Conservative Blogger
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Mom says third-grade daughter banned from school party for Common Core opt-out
A New Jersey mom says her third-grade daughter was “bullied” by school officials - left out of an end-of-year cupcake and juice box party - because she opted out of the state's version of Common Core testing.
Michele Thornton, of Oldmans Township, said school officials would not let 9-year-old Cassidy participate in Monday's party, telling her the bash was only for students who took the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exams. Thornton feels especially bad because it was she who told the girl not to take the controversial test, which critics say is part of a plan by Washington to nationalize school curriculums.
“She shouldn’t be punished for something I did,” Thornton tells Foxnews.com. “She’s not a bad kid. It’s bullying. I’m not 9, they can’t bully me.”
“She shouldn’t be punished for something I did.”Thornton said she told the school in November, when the PARCC test was being administered in the Garden State, that she did not want her daughter to take it.
- Michele Thornton, mother of third-grader
“They pressured me to make her take it,” she said. “I told them that it was against the law to force my daughter to participate.”
Thornton was shocked last week when Cassidy brought home the school’s weekly newsletter, which mentioned an upcoming event.
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'Untest
Afternoon' took place on the school grounds on Monday, but Cassidy was
told to spend the afternoon in the library, said her mother, who picked
her up instead. (Courtesy of Michele Thornton)
Thornton went to speak with officials at the school on Friday.
“They weren't sure where they were going to put my daughter, so I told them that I would just pick her up early from school," she said. "When I went in to pick her up there were two gaming trucks, an outdoor play area (soccer and volleyball), cupcakes, juice boxes, and buckets full of prizes for the kids.
“She left school crying,” the mom said.
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Thornton first learned of her daughter being excluded from the event in a school newsletter sent home with students last week.
When Thornton complained, she said the school agreed to launch an investigation, which it wrapped up with an e-mail she received on Friday.
“Mr. and Mrs. Thornton,” reads the email provided to FoxNews.com. “The HIB [harassment, intimidation, and bullying] investigation has been completed. Findings indicate that harassment, intimidation and bullying did not occur.”
Officials for the Oldmans Township School District did not return requests for comment.
“The federal government's testing mandates have driven school administrators to absurd lengths in order to comply,” Glyn Wright, executive director of the Eagle Forum, told FoxNews.com. “We all agree that parental involvement is key to a child's success, yet here we see some children punished and others rewarded because of the choices made by parents in exercising their fundamental right to direct their child's education.”
Carolee Adams, president of the Eagle Forum’s New Jersey chapter, said, the move by the school administration in Oldmans Township set an ugly new precedent.
“Refusals [students who refuse testing and surveys] were never treated like this before,” Adams said. “PARCC has made this a new low. It’s unconscionable and it’s absolutely bullying.
“If that would have happened to my child, I would have just brought them to the Jersey Shore for the day.”
Company that got millions from US taxpayers now profits Chinese owners
The good news is electric car battery maker A123 Systems is finally on track to turn a profit.
The bad news is taxpayers don't figure to see any of the $133 million the federal government spent and the estimated $141 million in tax credits and subsidies secured from Michigan to help the company take off in 2009, only to see A123 Systems crash, declare bankruptcy in 2012 and then get purchased by a privately held Chinese conglomerate.
"In the case of A123, they created some jobs and a year or two later those jobs were gone, so taxpayers weren't getting that money back," said Jarret Skorup, a policy analyst at Michigan's Mackinac Center, a free-market think tank.
Earlier this month, CEO Jason Forcier announced that A123 Systems' parent company, the China-based Wanxiang Group, will spend $200 million to double the capacity of three lithium-ion battery plants, including two in suburban Detroit.
Forcier told Crain's Detroit Business that A123 Systems is expected to generate $300 million in revenue this year and plans to double that amount by 2018. The company, Forcier said, will turn a profit for the first time in its history in 2015.
"The strength of A123 has never been greater and we are honored to be expanding our existing customer relationships and establishing new ones at the same time," Forcier said in a company news release.
Huckabee: Gay Marriage Could Criminalize Christianity
The legalization of same-sex marriage would be a “very dangerous place” for America to go and could lead to civil disobedience, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee warns.
