Obama officials are ‘criminalising journalism’, says Republican senator
Administration’s efforts to trace leaks called ‘heavy-handed’ after private emails seized
Nikhil Kumar
New York
Sunday 26 May 2013
The Obama administration has been accused of criminalising the press, as US lawmakers called for an independent investigator to look into the way the Justice Department conducts cases involving reporters.
President Barack Obama is facing widespread criticism for the aggressive way in which his government investigates leaks, after it emerged that officials had secretly seized phone records from the Associated Press and monitored personal emails of the Fox News reporter James Rosen.
Mr Obama last week directed his Attorney General, Eric Holder, to review the Justice Department’s procedures. Mr Holder is due to report back in July – but his position as the head of the department at the centre of the controversy has led lawmakers to question whether he is the right person to lead the review.
Ridgewood blog Jobs : experienced in outdoor work for a landscaping company
I am looking to hire someone who is experienced in outdoor work for a landscaping company. Email me at rosalba.gencarelli@gmail.com if you or someone you know is interested thank you
Ridgewood Run notes: Big day for Rozhko
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
The Record
Fruitful day
Olena Rozhko already had taken second in the Women’s 5K at Monday’s Fred D’Elia Ridgewood Run. Rozhko was tired, but she still competed in the Women’s Masters Mile and was able to come out on top in that event in 5:17.
“She basically was almost completely exhausted and she felt sick, but she had enough energy to start the race,” said Rozhko’s husband, Sergey Romanenko. “She’s a real warrior.
“She wanted to do whatever it took, and she showed a lot of courage.”
Rolanda Bell of Springfield Gardens, N.Y., earned the 5K title in 16:35 with Rozhko finishing second in 17:39.
The 40-year-old Rozhko and Romanenko, who live in Morristown and are originally from the Ukraine, are the parents of 3-year-old son, Nikita, who watched his mom’s double-duty performance.
July 4th in Ridgewood is a very special day that our entire area looks forward to all year. The theme for this year’s celebration is “Honoring our Declaration of Independence.” We are an all-volunteer community group that coordinates the day’s events and does not receive direct funding from the Village of Ridgewood.
Our committee is thrilled to have a descendent of a signer of the Declaration of Independence as our Grand Marshal. Thornton Lockwood, “Thorny”, is a descendant of Declaration signer Josiah Bartlett, and a first cousin, eight times removed, of Benjamin Franklin.
The Ridgewood Fourth of July Celebration began in 1910 when the local papers, the civic section of the
Woman’s Club and the Ridgewood Fire Department joined forces to create a “safe and sane” holiday with an emphasis on Patriotism. It has grown into one of the largest celebrations in the New York City area and has been featured on CNN and Good Morning America as well as local New York stations. The celebration was once again named Best Parade and Fireworks by the readers of 201 Magazine.
We are actively preparing for what we know will be a spectacular celebration, it is vital that we have community support. Please consider helping to “Support the Tradition”. Because of generous support from the community, we have one of the best small town Independence Day celebrations, and if every family who enjoys our celebration contributed just $10, the day’s expenses would be covered. Donations may be made online at www.ridgewoodjuly4th.org or mailed to Ridgewood Fourth of July Celebration, Inc., PO Box 140, Ridgewood, NJ 07451.
Additional information and answers to many of your questions can be found on the Ridgewood Fourth of
July Celebration’s website at www.ridgewoodjuly4th.org.
Washington launches four different investigations into IRS scandal
Capitol Hill aides spent their Memorial Day weekend scanning hundreds of pages of documents related to the IRS scandal in order to prepare their bosses for what will inevitably be a frantic month of June involving multiple simultaneous investigations into government wrongdoing. By the time lawmakers return to session next week, at least four different investigations will be underway.
As The Daily Caller has reported, at least five different IRS offices including Cincinnati, Ohio; Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois and El Monte and Laguna Niguel, California improperly targeted conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny between 2010 and 2012.
The IRS’ shenanigans, chronicled in a damning report by Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George, started when a “team of [IRS] specialists” came together in April 2010 to process the tax-exempt nonprofit status of conservative groups that might be “potential political operations” (page 13 of the IG report). The IRS added “additional specialists” to this effort in December 2011.
