R,H.S. football: Ridgewood flexes its muscles
Saturday, September 28, 2013
BY JIM MCCONVILLE
SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
The Record
RIDGEWOOD – It was game that resembled a boxing match. Hackensack landed a few good shots but every time Ridgewood answered back with a haymaker of its own. When it was all said and done, the Maroons put themselves in the conversation about North Jersey’s top football teams.
KEVIN LACKEY/SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
Ridgewood quarterback Jamal Locke, who ran for 105 yards in the first half, looking for an open downfield target Friday night.
Using a big-play, quick-strike offense, Ridgewood went up, 14-0, early and answered each Hackensack touchdown on the way to a 49-21 win that moves it to 3-0 heading into the bye week.
“We got punched in the mouth,” Ridgewood coach Chuck Johnson said, “But what really pleased me was our response. We didn’t flinch. We went right back to work.”
The offensive assault came from a number of levels. Quarterback Jamal Locke and Doug Barnes hooked up on two deep passes in the first quarter, the first a 49-yarder setting up the first of Jake Sabatini’s two touchdowns and the second a 36-yard scoring strike.
Obamacare will question your sex life
By Betsy McCaughey
September 15, 2013 | 7:56pm
‘Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?”
Be ready to answer those questions and more the next time you go to the doctor, whether it’s the dermatologist or the cardiologist and no matter if the questions are unrelated to why you’re seeking medical help. And you can thank the Obama health law.
“This is nasty business,” says New York cardiologist Dr. Adam Budzikowski. He called the sex questions “insensitive, stupid and very intrusive.” He couldn’t think of an occasion when a cardiologist would need such information — but he knows he’ll be pushed to ask for it.
The president’s “reforms” aim to turn doctors into government agents, pressuring them financially to ask questions they consider inappropriate and unnecessary, and to violate their Hippocratic Oath to keep patients’ records confidential.
Embarrassing though it may be, you confide things to a doctor you wouldn’t tell anyone else. But this is entirely different.
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By JIM PUZZANGHERA AND DON LEE | Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Two momentous decisions involving the Federal Reserve are coming to a head, with significant implications for the U.S. and global economies.
Janet L. Yellen, a former University of California, Berkeley economist, stands in the middle of both of them.
As vice chair of the central bank, Yellen will take a leading role this week, when policymakers decide whether to start rolling back the Fed’s massive monetary stimulus after several years of providing extraordinary support for the weak economy.
The prospect of an imminent policy shift by the Fed has already shaken financial markets from Brazil to India, marking the end of an era of super-low interest rates.
Soon after, President Barack Obama is expected to nominate his selection to succeed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, whose term expires at the end of January.
Yellen is one of two leading candidates for that increasingly powerful position, and her views on the economy and financial regulations have become the subject of intense interest among economists, investors and policymakers around the world.
“The interest is more outsized than normal because we’re still in very unusual times,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, referring to high unemployment as well as the unprecedented intervention by the Fed.
Ridgewood High School Rolls to a 53-7 Victory
September 15, 2013
the Staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Scoring on its first eight possessions, Ridgewood got its football season off to a fast start, rolling over Kennedy High School , 53-7.
Tim Bonnano ran for three touchdowns, Jack Sabatini ran for two, and Quarterback Jamal Locke tossed two scoring passes in the 53-7 effort.
Sophomore fullback Cooper Telesco’s varsity debut included 94 yards rushing and a touchdown.
Maroon quarterback Jamal Locke completed 4-of-6 passes for a total 96 yards Connor VanCaugherty had two catches for 61 yards and Doug Barnes had one for 25 yards ,both pulled in touchdown receptions. Brice Joyner had two interceptions and Oliver Sippel had one. Eric Lewis had a team leading six tackles and one sack.
Ridgewood’s first team defense only allowed Kennedy’s offense 15 total yards. with Kennedy avoiding a shutout with 2:02 left in the fourth quarter when Nazier Wright caught a 25-yard touchdown pass from Khalil McCaskill.
Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, in Boise, laments ‘alarming degree of public ignorance’
Katie Terhune | Idaho Statesman
Two-thirds of Americans cannot name a single Supreme Court justice, former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told the crowd that packed into a Boise State ballroom to hear her Thursday.
About one-third can name the three branches of government. Fewer than one-fifth of high school seniors can explain how citizen participation benefits democracy.
“Less than one-third of eighth-graders can identify the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence, and it’s right there in the name,” she said.
O’Connor touted civics education during her keynote address at the “Transforming America: Women and Leadership in the 21st Century” conference, put on by the Andrus Center for Public Policy. She also described being a female lawyer in the 1950s, and challenged her listeners to help the next generation of leaders reach their goals.
O’CONNOR ON CIVICS
“The more I read and the more I listen, the more apparent it is that our society suffers from an alarming degree of public ignorance,” O’Connor said.
