Update on the Lawsuit to Stop the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) from Taking Away Local Control

Judge Grillo’s tentative ruling is against local autonomy, however, the Judge is in possession of the information he requested at the hearing and has not yet made a final ruling. Anticipation builds as to what the Superior Court will do… On Fri­day Novem­ber 7, Alame­da Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Eve­lio Gril­lo issued a ten­ta­tive rul­ing deny­ing […]

Cradle Snatchers!

Obama launches $1 billion early education plan Com­men­tary by Mary Thomp­son, 3D Research Group Here we go… offi­cial full throt­tle for the “ear­ly learn­ing” agen­da, uni­ver­sal “preschool,” womb to tomb train­ing ( called edu­ca­tion). All the buzz words and play­ers are on stage: Oba­ma, Dun­can, and oth­er “stooges” includ­ing a “local sher­iff from Ohio.” Read […]

Actually, Raising Beef Is Good for the Planet

Despite envi­ron­men­tal­ists’ wor­ries, cat­tle don’t guz­zle water or cause hunger—and can help fight cli­mate change Peo­ple who advo­cate eat­ing less beef often argue that pro­duc­ing it hurts the envi­ron­ment. Cat­tle, we are told, have an out­size eco­log­i­cal foot­print: They guz­zle water, tram­ple plants and soils, and con­sume pre­cious grains that should be nour­ish­ing hun­gry humans. […]

Parental Rights in Public School: Quickly Disappearing.

Parental Rights in Pub­lic School: Quick­ly Disappearing. Graph­ic comes from a Wal­ton Coun­ty (GA) School Dis­trict pow­er point dis­cussing truancy, Par­ents are increas­ing­ly con­cerned that pub­lic school admin­is­tra­tors are super­sed­ing the legal author­i­ty par­ents have in their child’s life. Mis­souri par­ents were sur­prised to learn that their direc­tives for their chil­dren not to use com­put­ers […]

Fresh attacks on Common Core ahead after GOP wave

New Repub­li­can majori­ties in state leg­is­la­tures across the coun­try are prepar­ing to launch a fresh assault on Com­mon Core edu­ca­tion stan­dards after sweep­ing to pow­er in November’s midterm elections. Strate­gists involved in the state-by-state fight against the nation­al K‑12 math and read­ing bench­marks S, rather than sin­gle bills aimed at dis­man­tling the whole pro­gram all […]

North Carolina: Pitts Public School Parents Apoplectic Over Propaganda, Proselytizing for Islam in Class

Pamela Geller More par­ents are wak­ing up to the twist­ed pro­pa­gan­da being taught in pub­lic schools across the coun­try. Our orga­ni­za­tion, AFDI and SIOA, is work­ing with indi­vid­ual par­ents and small groups of par­ents to remove these dis­hon­est lessons that are pros­e­ly­tiz­ing for Islam to our chil­dren and intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­arm­ing them about the gravest threat […]

Police/DHS can spy on your medical & financial records

The Health Insur­ance Porta­bil­i­ty & Account­abil­i­ty Act (HIPPA) is the pri­ma­ry fed­er­al law that address­es health records. The HIPAA pri­va­cy rules have spe­cial excep­tions for law enforce­ment and nation­al secu­ri­ty investigations. The law enforce­ment pro­vi­sion is very broad. It cov­ers all the usu­al police pro­ce­dures, includ­ing sub­poe­nas. Those don’t require a judge’s advance per­mis­sion, and […]

Congress authorizes federal government to collect and use all private communications by U.S. citizens

A House Repub­li­can is crit­i­ciz­ing a piece of leg­is­la­tion just passed by Con­gress as gross­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because it essen­tial­ly gives the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and local law enforce­ment “unlim­it­ed access to the com­mu­ni­ca­tions of every American.” As report­ed by InfoWars.com, Rep. Justin Amash of Wis­con­sin said he found a pas­sage in the Intel­li­gence Autho­riza­tion Act for […]