The Sharyl “PIT BULL” Attkisson approach
By DYLAN BYERS | 5/24/13 12:10 PM EDT
Sharyl Attkisson has problems.
The Obama administration won’t answer the CBS News correspondent’s questions because her investigations — into Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Solyndra — often reflect negatively on it. Some colleagues at CBS News, where she has worked for two decades and earned multiple Emmy awards, dismiss her work because they perceive a political agenda. And now, she says, someone may have hacked into her computers.
Attkisson’s one piece of solace may come from finally gaining some like-minded colleagues in the media. For years, Attkisson has been one of the few mainstream reporters pursuing critical stories about the Obama administration. Today, as “scandal season” takes hold in Washington, she has seen her longstanding skepticism of the White House and the Justice Department become the conventional attitude among a formerly deferential Beltway press corps.
Ridgewood NJ, Thank you to all the rescue groups and shelters, volunteers, employees and the people who came out in the rain to adopt yesterday! 114 pets were adopted and over 1,000 people attended!
While that is half the number of pets adopted and people in attendance at the Adopt-A-Pet Day last fall, we know that was only due to the stormy weather. We still think the event was a huge success, and we would like to thank all of you for making it such a great day! Our next event is September 29th, and we look forward to recording-breaking numbers! Let’s get these animals the loving homes they deserve!
Towns saddled with costs as lawsuits filed by police add up
Monday May 27, 2013, 9:18 PM
BY STEPHANIE AKIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
They are among the most generously compensated public employees in New Jersey, with rank-and-file members routinely earning more than $100,000 a year with a full pension after 25 years.
But local police officers seem to be the least satisfied, at least based on their propensity to sue their employers over promotions and other work conditions.
In the past 10 years, North Jersey has seen a rash of discrimination and whistle-blower lawsuits filed by police officers, many of them filed in batches in Paramus, Teaneck, Fair Lawn and other communities.
Those cases, fueled in part by legal rulings that have made it easier to file whistle-blower and harassment claims, have shattered the once-prevailing honor code that kept many officers from speaking publicly about problems in their departments. Instead, they depict a police culture where complaints about promotion, harassment by co-workers and political meddling are routine.
The suits have cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of dollars, according to attorneys and other professionals who have worked on such cases.
The Dangers of “Common Core Education”
The Eagle,TPATH May 24, 2013
Nicholas Purpura
Nicholas Purpura’s commentary is thorough and convincing pointing out the dangers in “Common Core Education ” and the direct threat it poses to the kin of quality education Ridgewood expects from its schools.
“Education has become a national security issue, and what has your establishment incumbent said or done about it – absolutely nothing! I remind the reader that the infamous tyrant, Adolph Hitler, said: “When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side,’ I calmly say, ‘your child belongs to us already…. What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else out of this new community.
The GOP establishment in New Jersey is no better. If they were, they would have stood by the Republican National Committee’s Resolution against “Common Core Education.” Then it might have been a different picture. Instead they’re what I’ve been saying is “Democrat-lite” and are going along as good progressives normally do, disregarding that it will destroy the education of children in the government indoctrination centers called “public schools”.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Candidates from both parties have joined Team New Jersey condemning “Common Core Education,” and will do everything in their power to rid New Jersey of this indoctrination program that will dumb them down and turn them into one-world globalist.
The candidates listed below are against Common Core, or federalizing of the curriculum, which is the newest way to dumb down our children.
Senate Candidate: LD-13 Leigh-Ann Bellew
Assembly Candidates: LD-4, John Lockhart (Incumbent) LD-7, Connie Hare Murry and Joe Siano LD-8, Scott Fay and Gary Jacques Assembly LD-13, Steve Boracchia and Edna Walsh LD-36, Aharon Cohn and Sam Krause (Two more patriots joining TeamNJ)
And please don’t neglect those running for Freeholders and GOP Committee – it’s time to clean house.
