherry's father held a news conference Saturday decrying the depiction of his son in some media reports as a gangster. Cherry's attorney, Bob Beckett, said Cherry was unarmed and had no apparent criminal history in the past eight years other than traffic citations.

The Democrat mantra: Give us what we want or the world will end

The Bating Game: Obama Doubles Down

By Clarice Feldman

By law, on Friday the executive must begin to cut $85 billion from federal spending. Though, as is his wont, the president is blaming the Republicans for what he claims is a draconian measure. No less a Washington chronicler of events than Bob Woodward of the Washington Post considers that a gross distortion of the truth

[T]he automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of [Treasury Secretary nominee Jack] Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors -- probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.

Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.

Lying about who's responsible is only part of the story; the president, with the connivance of the press, is trying to scare the public about the effects of the necessary cuts and proposes yet another expensive, pointless program.
Lucianne.com characterizes the scare effort as threatening: "Dead babies in the water, poisoned milk, catburgers at Mickey Dee's -- anything is possible." That wisecrack's not far off the mark. Here's Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, chair of the DNC.

Well, everything is -- everything would be delayed. You're going to have massive indiscriminate cuts to education, to health care research, you're going to have research grants that won't get funded. I mean, the decisions that we make now, letting the sequester kick in, have short-term effects that affect people's daily lives, but they also have significant long-term effects. If a university isn't able to hire a researcher or -- because the grant doesn't come through -- that researcher never does groundbreaking work that could save thousands of lives later on down the road. I mean, this is dramatically irresponsible. It's irresponsible for our economy and the impact on it. It's irresponsible to, in terms of the impact it would leave on the middle class and working families. The only ones who get protected are the wealthiest, most fortunate Americans. But that appears to be the Republicans' goal. And it's just baffling. How could they possibly continue to only care about people who are already doing really well who are the only ones that would be shielded from the impact of sequester cuts?

It's not as if the trillions in debt racked up by the administration have accomplished much more than feeding Obama's cronies and buying him political support with our money. The examples are too numerous to do the topic justice in this space. Let's review some that even the media has not been able to fully erase from the short-lived memories of a significant number of voters, so that Republicans who need to make a more forceful case for necessary cuts can credibly note the monumental waste.
In August of last year, Investor's Business Daily reported on the cost to taxpayers of the unprecedented bailout of Chrysler and General Motors:

Washington not only used taxpayer money to buy control of General Motors and Chrysler, but it also rewrote the rules on the treatment of creditors.

Superficially at least, the intervention worked, but it hasn't been cheap. GM is back to making a profit, though it is struggling in Europe and once again has lost its No. 1 market share to Toyota. And the perennial problem child Chrysler is now in Fiat's lap.

The administration sold its interest in Chrysler in July 2011, racking up a loss of $1.3 billion. It still holds 26% of GM and is riding the stock price down. With GM shares trading at just over $20, the taxpayer's paper losses are at least $16 billion.

Moreover, for no good reason, the administration coupled wiping out legitimate claims of GM investors and creditors with eliminating thousands of jobs at car dealerships. The National Automobile Dealers Association said this action alone threatened more than 100,000 jobs. 
That IBD analysis of the cost to taxpayers of the GM bailout may be considerably overoptimistic. Charles Ortel reported this week that preliminary disclosures made by GM the week before, indicate GM is close to bankruptcy:

Looking at available "facts", General Motors today is not technically "dead" -- however, alarm bells are ringing off the hook.
In 2012, consolidated Automotive revenues grew by slightly less than 1% from $148.9 billion to $150.3 billion. Automotive gross margin fell from a puny 12.4% in 2011 to 6.7%, in 2012. Operating income before goodwill impairment charges fell from $6.9 billion to an operating loss of $3.2 billion. Pretax income after all charges plummeted from $6.0 billion to a staggering loss of $30.3 billion. Moreover, these consolidated results were produced while the largest unit, GM North America, increased its capacity utilization rate from 95.6% to 97.5%. No manufacturing business is viable at such levels for long and few American businesses have already been as coddled by various governments.

If you cannot sell/lease vehicles when money is essentially free, how can you hope to do so as rates correct back up as they have started to do since July 2012? Analysis that is more complete will have to wait until the first week of March when GM releases its Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Rest assured that informed investors will not be celebrating even if entrenched unions, managers and politicians dare to gloat.

Bailing out a structurally challenged vehicle producer using borrowed taxpayer funds, without fully addressing competitive weaknesses has not restored the fortunes of General Motors.

And then there was the monumental waste on failed green projects, like Solyndra, often owned by Obama supporters and donors.Heritage details the tab for us: 

So far, 34 companies that were offered federal support from taxpayers are faltering -- either having gone bankrupt or laying off workers or heading for bankruptcy. This list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration's Department of Energy and other agencies. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher.