That ignorance starts in the earliest years of a child’s schooling, she said, but often continues all the way through college and graduate school.
O’Connor argued that learning about citizenship is just as important for American children as learning multiplication or how to write their names.
“We have to ensure that our citizens are well informed and prepared to face tough challenges,” she said. “If there is a single child not learning about civics or not being exposed to what they must do as citizens, then all our lives are poorer for that.”
To combat what she sees as a dangerous lack of civics in schools, O’Connor founded icivics.org, a website for educators and students. The site uses games, lesson plans and activities to make learning about government and citizenship less boring.
ON PRACTICING LAW AS A WOMAN
After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1952, O’Connor’s husband was drafted and she needed to find a job.
Many of her Stanford classmates went on to high-paying jobs with large firms. But O’Connor quickly learned that her own path to employment would be much harder.
“The problem was, I was female,” she said. “I couldn’t get a job; they all said no when I applied.”
Finally, O’Connor landed a job with the county attorney’s office in San Mateo, Calif. But the office did not hire female lawyers, so they wouldn’t pay her. O’Connor just worked for free.
“Eventually, I did start getting a salary,” she said. “I spent those years working through the problems women had in those years, like getting a job, and having gotten one, getting paid for it. Very few of my male classmates had that experience.”
O’Connor said the experience only strengthened her resolve. She eventually entered politics — including a stint as the Arizona Senate majority leader — before becoming a judge.
“That early experience made me realize that maybe I did have a role to play in helping shape the character of our nation,” she said.
ON A CALL FROM THE PRESIDENT
O’Connor was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981, just two years after she was named to the Arizona Court of Appeals
She still remembers the shock of the phone call from President Ronald Reagan.
“He said, ‘Sandra, I’d like to announce your appointment to the Supreme Court tomorrow. Is that all right with you?’ ” she said.
O’Connor served on the high court until retiring in 2006. Initially viewed as a conservative, she became regarded as the decisive swing vote in many cases.
ON PAVING THE WAY
O’Connor acknowledged that many of the women and men who came to Thursday’s conference were already in leadership roles, whether in their job, the classroom, or at home.
Those people need to take the lead again and create a better education for the next generation of leaders, she said.
“Everyone is going to grow up to be a citizen,” she said. “Democracy is not a spectator sport.”
Russia gave UN 100-page report in July blaming Syrian rebels for Aleppo sarin attack
By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Foreign Staff
BERLIN — Russia says a deadly March sarin attack in an Aleppo suburb was carried out by Syrian rebels, not forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, and it has delivered a 100-page report laying out its evidence to the United Nations.
A statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website late Wednesday said the report included detailed scientific analysis of samples that Russian technicians collected at the site of the alleged attack, Khan al Asal in northern Syria. The attack killed 26 people.
A U.N. spokesman, Farhan Haq, confirmed that Russia delivered the report in July.
The report itself was not released. But the statement drew a pointed comparison between what it said was the scientific detail of the report and the far shorter intelligence summaries that the United States, Britain and France have released to justify their assertion that the Syrian government launched chemical weapons against Damascus suburbs on Aug. 21. The longest of those summaries, by the French, ran nine pages. Each relies primarily on circumstantial evidence to make its case, and they disagree with one another on some details, including the number of people who died in the attack.
Grilling in House on need for Syria attack points to tougher debate ahead
Thursday, September 5, 2013 Last updated: Thursday September 5, 2013, 12:20 AM
BY JAMES ROSEN AND WILLIAM DOUGLAS
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
The Record
WASHINGTON — Even as Congress took a step Wednesday toward authorizing the use of force in Syria, a growing number of lawmakers spoke out strongly against a U.S. military strike and warned that it would draw the United States into an escalating conflict that could spread throughout the Middle East.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
An anti-war demonstrator leaves a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in Washington on Wednesday during testimony by Secretary of State John Kerry.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a resolution for a likely missile attack against Syrian President Bashar Assad in retaliation for his alleged use of chemical weapons two weeks ago, but it prohibited any involvement of U.S. troops.
But the Senate committee’s 10-7 vote indicated deep divisions within Congress that President Obama still must overcome in his quest to demonstrate to Syria, Iran and other nations that the use of chemical or nuclear arms is unacceptable. The measure is expected to reach the Senate floor next week, although the timing for a vote is uncertain.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/international/Grilling_in_House_on_need_for_Syria_strike_points_to_tougher_debate_ahead.html#sthash.liMOyH9d.dpuf
Radio Talk Show Host Mark Levin Continues to Comment on interaction he had at Bookends over “natural-born Citizen.”
