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Friday, April 1, 2016

STUPID IN AMERICA: STUDENTS ARE SO BAD, PROFESSOR CAN'T GRADE THEM

Stupid in America: Students Are So Bad, Professor Can’t Grade Them
STUPID IN AMERICA: STUDENTS ARE SO BAD, PROFESSOR CAN'T GRADE THEM
BY SELWYN DUKE
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

What does it say when in two days a teacher exhausts the ink in his red pen? Since a nation cannot be “ignorant and free," as Thomas Jefferson put it, it perhaps means we face a threat graver than the Red Menace.
Apathetic or even hostile students, dumbed-down tests, often incompetent and ideologically driven teachers, Cracker Jack-box degrees, morally toxic curricula, revisionist history, the new math — education has collapsed in America. And one of the sincere educators, wandering amidst the rubble, recently provided a window into this academic apocalypse.   
Eileen F. Toplansky, a social commentator and adjunct English instructor at the college level, laments that a good number of her ex-students were so bad that it’s difficult to even grade their work. She provides many examples of former students definitely not smarter than a fifth grader (the ones on TV, anyway), but opens with this striking unedited submission:
Attached is the actual outline for my ruff raft. Please, account this as credit therefore I'll prove my academic progression as acknowledgment for satisfactory of the course. The presentation shall be captivating with visualization being a current pet owner of a fish too!
Wow, this student is obviously very excited — about what I have no idea.
Professor Toplansky then reports that when “discussing illegal immigration and a concomitant rise in disease, another student writes this indecipherable ‘sentence’”:
The introduction gets a reader's attention by wondering what is the cause of the nice lady starving from times to times and what will the government to about the health benefits services at the end.
Perhaps the cause is that the nice lady received a faux education and had no marketable skills.
Many of Toplansky’s students haven’t even learned basic grammar, punctuation, or even capitalization rules. As she writes, often "‘White House’ is not capitalized, nor is ’American,’ ‘Christian,’ or ‘English.’" Of course, this problem is greatly exacerbated when a generation is immersed in social media in which 140-character, Twitter-esque communication is the norm. Yet its root cause is far more troubling.
The professor also complains of “racial animus,” providing an example of prejudice that makes Archie Bunker appear articulate: "I do believe immigrants are what makes this country great is more of a culture thing I find Americans to be boring in most areas immigrants bring a certain color to an all white canvas so to speak,” one student wrote.
Then there are the excuses for apathy, such as that made by a young man who didn’t read newspapers and proudly rationalized that he wouldn’t open the New York Times because it was owned by “rich people.” (There are good reasons to avoid the Times — that’s not one of them.)  
More troubling still were the emotion-driven, nailed-shut minds. Toplansky mentions one girl totally unmoved by Dr. Thomas Sowell’s explanation of how the minimum wage hurts the poor and by information indicating that McDonald's supports the wage “because it will substitute machinery for labor.” As the professor related, “Denial was in full swing. When I asked her to refute the findings, she merely spluttered and yelled that it is the ‘greed, greed, greed’ of the companies.”   
Of course, this phenomenon is nothing new. As satirist Jonathan Swift observed three centuries ago (I’m paraphrasing), “You cannot reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into.” Yet it certainly has worsened in modern times. Just consider that a 2002 Barna Group study I’ve often cited found that among Americans, “the most common basis for moral decision-making was doing whatever feels right”; moreover, wrote Barna, “More than half of the young adults (52%) and teenagers (54%) base their moral choices on feelings and beneficial outcomes compared to just one-third of adults 36 and older who do so (32%).” Likewise, there was an interesting correlation. The study’s focus was moral relativism, and Barna determined that only 22 percent of adults and six percent of teens believed in moral absolutes; this and other data indicate that relativism is also gaining ground over time.
It’s no surprise that relativism and emotionalism are increasing correspondingly. When people believe in Truth (by definition absolute), they generally strive to use it as their yardstick when making moral decisions. When oblivious to this eternal guide, however, man is left with no more appealing an arbiter than his feelings. After all, they certainly are real — especially to the individual — and without anything transcendent and inerrant to go by, who is to say they’re wrong?
It’s as if we subscribed to “dietary relativism” and thus believed there were essentially no rules governing human nutrition. How could we then differentiate among foods other than by our palate’s preferences? Our credo would become “If it tastes good, eat it.” Similarly, is it any surprise that a characteristic mantra of our relativistic age is “If it feels good, do it”?
And the fact that hard work generally doesn’t feel good — and disciplining kids doesn’t, either — help explain our educational woes. A teacher posting under Toplansky’s article provided his own testimonial, writing about a third grader who “refused to do anything in my class. If I asked students to take out their math books, he would just sit there and do nothing. If I put a book on his desk, he refused to look at it. He would not look at me while I was lecturing.” This never would have happened in ages past; the boy would have found working preferable to frequent appointments with a backside-bound switch. Instead, such children today remain uncivilized and ill-behaved, becoming ever more brazen as the unanswered will, until their misbehavior crosses a line and action is finally taken by the only ones now empowered to do so — the police — and prison may be their lot.
This brings us to an oft-missed point. Obedience and discipline, two dirty words currently, are prerequisites for education for a simple reason:
How can someone learn from you if he’s not first willing to listen to you?
Listening comes before learning.
This simple truth apparently eludes most modern academics. They instead distract themselves with new feel-good (feelings again) teaching paradigms, such as “outcome-based education,” and social engineering. As an example of the latter, Professor Toplansky writes, “Teaching staff are bombarded with ‘free panel discussions titled 'Whose Schools? OUR Schools! Support for Educators Building Safe Spaces for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Inter-sex, Two-Spirit Native Americans and Gender Non-conforming Youth and their Peers through Pedagogy today.'" Or educators are told that "exams often are anxiety provoking” and that, consequently, "more on-task behavior and higher academic self-esteem” are necessary. Teachers are also often heard saying, “We don’t’ just teach ‘facts’; we teach kids how to think” (no, they don’t). Of course, demeaning facts is understandable when you’re peddling fiction and avoiding the fact that schools today are often just way stations between daycare and prison or the public dole.
This educational degradation has gotten so bad that a famous octogenarian ex-college professor just proposed that we stop teaching algebra to American students because it’s too hard. And with China already producing 10 times as many scientists as we do, this certainly should help — ease America into a fourth-rate, Third World mishmash of easily ruled serfs.

