Democrats and the Special Forces?

Let me point out a few things here before reading this article:

1. The Democrats have been calling our guys killers and now they want to be in charge of them?
2. Special Forces men are a well trained, seasoned bunch. You cannot simply "double" them and think they can will do a good job. As we know, and WE know well, training takes a long time and it takes a special kind of person. We are in the process of making this force larger and the bar has been set so low that it is incredible the types I am going to have to trust my husband's life to.

3. To think that Democrats who do not respect our SF guys want to be in charge of traing more to then go out and put them in worse harms way to prove they are the better by trying to catch a guy that has not been caught by our well-trained and tempered guys yet.

4. The reason we need to have more men in the Special Forces is because the same dems making all the noise are the ones responsible for desimating them in the 90's.

But who will listen to us? The dems care more about making sure illegals can vote than they do making sure our deployed military votes count.

Democrats Pledge to 'Eliminate' Osama

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

Congressional Democrats promise to "eliminate" Osama bin Laden and ensure a "responsible redeployment of U.S. forces" from Iraq in 2006 in an election-year national security policy statement.

In the position paper to be announced Wednesday, Democrats say they will double the number of special forces and add more spies, which they suggest will increase the chances of finding al-Qaida's elusive leader. They do not set a deadline for when all of the 132,000 American troops now in Iraq should be withdrawn.

"We're uniting behind a national security agenda that is tough and smart and will provide the real security George Bush has promised but failed to deliver," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday.

His counterpart in the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the Democrats are offering a new direction — "one that is strong and smart, which understands the challenges America faces in a post 9/11 world, and one that demonstrates that Democrats are the party of real national security."

The latest in a series of party policy statements for 2006, the Democrats' national security platform comes seven months before voters decide who will control the House and Senate and as Democrats seek to cut into the public perception that the Republicans are stronger on national security.

Bush's job approval ratings are in the mid- to high-30s, and Democrats consistently have about a 10-point lead over Republicans when people are asked who they want to see in control of Congress.

With the public skeptical of the Iraq war and Republicans and Democrats alike questioning Bush's war policies, Democrats aim to force Republicans to distance themselves from Bush on Iraq and national security or rubber-stamp what Democrats contend is a failed policy.

"The Democrats are going to take back the security issue," said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Republicans have vowed not to let that happen. They characterized the Democrats' platform as tough election-year talk that isn't backed up by the party's record.

"This is more of the same from the party that opposes this president's effort to keep our country safe," said Tracey Schmitt, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman. "The bottom line is while this president campaigns against the terrorists, Democrats remain focused on campaigning against this president."

Overall, the Democratic position paper attempts to make the case that the Bush administration's "inadequate planning and incompetent policies have failed to make Americas as safe as we should be."

It covers party policy positions on homeland security, the war on terror, the military, Iraq and energy security, but it contains many of the same proposals Democrats have offered over the past year.

The platform also lacks specific details of how Democrats plan to capture bin Laden, the al-Qaida mastermind who has evaded U.S. forces in the more than four years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

For months, House and Senate Democrats have tried to craft a comprehensive position on national security, but they have splintered, primarily over Iraq.

Republicans have sought to use that division to their own political advantage, claiming that Democrats simply attack the president and his fellow Republicans without presenting proposals of their own.

Thank you Gov. Owens

Maybe the Dixie Chicks should listen to this guy.

March 14, 2006

Classroom Brainwashing

Thomas Sowell

Governor Bill Owens of Colorado has cut through the cant about "free speech" and come to the defense of a 16-year-old high school student who tape-recorded his geography teacher using class time to rant against President Bush and compare him to Hitler.

The teacher's lawyer talks about First Amendment rights to free speech but free speech has never meant speech free of consequences. Even aside from laws against libel or extortion, you can insult your boss or your spouse only at your own risk.

Unfortunately, there is much confusion about both free speech and academic freedom. At too many schools and colleges across the country, teachers feel free to use a captive audience to vent their politics when they are supposed to be teaching geography or math or other subjects.

While the public occasionally hears about weird rantings by some teacher or professor, what seldom gets any media attention is the far more pervasive classroom brainwashing by people whose views may not be so extreme, but are no less irrelevant to what they are being paid to teach. Some say teachers should give "both sides" -- but they should give neither side if it is off the subject.

Academic freedom is the freedom to do academic things -- teach chemistry or accounting the way you think chemistry or accounting should be taught. It is also freedom to engage in the political activities of other citizens -- on their own time, outside the classroom -- without being fired.