It Doesn’t Matter Who Does the Lobbying: Trade Agreements Aren’t the Place for Internet Regulations

The Asso­ci­at­ed Whistle­blow­ing Press released por­tions of draft text pro­posed by the Unit­ed States for the Trade in Ser­vices Agree­ment (TISA) this week, reveal­ing some alarm­ing pro­vi­sions that indi­cate how tech com­pa­nies have been involved in influ­enc­ing a secret inter­na­tion­al deal. The lan­guage of the leaked treaty shows pro­vi­sions that could impact pri­va­cy online, and […]

New Jersey 10-year-old explains why Common Core tests are ‘nonsense’

MONTCLAIR, N.J. – A New Jer­sey 10-year-old is get­ting a lot of atten­tion after deliv­er­ing a speech to her local school board about the rea­sons she thinks Com­mon Core test­ing is “non­sense.” Eliz­a­beth Blaine, whose moth­er Sarah Blaine is for­mer teacher and attor­ney who writes an edu­ca­tion blog, attend­ed the Mont­clair School Board meet­ing Mon­day […]

Bureaucrat Man saves the day again

You may not have real­ized it, but you are reg­u­lar­ly being swin­dled by your wash­ing machine. That’s right. Accord­ing to Bureau­crat Man, by using too much ener­gy your wash­ing machine is steal­ing mon­ey from you each month. Of course you already have the option to buy a more ener­gy effi­cient wash­ing machine to save your­self mon­ey. […]

Advocates seek grizzly re-introductions

An advo­ca­cy group has peti­tioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice to rein­tro­duce griz­zly bears into the Sel­way-Bit­ter­root area of Ida­ho and Montana. The Cen­ter for Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty said Thurs­day that it hopes to revive a stalled recov­ery plan for the ani­mals that was final­ized in 2000. The group says hav­ing bears in the Sel­way-Bit­ter­root would […]

Seven Reasons Why Plan Bay Area is Illegal & Bad Policy for California

Tim­o­thy V. Kassouni Plan Bay Area is a mon­u­men­tal land use doc­u­ment pre­pared by the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Trans­porta­tion Com­mis­sion (MTC), and the Asso­ci­a­tion of Bay Area Gov­ern­ments (ABAG), for the osten­si­ble pur­pose of reduc­ing green­house gas emis­sions by 15 per­cent by the year 2035, as required by for­mer Gov­er­nor Schwarzenegger’s Sen­ate Bill 375. Kas­souni Law is cur­rent­ly lit­i­gat­ing […]

Facebook Atlas: Giving Advertisers Invasive Maps of Your Life

Kather­ine Albrecht (l),  Liz McIntyre ® Face­book Atlas: Giv­ing Adver­tis­ers Inva­sive Maps of Your Life   Face­book has qui­et­ly intro­duced a new ser­vice for adver­tis­ers called “Face­book Atlas,” and we’re giv­ing it a “thumbs down” because it’s not good for your privacy. Like an atlas, it offers a col­lec­tion of maps, but these maps show the where­abouts […]

EFF in Court to Argue NSA Data Collection from Internet Backbone Is Unconstitutional

First Pub­lic Court Chal­lenge to “Upstream” Inter­net Spying Oak­land — The Elec­tron­ic Fron­tier Foun­da­tion (EFF) will argue on Fri­day before a fed­er­al court that the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency (NSA) is vio­lat­ing the Fourth Amend­ment by copy­ing and search­ing data that it col­lects by tap­ping into the Inter­net back­bone. The hear­ing on a motion for par­tial […]

Buffett’s Smart-Grid Idea Takes Over Your Washing Machine

(Bloomberg) — Vin­cent Thorn­ley, head of Siemens AG’s U.K. smart-grid research, talks about the role of smart grids in the future of ener­gy where a net­work can run house­hold appli­ances when pow­er is abun­dant and cheap. He spoke with Bloomberg’s Alex Webb in New­cas­tle, Eng­land. (Source: Bloomberg) FA Note: The Smart Grid is pro­mot­ed as […]