COMMUNIST CANDIDATE FOR U.N. BOSS RELIES ON "LITTLE KGB" SPIES

COMMUNIST CANDIDATE FOR U.N. BOSS 
RELIES ON "LITTLE KGB" SPIES 
BY ALEX NEWMAN
SEE: http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/22869-communist-candidate-for-un-boss-relies-on-little-kgb-spiesrepublished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Authorities in Bulgaria recently unveiled an official committee to help secure the top spot at the United Nations for Bulgarian communist operative Irina Bokova (shown), and the devil is in more than just the details — it is embedded in the whole sordid affair. Among other concerns, the official campaign team is dominated by known communist agents who worked for the ruthless Bulgarian “security” service known as the “little KGB.” The team is even led by a prominent former spy for the murderous Soviet-backed regime that once enslaved the Eastern European nation. Top establishment media outlets have called Bokova the “front runner” to lead the UN, with sources saying it was part of an expensive PR campaign. But critics are speaking out.  
The former New York-based communist spy leading Bokova's UN election campaign, Rajko Rajchev, was described by his brutal superiors in declassified regime files as “very well prepared ideologically.” Despite the growing outrage by survivors of the regime's brutality, another seven members of Bokova's UN election committee, at least, are also reported to be ex-spies for the communist regime's savage “state security” apparatus. As the United Nations becomes increasingly powerful, the implications of the new revelations should alarm the entire world.
There are a number of other scandals swirling around Bokova's candidacy. Most recently, unanswered corruption questions have been raised about a number of luxury properties she owns, including a Manhattan apartment worth more than $3 million. She also reportedly owns properties worth more than $1 million each in London and in Paris, according to an investigation by Bulgarian watchdog Bivol. Media investigators examined her publicly acknowledged bloated salary and noted that, even with that and her former communist agent husband's tax-funded income, the math does not come close to adding up.
In her post as secretary-general of UNESCO, there have also been multiple red flags raised, including allegations of major procedural violations, conflicts of interest, and more in her appointment of a crony with fake qualifications to a top job. Bokova then tried to quash an internal report outlining the scandal to avoid impeachment.
The communist operative, who was trained at an elite Soviet academy in Moscow, was also caught falsifying information about her own qualifications, which she downplayed as a mere oversight.  
But all those scandals pale in comparison to what has been reported in Bulgarian media about her nomination process to become the next secretary-general of the entire UN, and the communist operatives behind the machinations. So far, the international media has not even mentioned the latest scandal. In Bulgaria, though, the revelations have already sparked a public outcry. Victims of the “former” communist regime, known as the People's Republic of Bulgaria, have denounced the effort to push Bokova, who has strong ties to that regime. Critics have also slammed the domination of the official Bulgarian UN selection committee by well-known operatives of the mass-murdering regime.
To get an idea of the atrocities committed by the Soviet puppet regime, a brief look at the number of murders it perpetrated might help. In Statistics of Democide: Democide and Mass Murder since 1900, political science Professor Emeritus R.J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii estimated the body count racked up by the Bulgarian communists at around 222,000 — an especially high number considering that Bulgaria's population is just over 7 million today. Other estimates suggest the figure is even higher. Many more victims were ruthlessly tortured and persecuted. Yet most of the criminals responsible escaped punishment.   
Indeed, today, the same cabal and its descendants continue to run much of Bulgaria after some name changes and “rehabilitation.” Consider the most recent revelations. Bokova's election campaign to lead the UN, organized by the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, is literally packed from top to bottom with “former” communist “security” agents. Leading the operation is Director General of “Global Issues” at the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Rajko Rajchev, with variations of the name spelled Raicho, Raiko, and Raichev, or Raychev, in the Roman alphabet.
He was among a number of Bulgarian officials recalled from his foreign post about five years ago after declassified files exposed his background as a spy for the mass-murdering communist regime's “Committee for State Security.” At the time, he was serving as the Bulgarian government's permanent representative in New York in the administration of then-President Georgi Parvanov. Like Bokova and Rajchev, Parvanov was a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party and its successor, the Socialist Party. Parvanov was also a collaborator with the communist regime's “security service,” declassified documents show, and he played a key role in advancing Bokova to her current status.  