Nowhere else do people think that it is OK to engage in politics instead of doing the job for which they are being paid. When you hire a plumber to fix a leak, you don't want to find your home being flooded while he whiles away the hours talking about Congressional elections or foreign policy.

It doesn't matter whether his political opinions are good, bad, or indifferent if he is being paid to do a different job.

Only among "educators" is there such confusion that merely exposing what they are doing behind the backs of parents and taxpayers is regarded as a violation of their rights. Tenure is apparently supposed to confer carte blanche.

The Colorado geography teacher is not unique. A professor at UCLA wrote an indignant article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, denouncing organized efforts of students to record lectures of professors who impose their politics in class instead of teaching the subject they were hired to teach.

All across the country, from the elementary schools to the universities, students report being propagandized. That the propaganda is almost invariably from the political left is secondary. The fact that it is political propaganda instead of the subject matter of the class is what is crucial.

The lopsided imbalance among college professors in their political parties is a symptom of the problem, rather than the fundamental problem itself.

If physicists taught physics and economists taught economics, what they did on their own time politically would be no more relevant than whether they go swimming or sky diving on their days off. But politics is intruded, not only into the classroom, but into hiring decisions as well.

Even top scholars who are conservatives are unlikely to be hired by many colleges and universities. Similarly with people training to become public school teachers. Some in schools of education have said that, to be qualified, you have to see teaching as a means of social change -- meaning change in a leftward direction.

Such attitudes lead to lopsided politics among professors. At Stanford University, for example, the faculty includes 275 registered Democrats and 36 registered Republicans.

Such ratios are not uncommon at other universities -- despite all the rhetoric about "diversity." Only physical diversity seems to matter.

Inbred ideological narrowness shows up, not only in hiring and teaching, but also in restrictive campus speech codes for students, created by the very academics who complain loudly when their own "free speech" is challenged.

So long as voters, taxpayers, university trustees, and parents tolerate all this, so long it will continue.

Homeschool Reason #137

Mean Girls Gone Really Bad

Violence Is On the Rise Among High School Girls

March 11, 2006 — - Girls have been stereotyped as catty and occasionally mean, but that no longer seems to be all: A growing number of teenage girls seem to be engaging in more extreme not-so-nice behavior, including violence.

Teenage boys used to be the typical troublemakers, but statistics, and legal and school officials suggest young girls are narrowing the gap -- with disturbing consequences.

Girls Gone Nasty

In one suburban Chicago high school, the annual "Powder Puff Derby" between senior and junior high school girls turned into dangerous hazing incident -- producing some disturbing video that made the national news.

Raisa Lane, now a senior, experienced that sort of aggression firsthand at her Seattle high school when she was a sophomore and suffered a broken nose and bruises at the hands of a female schoolmate.

"The girl that I was being harassed by followed me out of the classroom and pushed me down the stairs, and then proceeded to hit me," Lane said.

The girl had been threatening Lane for months, but neither Lane nor her mother took it seriously.

"I never imagined this happening with my daughter in a million years," Lorrie Lane said. "The things that they do used to only be for the guys. Now the girls do it."

Statistics seem to prove her right. Nationwide, arrests for aggravated assault by girls rose by 68 percent from 1987 to 2003.

"The school violence cases that we see here," said Charles Lind, senior deputy prosecutor in King County, Wash., "about one out of every five involves a young woman instead of a young man. And those cases predominantly involve assaults and weapons possession in school."

No Longer Just Sweet

In his book, "See Jane Hit," Dr. James Garbarino said cultural changes in entertainment and sports have stripped away girls' inhibitions.

"You used to be able to say to girls, 'Don't hit,' and have the culture back that up," he said. "Now that is no longer true."

Girls no longer seem to worry if they're being "like the boys."

"Sports can and does increase the risk of aggression, and aggression spilling off the field," he said.

It's not just sports. Entertainment also is laced with violence by women.

"In movies, we're seeing very aggressive and sexy young women take on the world with knives and guns and bombs and karate and fists," Garbarino said, "so a girl gets the message you can be violent and a good guy."

The more aggressive behavior among girls isn't limited to any one community.

"There's no stigma attached to young women involved in violence in schools," Lind said. "It crosses racial lines, seems to cross all kinds of demographics, including economic lines."

For Lane, the consequence of such violence has been long-lasting.