BREAKING: United Nations Makes Major Move… This Is THEFT

FA Note:  The brouha­ha about cli­mate change has ALWAYS been about wealth redis­tri­b­u­tion: THEFT. Unit­ed Nations cli­mate nego­tia­tors found them­selves at an impasse dur­ing a ten-day con­fer­ence in Lima, Peru this month when the world’s sec­ond-largest econ­o­my — the Unit­ed States — refused to sub­si­dize the car­bon diox­ide emis­sion reduc­tions of the world’s largest econ­o­my — China. […]

Drakes Bay oyster farm closes doors after long wilderness struggle

Frank DuBois, past NM Sec. of Agri­cul­ture, for­mer leg­isla­tive assis­tant to a U.S. Sen­a­tor, and a Deputy Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Interior. It’s the end of the line for Drake’s Bay Oys­ter Co. On Dec. 31, after a long bat­tle with the Nation­al Park Ser­vice, the Cal­i­for­nia Coastal Com­mis­sion, the Depart­ment of the Inte­ri­or and wilder­ness […]

A Global Tax? UN Debates Requiring Members to Report ‘GHG’ Emissions

Cathie Adams, Texas Eagle Forum President Such data is a pre­lude to imple­ment­ing a mas­sive redis­tri­b­u­tion of glob­al wealth. Will the Unit­ed Nations wield its unproven claim that green­house gas emis­sions cause cli­mate change to require each of its 193 mem­ber nations to mea­sure and report GHG emis­sions — a pre­req­ui­site for a glob­al car­bon tax? […]

DEVELOPING A WINNING STRATEGY

Rosa Koire, Democ­rats Against UN Agen­da 21 As I trav­el around the coun­try I’m asked the same ques­tion:  What can we do—is there a chance of winning? I’m asked this ques­tion by women and men, by Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats, by Lib­er­tar­i­ans and Tea Par­ty mem­bers, by young and old, by rur­al and urban res­i­dents.  My answer […]

Sen. Sessions: ‘Super-Elites in Washington and Wall Street Dream of World Without Borders’

FA Sum­ma­ry: Agen­da 21 seeks the abo­li­tion of bor­ders and the eco­nom­ic equal­iza­tion of peo­ple across the world. After twen­ty years of imple­men­ta­tion the plan is working! Sen. Jeff Ses­sions, R‑AL In a speech deliv­ered on the Sen­ate floor Fri­day as the Sen­ate was debat­ing a 1,603-page gov­ern­ment fund­ing bill that will per­mit Pres­i­dent Oba­ma […]

Anita Hoge’s Call to Activism

What Cit­i­zens Can Do http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-greatest-christmas-present-to.html Ani­ta Hoge’s ground­break­ing arti­cle, “The Great­est Christ­mas Present to Amer­i­ca 2014,” pub­lished yes­ter­day on abc­sof­dumb­down is now also post­ed on NewsWith­Views. Ani­ta has now fol­lowed up with some impor­tant activism. She advises: My arti­cle gives a link for every state to look up their Nation­al Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics (NCES) grant […]

WA parents get custody of babies taken after unassisted births

(Pho­to: KING5 Staff) BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Three Belling­ham chil­dren tak­en from their par­ents by CPS are now home, but they are still under state protection. Eri­ca May Carey and Cleave Ren­go appeared in court on Fri­day. With­in an hour after the judge’s rul­ing, they picked up their 1‑year-old son and 8‑week-old twins from the Belling­ham CPS […]

Prof: ‘Elf on the Shelf’ conditions kids to accept surveillance state

TORONTO – Could there be some­thing more sin­is­ter behind the lit­tle elf sit­ting on the shelf who returns to the North Pole each night? Yes, says Lau­ra Pin­to, a dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ontario Insti­tute of Technology. She recent­ly pub­lished a paper titled “Who’s the Boss” on the doll, say­ing the idea of […]