According to media reports and declassified files on Bokova's UN campaign chief Rajchev, the communist agent joined the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1982. Three years later, he was recruited by the First Chief Directorate of State Security, the Soviet-backed Bulgarian dictatorship's version of the KGB, to work as an espionage agent for the murderous regime. Then he was deployed to the United States to work. His code name was “Velin” and his cover job was serving as an attaché at the Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of Bulgaria to the UN in New York City, the files revealed. In that job, he gathered intelligence on foreign diplomats, American citizens, and even on journalists, his declassified files show.   
As already indicated, Rajchev's file with the regime notes that his record shows him to be “very well prepared ideologically.” In other words, Bokova's campaign chief was a committed communist — often described among the upper echelons of the criminal conspiracy that is communism as a “useful idiot,” or a person who really believes the murderous ideological nonsense that passes for communist “ideology.” According to his file, when he met with his handler and was informed of his overseas assignment in New York, Rajchev said he had “long been expecting this moment, but did not know when or who would have the conversation.”  
But Rajchev will hardly be the only “former” communist security operative to run “former” communist Bokova's campaign to lead the UN, often ridiculed by critics as the dictators club. Another prominent agent for the regime who is serving on the campaign is Alexandar Savov, who also worked for the communist dictatorship's barbaric “security” apparatus before running Bokova's campaign to take over UNESCO.
Savov first exploded on to the international diplomatic scene after becoming a senior diplomat for the murderous dictatorship in New York in 1983. That took place as communist governments scrambled at the UN after the Soviet Union shot down flight KAL-007 carrying 269 people, including U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald (D-Ga.), who at the time was also serving as the chairman of the anti-Communist John Birch Society, an affiliate of this magazine.
Savov is the son of hardcore Stalinist Stoyan Savov, a top official in the dictatorship who reportedly committed suicide before facing trial for his crimes, including helping to destroy key regime documents offering evidence of various crimes. The younger Savov was sent on a crucial espionage mission to New York by his father involving nuclear secrets, but the operation was reportedly foiled by the FBI.
At the center of it all is former Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, who as head of the re-branded Bulgarian Communist Party put Bokova and Rajchev in power. He now leads the Party of European Socialists, the second largest political party in the European Union's pseudo-Parliament. Similarly, many other “former” communists from Eastern Europe have moved over to Brussels, where they occupy leading positions in the EU's increasingly powerful and autocratic bureaucracy.
A total of 16 diplomats and bureaucrats are running Bokova's campaign, and about half of those are directly linked to the communist regime's “security” service, according to Bulgarian media reports. Bulgarian news service Faktor.bg reviewed the names of those working on the team. It named Gancho Ganev, Chavdar Zhechev, Angel Orbetsov, Petar Iliev, and Krasimir Kostov as known former agents for the communist oppression bureaucracy.
The New American first reported on the controversial candidacy of Bokova about a year ago, when the current UNESCO chief was declared by establishment propaganda outlets to be the “front runner” to lead the UN amid an expensive PR campaign to that effect. Both the Obama administration and the Kremlin reportedly support her candidacy. They also helped her secure her current post as head of UNESCO, which is openly working to standardize “education” policy around the world. “UNESCO was founded to promote the principles of humanism,” boasted Bokova, who regularly touts UNESCO's work changing children's “values” so they can become what she calls good “global citizens.”
But her previous connections and activities may be even more troubling than her ongoing efforts to indoctrinate children around the world. Bokova is what is known as a “red-diaper baby” — a child born to devoted communist parents. In fact, her father, aside from being a communist politician and leading party hack, was also editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian Communist Party’s official propaganda organ known asRabotnichesko Delo. In addition to the father's loyal service to the murderous dictatorship, he is widely reported to have personally murdered a Bulgarian dissident and bragged about it to others.
