Marquette University's decision to paint over mural of convicted cop killer draws protests

IDIOTS

More than 60 faculty and staff members at Marquette University are circulating an online petition against their own school for taking down a mural featuring convicted cop killer and the FBI’s first female most wanted terrorist, Joanne Deborah Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur.
Shakur was part of a revolutionary extremist organization called the “Black Liberation Army.” In 1973, she shot and killed a New Jersey State Trooper at point-blank range, according to the FBI. Then she escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba, where she is still believed to be living.
The mural showed Shakur’s face with two quotes on a wall inside the Catholic institution’s “Gender and Sexuality Resource Center,” which provides “a safe and welcoming space dedicated to dialogue, growth, and empowerment around gender, sex, and sexuality,” as noted on its Facebook page.
Some faculty members are also upset because Susannah Barlow, the GSRC’s director at the time the painting went up, no longer works for the school. The university’s communications director would not specify if she was fired or resigned.
There is a petition circulating online saying Bartlow’s “relief from her position at this university greatly hinders the Marquette student body and the institution as a whole.”
The mural was originally painted, at least in part, by Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority members and went up in March. One of the quotes read, “No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes if they know that that knowledge with help set you free.”
Leona Dotson, international communications chairperson of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., confirmed in a statement the group did contribute to painting the mural, along with other university staff and students. “Unfortunately, Ms. Shakur’s entire history and background was not fully researched. If that process had occurred, she would not have been featured in the mural,” Dotson said.
When the university discovered there was a convicted cop-killer on the wall, they painted over it in May. A statement by the university said, “this is extremely disappointing as the mural does not reflect the Guiding Values of Marquette University.”
Stephen Franzoi, Professor Emeritus at Marquette’s Psychology Department, authored the petition and wrote the latest events “demand a response,” saying the university adopted “the narrative of pure vilification” by erasing the image.
“Did the administration consider the chilling impact of the erasure of the image within the context of present conversations about police brutality and black life?” the petition reads. “Were the students consulted? Were they offered an opportunity to engage?”
Franzoi told Foxnews.com he was not available for comment.
The university responded to the petition in a statement published online: “We cannot in good conscience, as a Catholic, Jesuit institution, allow for a convicted murderer and fugitive to be held up as a model for our students…The administration welcomes discussion on campus about controversial issues. The discussion about the mural should have taken place before it was created, not afterwards.”
John McAdams, associate professor of political science at Marquette University, told Foxnews.com the staff members who signed the petition are “pushing Marquette to be less and less a Catholic university, or more a citadel of secular political correctness.”
The university is now working with its advisory board to hire a new director in the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center to “build off of the current programs and continue this important work. It is essential to have a place where students can have a safe environment to explore the issues of gender and sexuality,” according to the school’s statement.

IG: Harassment complaints at State Department nearly triple under Clinton, Kerry

WASHINGTON –  Harassment complaints at the State Department nearly tripled during the years Hillary Clinton and now-Secretary John Kerry have been in charge, a new watchdog report says.
The report, released Thursday, detailed a jump in formal complaints, from 88 in 2011 to 248 in 2014.
“With a continuous increase in harassment inquires each fiscal year, the current staff risks not being able to sustain current work performance levels,” the Office of Inspector General report said.
According to the data, 38 percent of formal complaints involved alleged sex discrimination or reprisals. Forty-three percent of the complaints involved promotions and unfair hiring issues.
It's unclear whether the jump reflects more cases of alleged harassment, or a more robust effort to report them. The Office of Civil Rights attributed the increases to “improved outreach.”
“According to S/OCR, department employees are more educated about harassment strictures and more knowledgeable about the reporting process than in the past,” the report stated.
Despite the spike in harassment cases, there is no mandatory training program in place. “A significant increase in reported harassment inquiries in the Department of State over the past few fiscal years supports the need for mandatory harassment training for Department of State employees,” the report said.
In 2013, Kerry issued a statement on discriminatory and sexual harassment to employees and emphasized his commitment to prevent and eliminate discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace.
“Mandatory training for department employees would strengthen this message and ensure that all employees are aware of their responsibilities and rights,” the report stated.
State Department spokesman John Kirby defended his boss on Thursday, and said there is “nothing that Secretary Kerry takes more seriously than making sure that everybody here at the State Department is treated with dignity and respect, and he has zero tolerance for harassment of any kind, sexual or otherwise,” the Washington Times reported.
Kirby, though, stopped short of saying whether the State Department would create a mandatory harassment training program as recommended in the report.
“I’m not going to get ahead of decisions that the secretary will or won’t make about the recommendations,” he said.