I have received an exclusive copy of a letter the Republican presidential candidate is sending to conservative leaders and pro-family activists around the nation.
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In that letter, which you can read here, he vows to “fight to defend religious liberty at all costs.”
“I refuse to sit silently as politically driven interest groups threaten the foundation of religious liberty, criminalize Christianity, and demand that Americans abandon Biblical principles of natural marriage,” Huckabee wrote.
Huckabee also had a stern message for his fellow Republican contenders – urging them to join the fight to defend the Constitution.
“If you lack the backbone to reject judicial tyranny and fight for religious liberty, you have no business serving our nation as President of the United States,” he wrote.
Huckabee has mobilized an impressive group of conservative and religious leaders – many of whom signed his letter – including National Religious Broadcasters President Jerry Johnson, Dr. James Dobson, Tim and Donald Wildmon of American Family Association, Steve Strang of Charisma Media and Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel.
“This is not just about marriage,” Huckabee told me in a telephone interview. “This is about whether or not a government can begin to put limitations on the conscious and convictions of people who have faith.”
Penny Nance, the president of Concerned Women for America, signed Huckabee’s letter. She said it’s “absolutely essential for Christians to stand and be counted.
“We strongly believe people of faith have to step forward and make a commitment,” she told me. “We fear God more than we fear man and I think that’s what Governor Huckabee is trying to say.”
Nance predicted that the legalization of gay marriage would lead to greater attacks on Christian Americans.
“We will see people of faith lose their jobs, pastors will be sued, churches will lose their tax exempt status,” she said. “Now is the time for us to speak up. We must obey God. We are not willing to bend one knee to man.”
That was the message sent earlier this week by the Southern Baptist Convention. Members passed a resolution opposing gay marriage and President Ronnie Floyd delivered a fiery declaration.
“The Supreme Court of the United States is not the final authority nor is the culture itself,” said the elected leader of the nation’s largest non-Catholic denomination. “The Bible is God’s final authority about marriage and on this book we stand.”
Huckabee said he was proud of Floyd’s stand and called his comments bold.
“When an individual is faced with a decision of bowing to Caesar or bowing his knee to God – he has to take his stand and get on his knees to God instead of Caesar,” Huckabee told me. “This is where we are rapidly heading.”
A direction that a growing number of Christians believe will lead them to engage in acts of civil disobedience.
“That does mean civil disobedience,” Huckabee told me. “It means we are obedient to a power that is not only higher than the current government, but a power that was the basis of our government.”
Huckabee said taking a stand comes with a price. He said some Christians might lose their jobs or their businesses or face lawsuits or government investigations.
“People are going to have to begin to be willing to lose things in order to preserve the country and their freedoms,” he said. “When people are told by their government what they can and can’t say, it’s one step away from being told what they can and can’t do. All other liberties begin to erode.”
Huckabee is a modern-day voice crying in the political wilderness. Religious liberty is under attack but many politicians have remained silent – fearful of the Republican Party’s powerful donor class.
It is refreshing to see a man practice what he preaches – a man willing to speak the truth regardless of the consequences.
Americans should pay heed to what Huckabee says. If generations of long-cherished traditions and convictions can be pushed aside by a small but vocal minority – then religious liberty will indeed be lost. And with it – the foundation of all our freedoms.
Ex-charity exec who helped expose $500G Clinton Foundation donation faces legal threats
EXCLUSIVE: A former charity executive who helped expose a questionable $500,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation is now being threatened by her old bosses with a lawsuit seeking tens of thousands of dollars, FoxNews.com has learned.
Sue Veres Royal, former executive director at the Happy Hearts Fund, was initially quoted in a May 29 New York Times article that said the charity lured Bill Clinton to a 2014 gala only after offering a $500,000 donation to The Clinton Foundation. His office previously had turned down the charity's invitations, but this time he accepted; the accompanying donation amounted to almost a quarter of the gala's net proceeds.