Despite those atrocities, and the hundreds of thousands of dead bodies, Bokova herself was an enthusiastic youth member of the Bulgarian Communist Party. She later became an adult member and even served in various capacities within the brutal dictatorship. Like many communists, Bokova remained within the party after it rebranded itself the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) following the apparent collapse of the communist terror regime.
As The New American's William F. Jasper recently explained, however, the name change of the Communist Party was primarily so “the communists could not only continue running Bulgaria as newly branded ‘socialists,’ but also benefit from the aid, loans, and investments being handed out by the United States and the European Union.” They are still in charge today. Bokova continues her involvement in the re-branded Communist Party, which is now part of the powerful global-tyranny-promoting Socialist International network.
Despite trying to downplay her communist “past” and her links to one of the most savage tyrannies of the last century, Bokova is as red as they come, analysts say. “Beneath her unassuming exterior, she was a tough and loyal Communist apparatchik,” said Rossen Vassilev, who served at the Bulgarian Mission to the UN in New York from January 1980 until his defection to the West in July 1988. “But her stay in New York was cut short after the State Department rejected for nearly two years the accreditation of her journalist-husband, Liubomir Kolarov, most likely because of his known association with Communist Bulgaria's spy agency, the DS.” She might have also been recalled due to an extramarital affair she was having, Vassilev added. The affair was with her current husband, also a communist spy then working with the State Security agency, who now works at a globalist bureaucracy.
After apparently serving the establishment well in her job at the UN's would-be global education ministry, which is pushing what it calls the “World Core Curriculum” for use around the world, Bokova is getting ready for her next promotion. However, as more details continue to emerge about her radical background, her ties to the mass-murdering regime, and her shadowy climb to power, the decision may backfire on the globalists and communists pushing her nomination, which includes many top media outlets in the West. Already, The New American's previous articles exposing what is common knowledge in Bulgaria have made headlines across the Eastern European nation. But there are likely even more skeletons hiding in Bokova's closet — along with the closets of leading figures across Bulgaria's political class.   
Critics from Bulgaria have expressed outrage over the developments surrounding Bokova's campaign. “Irina Bokova, the Bulgarian candidate, has demonstrated that not only in [the] past but currently she has been serving the ideology of the outrageous communism from pre-1989,” explained International Institute of Anthropology Research Professor Lolita Nikolova, a U.S.-based Bulgarian who is working to oppose Bokova's candidacy. “After the nomination, she continues the propaganda of the anti-humanistic communism by organizing a campaign in Bulgaria lead [sic] by a former secret agent from the communist regime, Rajko Rajchev, who has a solid biography of a corrupted politician. Accordingly, this candidacy endangers the world and has been trying to return the human history in 1950s — in the period of the Cold War.”     
In a post headlined “Outrageous! Seven team members working for Bokova — State Security agents,” Bulgarian media outlet Faktor.bg also slammed developments. “The metastasis of the communist secret services in the Foreign Ministry is intact, casting a dark stain on Bulgaria,” it said. The whole team orchestrating Bokova's candidacy is “full of Chekists — the faithful guardians of the totalitarian communist regime in Bulgaria,” the report added.  
Bulgarian American Vassil Mladjov, who was involved in the anti-communist student and army movements at the apparent fall of communism in 1989, is also hoping to stop and expose Bokova. “The fact that the Bulgarian government is backing her up is outrageous, but we are not surprised, since most politicians in Bulgaria are ex-communist or kids of ex-communist party leaders or corrupt businessmen,” he explained. “Everyone views her as Putin's puppet and a person who will favor Russia.” Indeed, Bokova has been a strong Putin ally, even joining communist dictators from around the world to celebrate the Soviet-themed “Victory Day” celebration in Moscow last year as communist flags waved in the breeze and the Soviet anthem filled the air.
petition against Bokova's candidacy aimed at the UN Security Council is also being circulated by Bulgarians, noting that authorities in the capital Sofia had nominated her despite the opposition of most of the public. “Irina Bokova is supported by profoundly anti-democratic political forces in Bulgaria,” it reads. “Her nomination comes as a result of their threats to bring down the government of Bulgaria.... We are appalled by her association with the brutal and corrupt Communist system to which she owes her entire career.”