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

• Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
• SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
• Solyndra ($535 million)*
• Beacon Power ($43 million)*
• Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
• SunPower ($1.2 billion)
• First Solar ($1.46 billion)
• Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
• EnerDel's subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
• Amonix ($5.9 million)
• Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
• Abound Solar ($400 million)*
• A123 Systems ($279 million)*
• Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
• Johnson Controls ($299 million)
• Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
• ECOtality ($126.2 million)
• Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
• Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
• Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
• Olsen's Crop Service and Olsen's Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
• Range Fuels ($80 million)*
• Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
• Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
• Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
• GreenVolts ($500,000)
• Vestas ($50 million)
• LG Chem's subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
• Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
• Navistar ($39 million)
• Satcon ($3 million)*
• Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
• Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

With a record like this it is monumental chutzpah to claim only essential services -- like defense and border security -- need to be cut to help stem the red ink.
A look at the large number of agencies and departments that make up the executive branch reveals that certainly far more drastic cuts that the Republicans propose could take place without harming essential services.
Heritage has also noted some other of the wasteful expenditures of this administration which preposterously argues we can't turn down even a small amount of the cash waterfall.

• A reality TV show in India. The Department of Agriculture's Market Access Program spends $200 million a year to help U.S. agricultural trade associations and cooperatives advertise their products in foreign markets. In 2011, it funded a reality TV show in India that advertised U.S. cotton.

• Studying pig poop. The Environmental Protection Agency awarded a $141,450 grant under the Clean Air Act to fund a Chinese study on swine manure and a $1.2 million grant to the United Nations for clean fuel promotion.

• Amtrak snacks. Federally subsidized Amtrak lost $84.5 million on its food and beverage services in 2011 and $833.8 million over the past 10 years. It has never broken even on these services.

• Using military exercises to boost biofuels. The U.S. Navy bought 450,000 gallons of biofuels for $12 million -- or almost $27 per gallon -- to conduct exercises to showcase the fuel and bring it closer toward commercialization. It is the largest biofuel purchase ever made by the government.

• Conferences for government employees. In 2008 and 2009 alone, the Department of Justice spent $121 million to host or participate in 1,832 conferences.

Waste Book 2012:

1. "RoboSquirrel." $325,000 was spent on a robotic squirrel named "RoboSquirrel." This National Science Foundation grant was used to create a realistic-looking robotic squirrel for the purpose of studying how a rattlesnake would react to it.

2. Cupcakes. In Washington, D.C., and elsewhere across the country, cupcake shops are trending. The 10 cupcake shop owners who received $2 million in Small Business Administration loan guarantees, however, can only boast so much of their entrepreneurial ingenuity, since taxpayers are backing them up.

3. Food stamps for alcohol and junk food. Though they were intended to ensure hungry children received healthy meals, taxpayer-funded food stamps were instead spent on fast food at Taco Bell and Burger King; on non-nutritious foods such as candy, ice cream, and soft drinks; and on some 2,000 deceased persons in New York and Massachusetts. Food stamp recipients spent $2 billion on sugary drinks alone. Improper SNAP payments accounted for $2.5 billion in waste, including to one exotic dancer who was making $85,000 per year.

4. Beer brewing in New Hampshire. Despite Smuttynose brewery's financial success and popularity, it is still getting a $750,970 Community Development Block Grant to build a new brewery and restaurant facilities.

A covered bridge to nowhere. What list of government waste would be complete without a notorious "bridge to nowhere"? In this case, it's $520,000 to fix the Stevenson Road Covered Bridge in Green County, Ohio, which was last used in 2003.

[snip]

Fiscal year 2012 is the fourth consecutive year with a trillion-dollar-plus deficit. Total federal debt has surpassed $16 trillion. Federal spending reached $3.6 trillion -- or 22.9 percent as a share of the economy -- in 2012. Despite these frightening figures, which are on track to worsen, Congress continues to expand government.

Even agencies, which many voters mistakenly believe are essential, are obviously so incompetent that they are not worthy of maintaining as they presently operate. Time to find more workable, less costly alternatives.
TSA is growing like Topsy (this year the figure in the budget for TSA is $7.65 billion) and increasingly it is behaving in idiotic ways, absolutely unrelated to sensible security measures. (Why is 9 ounces of a liquid okay onboard only if it is divided into three three-ounce bottles instead of one, for example? Why are 74-year-old passengers exempt from removing their shoes when 73 year olds are not? Why are handicapped persons asked to stand so that the airport owned and operated wheelchairs can be wanded?) This week, we watched a moronic TSA agent terrorizing a wheelchair-bound three-year-old.
We are regularly horrified by TSA's nonsensical rules and the officious, unthinking behavior of its agents. Why not let the airports and airlines handle this? It seems the only way to assure polite, efficient screening and true accountability.
And then there's FEMA, to give another example even low-information voters might recall. It mishandled Hurricane Andrew, the 2004 Southern Florida hurricanes, Hurricane Katrina, the Duma, Arkansas tornadoes, and now, apparently Hurricane Sandy. Isn't it time to concede the notion that the feds have this large a role to play in dealing with disasters is contrary to all evidence?
But instead of offering up some sensible cuts or ceasing to demonize those responsible enough to fight increasing federal programs and spending, our innumerate president offers up yet another grandiose plan to a broke nation. He's doubling down, proposing, even in the face of studies showing limited benefits for our $7 billion Head Start program, expanding pre-kindergarten programs. The Center for American Progress estimates that this initiative will cost an additional $98 billion over 10 years:
"This isn't a liberal or conservative thing," said Kirsten Powers, a Daily Beast columnist and Fox News contributor. "I think everybody wants to help our children do better in school (but) this doesn't seem to be the thing that's doing it."