WikiLeaks publishes documents revealing Saudi intrigue, unpaid limo bills

ISTANBUL –  At the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, diplomats talked about airing the grievances of disenchanted local youth using Facebook and Twitter. At the embassy in Khartoum, they reported anxiously on Iran's military aid to Sudan.
Meanwhile, the Saudi mission in Geneva got stuck dealing with a multi-million dollar limo bill racked up by a Saudi princess and her entourage.
The incidents are mentioned in diplomatic documents published Friday by WikiLeaks, only the first batch of what the transparency group says will be a much larger release. But they've already provided an unusual level of insight into day-to-day Saudi diplomacy — giving a snapshot of the lavish spending habits of senior royals and the political intrigue percolating across the Middle East.
WikiLeaks so far has published roughly 60,000 documents, of which The Associated Press only has been able to authenticate a handful. But the organization has a long track record of hosting large leaks of government material and in a statement released late Saturday the Saudi government acknowledged its diplomatic servers had been penetrated ahead of the mass disclosure.
Many of the documents reviewed by the AP appear aimed at tracking Iranian activity across the region or undermining Tehran's interests. An undated memo apparently sent from the Saudi Embassy in Tehran made note of what it called the "frustration of the Iranian citizen and his strong desire for regime change" and suggested ways to publicly expose Iran's social grievances through "the Internet, social media like Facebook and Twitter." It also suggests "hosting opposition figures overseas, coordinating with them and encouraging them to use galleries to show pictures of torture carried by the Iranian regime against people."
Saudis also kept a watchful eye on Iran's friends, real or perceived. One 2012 memo warned that Iran was getting "flirting American messages" suggesting that the U.S. had no objections to a peaceful Iranian nuclear program so long as it had guarantees, "possibly Russian ones."
Another memo, dated to 2012, accuses the United Arab Emirates of helping Russia and Iran circumvent international sanctions. A third memo — marked "top secret" — alleges that Iranian fighter jets bombed South Sudanese forces during a 2012 standoff over the oil-rich area of Heglig.
The Iranian Embassy in London did not immediately answer a request for comment Saturday.
There are many such hard-to-confirm stories in the Saudi documents.
One of the most inflammatory memos carries the claim that Gulf countries were prepared to pay $10 billion to secure the freedom of deposed Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The memo, written on a letterhead bearing only a single palm tree and crossed blades above the words "top secret," quotes an unnamed Egyptian official as saying that the Muslim Brotherhood would agree to release Mubarak in exchange for the cash "since the Egyptian people will not benefit from his imprisonment."
Although the document is undated, the political situation it describes suggests it was drafted in 2012, when the Brotherhood appeared poised to take power. Senior Brotherhood official Mohammed Morsi served as Egypt's first freely elected president from June 2012 to July 2013 before being ousted by the military.
It's not clear if the idea of paying the Brotherhood to secure Mubarak's release ever coalesced into a firm offer. A handwritten note at the top left of the document says the ransom "is not a good idea."
"Even if it is paid the Muslim Brotherhood will not be able to do anything regarding releasing Mubarak," the note's unknown author writes. "It seems there are no alternatives for the president but to enter prison."
Still, the memo's existence adds credence to the claim made in 2012 by senior Brotherhood leader Khairat el-Shater that Saudi Arabia had offered billions of dollars in return for Mubarak's freedom — something Saudi officials hotly denied at the time.
Amid all the intrigue are other insights into Saudi attitudes abroad — especially their taste for luxury.
The AP found a 2009 invoice for an unpaid limousine bill racked up by Princess Maha Al Ibrahim, whom Saudi media identify as the wife of senior Saudi royal Abdul-Rahman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The invoice, from Geneva-based Golden Limousine Services and addressed to the Saudi mission there, says the princess skipped town after failing to paying a first installment of 1.5 million Swiss francs ($1.4 million at the time) owed to the company and her hotel. When the bill was brought to her attention, "she declared that the amount was too high" and asked diplomats to handle the negotiations over the payment.
Louis Roulet, the administrator of the limousine service, confirmed the document's authenticity when reached by the AP and said he remembers the incident well. The total bill was "far more" than 1.5 million Swiss francs, he said, adding that it was eventually paid in full.
"We don't work with this family anymore, for the obvious reasons," Roulet said.
Still, the Algerian-born Roulet was unfazed, saying these kinds of disputes were typical of the Arab customers he dealt with.

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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.”
- Michele Thornton, mother of third-grader

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.
“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)

“Untest afternoon will take place Monday, June 15 beginning at 12:30 pm for children in grades 3-8 who participated in both PARCC assessments," it read. "Please have your child wear sneakers.”
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.

Thornton said the party snub followed others indignities. After sitting out the test, she was pulled out of class for a "meet and eat" with the school counselor/anti bullying coordinator, who drilled her with questions about why she didn’t take the exam.
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.

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Former Happy Hearts Fund Executive Director Sue Veres Royal (Sue Veres Royal)

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.'
- Sue Veres Royal

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.
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.”