A Bulgarian foreign correspondent based in Washington, D.C., who asked not to be named because of the nature of the industry, highlighted the important implications of what is happening. “Away from the international attention, Bulgaria had become a battleground between the darkest leftist and pro-Russian forces, and the pro-Western pro-democracy oriented political powers,” said the correspondent, who has followed the scandals closely. “It could be said that because of the transition to democracy that was never fully completed, Bulgaria now could be Russia’s gateway to Europe and to top international posts, especially through someone like Moscow-trained Irina Bokova. Even though she claims 'Harvard education' she barely spent a month at Harvard, but she spent 1971-76 in Moscow.”
“There are implications for the USA in this candidacy,” the foreign correspondent warned. “The next Secretary-General of UN will be instrumental in perhaps the deepest reforms at the bureaucracy-ridden organization since its creation in 1945. What form will these reforms take would depend, to a greatest degree, on who is the UN Secretary-General. At the same time the organization would be facing unprecedented global challenges.”
Concluding, the Bulgarian journalist urged Americans and others to pay attention. “While looking to reform itself, the UN will be under pressure to allow for 'multilateralism' in its decision-making process,” the correspondent said. “For example, it will face the question of enlarging the number of the permanent members of the Security Council, thus weakening the power of countries such as the United States. Judging from Mrs. Bokova’s UNESCO agenda, she would be a conduit for such changes. And it should never be forgotten that the UN Secretary-General would be in a position to share intelligence and confidential information with any party he or she feels loyal to. This is not in the USA's national interests.”
It may be even worse than it seems on the surface. Despite the ostensible collapse of communist slavery in Eastern Europe almost three decades ago, the criminals and mass murderers, in many cases, remain at large and in some cases, in positions of power. None of this should be surprising to longtime readers of this magazine. Among those who foretold precisely such a result was Soviet KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, who worked in communist disinformation and deception operations. After defecting to the West, Golitsyn warned of a long-range strategy being pursued by the international communist conspiracy involving supposed “liberalization” in Eastern Europe and apparent collapse of the Soviet Union. Arguably the most important defector ever, virtually all of his predictions have come to pass, according to experts who have analyzed his track record.   
In his 1984 book New Lies for Old, Golitsyn argued that the partial communist “suppression” of Eastern European anti-communist movements in the early 1980s was in fact part of the deception — an effort to dupe the West into believing that they represented genuine opposition. Eventually, according to Golitsyn, those same communists would return to power, sometimes in coalitions with the infiltrated opposition that was guided from Moscow. On the creation of coalition governments with those components and much more, Golitsyn's prediction proved exactly correct.
Later developments also seem to have vindicated much of Golitsyn's warning. And indeed, numerous Soviet-era communist criminals and murderers, who were never punished after the ostensible collapse of communism, are firmly embedded all throughout Eastern European governments and the EU's architecture to this day. Former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev, speaking in London in 2001, approvingly referred to the EU as the “new European Soviet.”
While many of the Bulgarian regime's operatives have been exposed thanks to declassified files, much remains to be discovered. Consider that the Committee for State Security did its best to destroy as much evidence as possible. Just one official, former Interior Minister Gen. Atanas Semerdzhiev, for example, was found guilty of destroying close to 150,000 incriminating files. Like in multiple former Soviet states, the brutal Bulgarian regime's “security” service is also known to have deployed its operatives to infiltrate anti-communist and opposition movements. How extensive that infiltration may have been remains the subject of debate.
Legislation sitting in the U.S. Congress' House Foreign Affairs Committee, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act, would withdraw the U.S. government from the UN and evict its spy-infested headquarters from American soil. As top communist “security” operatives scramble to install their agent at the head of the UN with apparent support from the globalist establishment, it is time for Americans to ditch the dictators club once and for all. The future of liberty and self-government around the world may well depend on an awakening by the American people. Perhaps Bokova's candidacy can help.  
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SENATORS: OBAMA TO FUND IRANIAN TERRORISM & MISSILE BUILD UP