"I think that her spirit was broken," her mother said. "And I think it will take a long time to get that spirit back, in a lot of ways."

a little more on reason #134

Homeschool reason #134 was posted on 2/2. Here are reports as to what has happened since. One thing you have to keep in mind is that he is a GEOGRAPHY teacher. Americans continually embarrass themselves with our lack of education about our own country, never mind the world. Maybe he should work a little more in his own subject.


As reported by 9News.com
High school teacher's comments investigated by district
Marissa Pasquet Web Producer
3/1/2006 4:34 PM MST - Updated: 3/2/2006 7:09 AM MST

AURORA - A 16-year-old boy at Overland High School doesn't want to hear what he calls his teacher's left-wing political rants.

Sean Allen frequently recorded his teachers to back up his notes. Allen recorded Jay Bennish, his 10th grade World Geography teacher, making comments about President Bush's State of the Union Address.

Allen's father claims the comments made in the recording are biased and inappropriate for a geography class.

"I'm not saying Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they're not. OK? But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use," says Bennish in his critique of U.S. economic and foreign policy.

Towards the end of the class, Bennish goes on to say, "I'm not in anyway implying that you should agree with me, I don't even know if I'm necessarily taking a position. But what I'm trying to get you to do is to think about these issues more in depth and not to just take things from the surface."

The Cherry Creek School District is conducting a thorough investigation of the complaint from the Overland High School parent and student concerning comments.

The school district says at first glance it does appear the teacher acted inappropriately at the very least.

A spokesperson for the Cherry Creek School District said they have placed Bennish on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. This is not a disciplinary action; the school district wants to remove him while they sort through the rest of the investigation.

The Cherry Creek School District expects to finish the investigation by the end of the week.

More from the:

Rocky Mountain News

Teacher on leave after comments

District cites policy requiring balanced views in classroom

By Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News
March 2, 2006

An Overland High School geography teacher was put on leave Wednesday while Cherry Creek Schools investigates whether he violated district policy that requires balanced viewpoints in the classroom.

Jay Bennish, who teaches 10th grade world geography, is being investigated for making biased, anti-President Bush comments in class during a discussion of the State of the Union speech last month.

"These are serious allegations and we're very concerned about it," said Tustin Amole, spokeswoman for Cherry Creek Schools. "This does not reflect the type of teaching that we want to see in Cherry Creek school district."

Bennish could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

On Feb. 1, Bennish, who has been at Overland High School since the fall of 2000, had a discussion in his class about the State of the Union address.

Sean Allen, a student in the class, taped the discussion, in which Bennish made a number of unfavorable comments about Bush that upset Allen's father.

"He said that some people may compare (Bush) to Hitler," Amole said.

The school district did not learn about Bennish's lecture until last Wednesday, when it received an e-mail about it from an out-of-state person who had seen an online column on it written by Walter Williams on www.townhall.com, Amole said. That same day, Allen's father also called the principal of Overland High School to complain about the teacher, and the complaint was forwarded to the district, which began its investigation.

"After listening to the tape, it's evident the comments in the class were inappropriate," Amole said. "There were not adequate opportunities for opposing points of view."

Allen's father apparently gave a copy of the taped discussion to KOA radio host Mike Rosen, who did a show on the subject Wednesday.

Since then, a number of parents have called the school about Bennish's remarks, both in support and in opposition.

Amole said that Bennish told school officials he had received threats as a result of the controversy.

Amole said that the ensuing brouhaha over Bennish's lecture has become disruptive to the school, which led to Bennish's being put on leave Wednesday.

"We felt it was better for all concerned if he was out of class," she said. "This is not a punishment at this point."

In the meantime, the district is investigating whether Bennish violated its policy on teaching about controversial and sensitive subjects, and has reminded teachers about the policy. "We do want teachers to express their opinions, but to put that in context and to provide opposing points of view," Amole said. "All discussion must be fair and balanced."

District officials have been talking to Bennish and his students as part of the investigation.

"We want to find out all the facts, what other students have to say about it, whether there have been other incidents," Amole said.

Amole said the district hopes to complete its investigation of Bennish this week.

Apparently, this is not the first time he has been in hot water over comments made in class, according to Amole.

A few years ago, another student complained about remarks Bennish made in class. In that case, Bennish met with the parent and the school principal, and the issue was resolved without district intervention.

Amole could not provide details Wednesday of the earlier incident, but said the district encourages students and parents to voice their concerns.