Hey PJ:
New radio commentary from Mr. Levin from the first hour of his nationwide show on Thursday, August 29th seems to show that the interaction he had with the Ridgewood man at Bookends is still sticking in his craw. Note at least one detail he provides for the first time during his August 29th broadcast (by employing the technique of a simulated colloquy) corresponds with a detail provided by a witness and publicized previously by you in this article (“After cursing at the challenger, Mark replied: “I never said he was a natural-born Citizen.”, upon which his challenger said: “But you must be a natural-born Citizen to be President!”. Mark then said: “No you don’t!”, and the challenger said “Yes, you do. Read the Constitution.”). This seem to show that he is once again alluding to events that occurred on Sunday, August 18th at Bookends in Ridgewood.
Anyway, here’s what Mark Levin said on his radio program on Thursday, August 29th. FYI, a segment about a critic of Levin’s new book precedes the segment about Cruz’s eligibility (it’s relevant, trust me):
Partial Transcript of the Mark Levin Show aired live on Thursday, August 29, 2013
(prepared using the podcast recording of the show provided free of charge at https://www.marklevinshow.com)
[start at 13:30 of the podcast recording]
Mark Levin: [Discussing a critic of his latest book “The Liberty Amendments, Restoring the American Republic”] It’s hilarious! [chuckles] But it’s really kinda … thin stuff. Silly stuff. I’m thinkin’, this guy used to run Pepperdine? And he’s at the Hoover Institute? David Davenport? That’s scary! And I may or may not address this later. I think I will. And, uh…the person who I will have on, his name is Rob Nadelson. Senior fellow in Constitutional Jurispri … prudence at the Independence Institute, the Montana Policy Institute, he’s a former law school professor, and he’s a scholar. And there are others. We had Randy Barnett on here. Georgetown University Law School. Professor. Great guy. Brilliant! I don’t always agree with him, but I don’t always agree with anybody. And he was on here last week. And what do the opponents have? Scare tactics, generalities, superficiality? I mean, folks … they can support the status quo. They can pretend that we’ll elect sixty conservatives to the senate, over and over and over again, to reverse course. They can pretend that all we need is a Republican president, to keep nominating Republicans to the Supreme Court. We’ve been doing that, by the way, for a long time! Somehow they progress, they evolve. But we’re in this position today, where the Constitution is really abused. It’s been disassembled. And some of us want to bring it back together. And then he says I must be the utopian. I must be the czar coming up with these amendments. Ladies and gentlemen, he clearly didn’t read the book! What do I say in the first chapter? These are just my reform proposals. My amendment proposals. Obviously, I’m not king of some state convention! The delegates to the state convention, they’ll make up their own minds, based on what the state legislature suggest that they do! I’m laying them out as what I consider possibilities that actually might help us! But I have no way of imposing them! So how am I a czar? This is what I mean. This guy used to head Pepperdine, and now he’s at the Hoover Institute! It’s stupid! You want to address this issue, I warn all you liberal crackpots, all the pseudo-conservatives, all the guys with degrees and the … and the funny hats at graduation and all the rest, I want to warn you all! You better be prepared. Because some of us has actually really, really dug in to this, and we know far more than you’ll ever know. So when you come up with your scare tactics, and your silly arguments, and you … and you throw your myths around, some of us do know what the framers said! Some of us actually know what the founding fathers said. Some of us actually know what occurred before the nation actually became a nation. What conventions were. How they were conducted. Who sent delagates. How they were selected. How they voted. We know! And you don’t. It’s obvious. With your silly … articles. But we’re ready! I’m ready. I can’t wait! But they don’t matter, ladies and gentlemen, you matter! It’s important that you’re convinced! Which is why I wrote “The Liberty Amendments”. And not one of these people so far, has proposed a serious alternative for restoring the republic. Not one! Because they have none. Not one of them has proposed a serious alternative based on what our framers said, and wrote! Not one! [Bumper music begins playing softly] They defend the status quo! And they pretend the status quo, is what the framers would support! Out of one side of their mouth, and out of the other side of their mouth, they condemn what Washington is doing. They don’t make sense! It’s time to give it up! It’s time to embrace what the framers said. Alright, more when I return! [Bumper music grows louder]
[Cut to different bumper music at 17:50 of the podcast recording (new segment)]
Announcer: This is America’s Constitutional Convention! The Mark Levin Show! Call in now. (877) 381-3811.