SENATORS: OBAMA TO FUND IRANIAN TERRORISM & MISSILE BUILD UP 
Obama plan to grant Iran dollar access draws outrage in Congress
BY ADAM KREDO
SEE: http://freebeacon.com/national-security/senators-obama-admin-iran-terrorism/republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Leading senators are expressing renewed concerns over an Obama administration effort to grant Iran expanded sanctions relief that the lawmakers warn would help fund Iran’s global terrorist activities and illicit buildup of ballistic missile technology.
Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) warned Wednesday that, despite past promises to Congress, the Obama administration is working to provide Iran an expanded package of sanctions relief that would include access to the U.S. dollar and American financial markets.
The plan could harm the U.S. economy and jeopardize the dollar’s international stability due to Iran’s illicit money laundering activities and support for terror, according to a letter sent by Kirk and Rubio to Secretary of Treasury Jacob Lew and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Obama administration is moving forward with its plan despite intelligence assessments determining that Iran is a primary concern for money laundering and terror activity.
“We are gravely alarmed by news reports suggesting the administration is working to give Iran access to the U.S. financial system or to dollar transactions outside of the U.S. financial system,” the lawmakers wrote. “Any such effort would benefit Iran’s financiers of international terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missile threats.”
Additionally, the plan ignores the “Treasury Department’s finding under section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act that Iran’s entire financial sector is a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern,” they wrote.
Rubio and Kirk are the co-authors of recent legislation aimed at further sanctioning Iran for a series of ballistic missile tests earlier this year. The United States has determined that these missile tests violate current United Nations resolutions barring such activity.
“We believe the United States should instead increase pressure on the Iranian regime to hold it fully accountable for its threatening and destabilizing activities outside of the nuclear realm,” Rubio and Kirk wrote.
The senators said the Obama administration is breaking its promises and ignoring internal warnings about Iran’s illicit behavior.
The Treasury Department designated Iran a “jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern” in November 2011.
The Financial Action Task Force renewed calls in February of this year for international partners to use caution when dealing with Iran due to its money laundering and terror financing activities.
The Obama administration is preparing to let foreign governments and banks use dollars when conducting business with Iran despite these warnings.
“Senior officials in the Treasury Department have repeatedly assured Congress that the administration will not allow Iran direct or indirect access to the U.S. financial system, and we believe this prohibition to be prudent in light of the Iranian regime’s continued state sponsorship of terrorism, threatening ballistic missile activities, and egregious violations of human rights,” Rubio and Kirk wrote.
Secretary Lew told Congress in July 2015 that “Iranian banks will not be able to clear U.S. dollars through New York, hold correspondent account relationships with U.S. financial institutions, or enter into financing arrangements with U.S. banks.”
Adam Szubin, the Treasury Department’s acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, made a similar promise in September 2015.
“No Iranian banks can access the U.S. financial system—not to open an account, not to purchase a security, and not even to execute a dollarized transaction where a split seconds worth of business is done in a New York clearing bank,” Szubin promised.
The Obama administration has caved to Iranian demands in recent months, according to the lawmakers.
“We are aware the Iranian regime is urging the United States to provide access to the American and international financial systems,” they wrote to Lew. “Iran’s leaders have complained both publicly and privately that foreign companies and financial institutions are avoiding business deals with Iran because they fear U.S. sanctions.”
As a result, both Kirk and Rubio are seeking assurances fro the administration that Iran will not be permitted to conduct business using U.S. dollars. They also want the administration to stop Iran from using U.S. banks for foreign transactions.
“Such actions would fundamentally undermine our nation’s own reputation as a global leader on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, and also provide Iran legitimacy in the international financial system that it has not earned,” they wrote.
“It is critical to preserve the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, including by ensuring that countries engaged in destabilizing activities do not have the privilege of processing transactions in U.S. dollars,” they stated.
The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.