Veres Royal, who spoke to FoxNews.com about the fallout from that report, is now embroiled in a legal battle with the charity. She filed a formal complaint June 4 with the New York attorney general's Charities Bureau, as the charity itself threatened her with legal action for allegedly breaking her confidentiality agreement.
The Times report gave several behind-the-scenes details, including that founder Petra Nemcova explicitly told Veres Royal to offer the $500,000 "honorarium."
The Happy Hearts Fund’s legal team fired off a cease-and-desist order to Veres Royal the same day the Times report was published. The charity claimed she had breached a confidentiality agreement and gave “numerous falsehoods, inaccuracies and disparaging statements” about the organization to the Times. The letter demanded she no longer speak to the media or else they would seek damages.
A Happy Hearts Fund spokesman said they are unable to discuss the situation concerning Veres Royal as they, too, are bound by a confidentiality agreement, but defended the 2014 award to Clinton.
"Because we know the strong impact of working together and because the Happy Hearts Fund and the Clinton Foundation have a shared goal of providing meaningful help to Haiti, we proposed a joint educational project with the Clinton Foundation. Any suggestion that this joint project is some kind of ‘honorarium’ or ‘fee’ is unequivocally false," the spokesman told FoxNews.com in a statement. According to the group, such partnerships have allowed the charity to build 113 schools since 2006 in nine different countries, with more opening this month.
However, Veres Royal said she was appalled not only by the 2014 Clinton donation but by details she had not known before the Times report was published -- most notably that the $500,000, which was supposed to go to causes in the ravaged country of Haiti, still had not been earmarked for any particular project by The Clinton Foundation.
“It’s disgusting to me that this organization is being used in this way,” Veres Royal said. “I have been to Haiti three times. I’ve seen how desperate the need is, and it’s disgusting to me that people are trying to do good while they’re sitting on half-a-million dollars. I think that’s a disservice to those people who have donated the money, and to the people of Haiti.”
The threat of legal action comes as the Happy Hearts Fund tries to limit the damage already caused to the organization's reputation after the revelations. Veres Royal said two conservative-leaning board members already have resigned after finding out about the exorbitant donation which, to Veres Royal’s knowledge, was never voted on by the board.
'It’s disgusting to me that people are trying to do good while they’re sitting on half-a-million dollars.'Veres Royal responded to the Happy Hearts Fund legal demand by claiming she was not in breach of her confidentiality agreement. She says she was not the source of the report, but was merely quoted on what she called a matter of public interest. It was at that point she then filed the formal complaint about HHF’s actions with the New York attorney general.
- Sue Veres Royal
CLICK HERE TO READ THE COMPLAINT.
In the complaint, Veres Royal alleges the gala was used to shore up the rocky political fortunes of Haitian President Michel Martelly, a close ally and friend of Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, who was then dating Nemcova, a Czech model.
Martelly was at that time dealing with a number of corruption allegations, specifically over the location of education funds, Veres Royal said.
The complaint claims that Nemcova, who was an ambassador at-large for Haiti, “specifically instructed Veres Royal to ‘find a reason’” to honor Martelly and then pushed to get Clinton’s staff to agree for Martelly to be honored as well. Consequently, she claims, a “totally concocted” award -- for “Leadership in Education” -- was also presented to Martelly at the Clinton gala.
Bill and Hillary Clinton -- now a Democratic presidential candidate -- have been heavily involved in the reconstruction of Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, though their role in the country’s recovery has come under scrutiny amid accusations of running a pay-to-play operation with Haitian reconstruction.
The Clinton Foundation did not respond to FoxNews.com’s request for comment.
Veres Royal’s complaint also alleges improper financial oversight and gross misrepresentation to the public about fundraising.
After she filed the complaint, HHF sent an email, seen by FoxNews.com, arguing again that Veres Royal was breaching a confidentiality agreement, and that HHF was entitled to over $30,000 in payments Veres Royal received as part of the agreement, as well as unspecified “injunctive relief and monetary damages."
Despite being under fire, and not having an attorney of her own, Veres Royal says she is going to keep pursuing her complaint, and will not back down under the threat of legal action:
“Although it’s been nerve-wracking to me, I feel it’s my ethical responsibility to do so.”
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