Freeholders:
(Incumbent) Scott Rumana, LD 40 JoeMcDevitt, (Atlantic Co.) LanceSilver, Burl.Co. BarbaraEames, (Whippany, Morris Cty. Lance Silver, (Burl.) Ed Pekarsky, LD 13 Brian Largey, LD 13
GOP State Committee: Bill Haney & Ashley Cameron, Burlington Rae Rinaldi, Steve Moss, Bergen Pat Rivera, Jim Gasko, Passaic Bader Qarmount, Rick Shaftan, Deborah Deluca, Sussex Vikki Jennsen, Union Catherine McCulloch, Morris Carol Gallentine, Essex Ron Giordano, Joanne Cooper, Salem Eric Dixon, Hudson
Parental control is what is truly needed. School choice where your children attend – whether private, religious, or charter – the need for a universal voucher system is long overdue. The public education system is a total failure, and must be dismantled if our children are to be able to compete in this world economy. Remember, the fed’s gave us Outcome-based Education, Goals 2000, School-to-work, and now Common Core. It’s the same garbage repackaged over and over again, and it is designed to dumb down our children and take away the local control of boards of education.
Much worse “Common Core” effectively removes educational choice. What’s more the government will collect personal student’s data for non-educational purpose without parental written consent. You may ask how these reprobates can get away with this. Let me point to one instance that will sicken you.
The enlightened progressives at the NEA have decided that advancing sensitivity and tolerance of other life styles is of the utmost importance. But, in truth, their objective is to change public opinion on homosexuality, starting with the youngest generation. On the internet, according to a former chairman of the NEA, Ex-Gay Educators Caucus, and many other critics, the NEA promotes a gay rights agenda especially following the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals see Field’s v. Palmdale School District, in which the Court held:
“parents’ fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children “does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door,” and that a public school has the right to provide its students with “whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise.”
So you think it’s just the fed’s shoving “Common Core” down our throats? Coming to you straight from the mental midgets at the Department of Education in New Jersey this September is another program titled “Student Growth Objectives” pre- and post-testing, which is measuring and testing all year long. Ask yourselves, when the heck are they going to teach? Our teachers are now going to teach according to what will be on the tests so the school gets a good rating. In truth, if anyone needs testing it’s those posing as teachers so we get the best educators for our students and tell the Department of Education and unions to go take a hike.
We as Americans must never let those in the teachers unions and Department of Education now controlled by Marxists, Socialists, Atheists, Sodomites, and one-world advocates to usurp our parental rights any longer while repeatedly degrading our culture and history.
If we ever hope to restore our heritage and traditional values we must no longer allow the government, to tell our children what is acceptable moral behavior by indoctrinating them into ill moral sexual behavior now prevalent in grade school to higher educational institutions. No authority exists in the Constitution granting the federal government the authority to create the Department of Education, especially an unconstitutional department that partners itself with Marxists teachers unions and the UN that is determined to destroy the United States culture and heritage by mandating indoctrination into a one-world order. Orwell said it best, “those that control the language control the thinking.”
Also, I know of nowhere in the Constitution that requires parents to surrender their children to the “State” or “Teachers Unions” to undergo sexual indoctrination. Renowned educational analyst, Samuel Blumenfeld reported in his book “The Leaning Tower of Babel” that school programs are intended:
“to discard the values and religious beliefs of their families and create new sets of values reflecting their own personal desires and leanings, particularly those regarding sex.” …been encouraged by values clarification to reject the traditional Judeo-Christian prohibitions against sexual perversion and adopt an open and assertive homosexual lifestyle.”Funded with your tax dollars and teachers dues, these draconian programs were co-sponsored by none other than Department of Education, National Education Association, (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The UN’s arm UNESCO made no attempt to disguise their Socialist and Marxist goals let their own words be a warning:
“It follows from the essence of the socialist structure of the state in countries concerned… that their educational system is centralized. This creates an extremely favorable situation for central state measures designed to modernize education. The socialist state possesses the means necessary for education…. From the point of view of the development of education technology the socialist countries are also in a favorable position because of the fact that television, school television, radio and school radio are operated centrally….”
Google’s Schmidt: Teens’ mistakes will never go away
Speaking at a festival in the U.K., Google’s executive chairman offers that the things teens do now will stay with them forever, by way of the Web. He also suggested some people are sharing too much online.
by Chris Matyszczyk
May 25, 2013 11:49 AM PDT
It must be peculiar for children of the Internet age.