GUN SHOP OWNER TARGETED BY DOJ SAYS TRUMP BEST ON SECOND AMENDMENT

GUN SHOP OWNER TARGETED BY DOJ SAYS TRUMP BEST ON SECOND AMENDMENT
OWNER OF HAWKINS GUN STORE, WISCONSIN, SPEAKS OUT
Published on Mar 31, 2016

ROBERT SPENCER EXPOSES "CAIR'S" HAMAS TIES

ROBERT SPENCER EXPOSES "CAIR'S" HAMAS TIES 
Published on Mar 31, 2016
Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer explains the connections between the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the jihad terror group Hamas.

VIRGINIA GOVERNOR VETOES BILL CUTTING PLANNED PARENTHOOD FUNDING

HOLDS TO HIS PROMISE TO MAINTAIN A "BRICK WALL" AGAINST PRO LIFERS
VIRGINIA GOVERNOR VETOES BILL CUTTING PLANNED PARENTHOOD FUNDING 
BY HEATHER CLARK
SEE: http://christiannews.net/2016/03/30/virginia-governor-vetoes-bill-cutting-planned-parenthood-funding/republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

(Reuters)  Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe on Tuesday vetoed a Republican-backed bill aimed at blocking state funding for Planned Parenthood, which performs abortions and provides other health services.
McAuliffe, a Democrat, said the bill passed by the Republican-dominated legislature would harm thousands of state residents who relied on Planned Parenthood for health care.
“The fact is that Virginians, and particularly low-income Virginians, need more access to health care, not less,” he said in a statement.
Several states have sought to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood following the release of videos secretly recorded by an anti-abortion group.
Activists have said the videos showed that Planned Parenthood officials in some states had discussed the sale of aborted fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood has denied the accusations.
President Barack Obama in January vetoed a effort by Congress to defund Planned Parenthood.
_____________________________________________________
Published on Mar 30, 2016
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) has vetoed a bill that would have blocked state dollars from going to Planned Parenthood centers in the commonwealth. Democrats argue the bill fits into a large-scale attack on women's reproductive rights. But Republicans have called for those funds to be sent to other more comprehensive providers.



NORTH CAROLINA ATTORNEY GENERAL REFUSES TO DEFEND LAW OVERTURNING CHARLOTTE "BATHROOM BILL"


North Carolina Attorney General Won't Defend Transgender Law in Court


NORTH CAROLINA ATTORNEY GENERAL REFUSES TO DEFEND LAW OVERTURNING CHARLOTTE "BATHROOM BILL" 
BY HEATHER CLARK
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

RALEIGH, N.C. — The attorney general of North Carolina has announced that he will not defend a recently signed law that overturned a controversial “bathroom bill” in Charlotte and banned other cities from passing similar ordinances.
Roy Cooper called the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act a “national embarrassment” on Tuesday during a press conference in which he announced his decision not to defend the law in court following a legal challenge from the ACLU and two transgender advocacy organizations.
“We are here because the governor has signed statewide legislation that puts discrimination into the law,” said. “This is a unique and different situation, and as attorney general there are often times situations where you have to make choices with different agencies that are conflicted. Here, this is the right choice.”
As previously reported, last Wednesday, following three hours of debate, the North Carolina House voted 84-25 in favor of Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, with votes cast mostly along party lines—with the exception of 11 Democrats who supported the effort.
The bill then passed the Senate 32-0 after Democrats walked out in protest as they believed that they were being left out of the participation process.
“Public agencies shall require every multiple occupancy bathroom or changing facility to be designated for and only used by persons based on their biological sex,” the legislation reads in part. “Local boards of education shall require every multiple occupancy bathroom or changing facility that is designated for student use to be designated for and used only by students based on their biological sex.”
The Act had been presented after the Charlotte City Council voted 7-4 last month to expand the city’s non-discrimination ordinance to add provisions for homosexuals and those who identify as the opposite sex—including in regard to restroom and locker room use.
Over 21,000 area residents had signed a petition in opposition of the proposed expansion, and pastors, community leaders and others part of a coalition opposed to the changes known as “Don’t Do It Charlotte” also rallied outside prior to the meeting. The overwhelming concern was in regard to allowing men to use women’s restrooms or locker rooms and vice versa if they identified as as the opposite gender.
Gov. Pat McCrory promptly signed the Public Facilities Act into law on the same day of its passage, and later released a fact sheet to clarify what he believed were misunderstandings about the content of the ordinance.
“Businesses are not limited by this bill. Private individuals, companies and universities can adopt new or keep existing nondiscrimination policies,” it reads in part. “[I]f a privately-owned sporting facility wants to allow attendees of sporting events to use the restroom of their choice, or install unisex bathrooms, they can. The law neither requires nor prohibits them from doing so.”
“This law simply says people must use the bathroom of the sex listed on their birth certificate. Anyone who has undergone a sex change can change their sex on their birth certificate,” the fact sheet also advises.
On Monday, the ACLU, Equality North Carolina and Lamba Legal filed suit against McCrory and others on behalf of two transgendered residents, Joaquín Carcaño and Payton Grey McGarry, as well as and Angela Gilmore, a lesbian employed at North Carolina Central University.
Now, Cooper says he won’t defend the law since he personally disagrees with it.
“Not only is this new law a national embarrassment, it will set North Carolina’s economy back if we don’t repeal it,” he said. “The threats to our economy will grow even darker the longer this law stays in effect.”
“[W]e shouldn’t have to be dealing with these lawsuits in the first place,” Cooper continued. “A shameful new law has brought them upon us. Discrimination is wrong, period. The governor and the legislature should repeal this new law.”
On Tuesday, McCrory criticized Cooper of “inventing conflict that simply doesn’t exist” and asserted that Cooper is not permitted to circumvent his duties as attorney general.
“I’m standing up to the attorney general of North Carolina who today refused to fulfill his oath of office to defend the people of North Carolina in a lawsuit filed over the privacy of our restrooms,” he said.
“As the state’s attorney, he can’t select which laws he will defend and which laws are politically expedient to refuse to defend,” McCrory declared. “When you are the state’s lawyer, you are a lawyer first and a politician second. Therefore, I encourage the attorney general to reconsider his flawed logic.”
“It is just common sense that men should not go into the women’s restrooms,” Tami Fitzgerald, the executive director of the North Carolina Values Coalition, told reporters. “It’s ridiculous to have such an uproar.”
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NORTH CAROLINA LAWMAKERS & GOVERNOR OVERTURN CHARLOTTE'S CONTROVERSIAL "BATHROOM BILL"