They are the first to have a complete record of their whole lives. They are the first who’ll be able to offer concrete proof of every one of their days, friends, and actions.
Eric Schmidt worries, however, that they’ll be the first who’ll never be allowed to forget their mistakes.
As the Telegraph reports, Schmidt spoke Saturday at the Hay Festival in the U.K. and offered some sobering thoughts for those addled by online life.
He said: “There are situations in life that it’s better that they don’t exist. Especially if there is stuff you did when you were a teenager. Teenagers are now in an adult world online.”
Some days, you could hardly describe most of what happens online as “adult.” Still, Schmidt says he believes the online world has gone too far in forcing teens to never forget.
In bygone times, he said, they were punished, but allowed to grow beyond youthful indiscretions.
Some might wonder that teenagers aren’t punished enough these days, so the online world acts as a peculiar corrective.
However, my own worry is the use of the word “mistake.”
Higher Education: The Coming Shakeout
Posted: 05/26/2013 10:22 pm
Just as markets over-built housing, mispriced mortgages and bid up prices beyond the real financial capacity of homebuyers, America’s colleges and universities have over-expanded and over-priced their product. We are getting an education bubble with dynamics similar to the late housing bubble.
As more and more students find themselves with debts that exceed the salaries offered by the current job market, colleges have expanded beyond the capacity of their markets. Some kind of shakeout is coming. The question is: what kind.
During the long boom in higher education, colleges have also dramatically increased salaries and staffing levels of administrations. Some of this reflects efforts to game the rankings, which also is another aspect of the same imbalance.
For-profit universities, with high dropout rates, heavily reliant on federal Pell grants and student loans, are only the more explicit and extreme expression of a general trend of colleges and universities becoming more marketized. Colleges are doing deals to set up satellite campuses in sheikhdoms, recruiting full-tuition state-supported foreign students and creating vanity diploma mills as profit centers. The flip side is a massive disinvestment by state legislatures in America’s great public universities and an under-investment in community colleges.
Ridgewood Memorial Day Ceremony – 2013
May 27,2013
Boyd A. Loving
1:10 PM
Ridgewood NJ, American Legion Post 53, Ridgewood conducted a Memorial Day ceremony at Veterans Memorial Park on Monday morning. It was a ceremony to honor the men and women who gave their lives in order to preserve our freedom.
Serving Those Who Served
James Carafano
May 27, 2013 at 7:00 am
This Memorial Day, the Heritage family will join all Americans in remembering the service and sacrifices of those who gave all so the rest of us would remain free.
There is no greater way to honor their memory than making a personal commitment to serving those who served—our 22 million living American veterans and their families.
Those who give the most have the set the bar high for the rest of us. The Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation was founded by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, which consists exclusively of the living Medal of Honor recipients. These brave men have committed themselves to continuing a life of service to their nation.
One way they meet this mission is through their work with the Medal of Honor Character Development Program incorporating the ideals of courage and selfless service into the middle and high school curriculum. The lessons in the curriculum are framed using the lives, experiences, and words of these heroes. The program is now present in more than 33 states and in schools run by the Department of Defense in Europe and the Pacific.
Veterans giving back to serve other veterans and their families are found in every branch of service. Take Deb Snyder. When Snyder, a retired Army helicopter pilot, came to Heritage as part of our Protect America program, she talked about her passion to help her fellow soldiers. Deb decided to tackle a heartbreaking issue: the fact that one-fifth of the nation’s homeless population are veterans.
In 2011, the Alexandria native decided to do something in her own backyard. She founded Operation Renewed Hope Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to one goal: getting veterans’ heads off stone pillows and onto real ones. Today, Operation Renewed Hope is a team of 50 dedicated volunteers.
We are inspired by folks like the members of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and veterans like Deb Snyder. Some of Heritage’s employees banded together to create an organization to help educate all Americans on how to serve those who served. The team created an award-winning documentary, Veteran Nation, which is available for free to those who want to hold community screenings to help jump-start local efforts—either bringing attention and support to local volunteer programs or starting new organizations.
On days like Memorial Day, we honor the spirit and sacrifices of veterans. But every day, when Americans support and encourage the veterans in their communities, the spirit of the nation flourishes.