Mark Levin: Alright, we got a full board, I’ll get to the callers in a second. I want to throw this issue out there. Ready for this one? Uh, oh, here it comes! Do you know Ted Cruz, Mr. Producer? You’ve heard of that name? Senator from Texas? He’s an American Citizen. A naturalized American Citizen. He can run for President of the United States. Oh, it’s true! It’s true! Here’s the Cato Institute, of all places, libertarian think tank, Ilya Shapiro. “As we head into a potential government shutdown over the funding of Obamacare, the iconoclastic junior senator from Texas continues to stride across the national stage. And with his presidential aspirations as big as everything in his home state”, writes this writer, “by now many know what has never been a secret. Ted Cruz was born in Canada.” [Shouting] Oh my God! [Speaking at normal volume] “But does that mean that Cruz’s presidential ambitions are gummed up with marble [sic] syrup, or stuck in snowdrifts altogether different from those plaguing the Iowa Caucuses? Are the birthers now hoist on their own petards, having been unable to find any proof that Obama was born outside the Uni …” Uh, oh! “…by forcing their comrade in boots to disqualify himself by releasing his Alberta birth certificate? No, actually it’s not even that complicated. You just have to look up the right law. It boils down to whether … wh … ba … whether Cruz is a natural-born Citizen” … quote, unquote … “of the United States. The only class of people constitutionally eligible for the Presidency. You see, the founding fathers didn’t want their newly independent nation to be taken over by foreigners on the sly. So what’s a natural-born Citizen?” Well, may I add this? It’s not in the column. Seems like every jerk with access to Google has decided what a natural-born Citizen is. And they insist that everybody agree with them! “… but the Constitution doesn’t say. But the framers’ understanding, combined with statutes enacted by the first Congress, indicate that the phrase means both birth abroad to American parents, in a manner regulated by federal law, and birth within the nation’s territory, regardless of parental citizenship. The Supreme Court has confirmed that definition on multiple occasions and in various contexts.” [Shouting] Oh my God! [Speaking at normal volume] It’s true! [Shouting] Wait a minute! We have a meeting scheduled in my mother’s basement to go over this, eh … eh … we’re gonna, we’re gonna post a lotta comments on the Mark Levin eh … eh social sites! [Speaking at normal volume] Let me continue. “There’s no ideological debate here. Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe and former Solicitor General Ted Olson, who were on opposite sides in Bush v. Gore, among other cases, coauthored a memorandum on March 2008 detailing the above legal explanation in the context of John McCain’s eligibility. Recall that McCain, lately one of Cruz’s chief antagonists, was born to U.S. citizen parents serving on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone. In other words, anyone who is a citizen at birth, as opposed to someone who becomes a citizen later, that is, naturalizes, or who isn’t a citizen at all, is what we’re talking about. So the one remaining question is whether Ted Cruz was a citizen at birth. And that’s an easy one. The Nationality Act of 1940 outlines which children became nationals and citizens in the United States at birth. In addition to those who were born in the United States, or born outside the country to parents who were both citizens, or, interestingly, found in the United States without parents and no proof of birth elsewhere…” That would be people from Mars, I think… “…citizenship goes to babies born to one American parent who has spent a certain number of years here. That single parent requirement has been amended several times, but under the law in effect between 1952 and 1986 – Cruz was born in 1970 – someone must have a citizen parent who resided in the United States for at least ten years, including five after the age of fourteen, in order to be considered a natural-born Citizen. Cruz’s mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born in Delaware, …” Is Delaware part of America? I think so. “… lived most of her life in the United States, and gave birth to little Rafael Edward Cruz in her thirties. So why all the brouhaha about where Obama was born, given there’s no dispute that his mother, Ann Dunham, was a citizen?” Oh lord, I go down this … this road, all the kooks will be shooting at me. And he says “It may be politically advantageous for Ted Cruz to renounce his Canadian citizenship before making a run for the White House, but his eligibility for that office shouldn’t be in doubt. Remember George Romney? Born in Mexico. Remember Barry Goldwater? Born in the Arizona Territory. Cruz is certainly not the hypothetical foreigner who John Jay and George Washington were concerned might usurp the role of Commander-in-Chief.” Here’s the practical problem, … uh, in addition to all this. Do you think any court in the land … any court, because, you have to adjudicate this, right? Do you think any court in the land is gonna say “You know what? You were born of an American citizen mother in Canada, therefore you’re disqualified”? There’s really no historical basis for this. And actually, I could have added to this piece, you look at the 1790 Naturalization Act, which had some very terrible things in it, by the way, Cruz would qualify under the 1790 Naturalization Act! And there were a lot of …. founding fathers involved in that Act … the act of the first Congress. So can we cut it out? No. No, pe … people do not want to cut it out, they’re gonna keep it up, there gonna show up here and there, waving some crap in front of my face or somebody else’s, [Shouts] “Don’t you read the Constitution?” Yes. [Shouts] “It says natural-born Citizen!” Yes. [Shouts] “Well look at that.” I did read it. It says natural-born Citizen. He’s born of an American mother. [Shouts] “Yeah, well it doesn’t mean that.” Well, what does it mean? “Hey look! Haven’t you read the book by Cuckoo Clock over here, and uh, eh …” Please. Save it for somebody else. As a matter of fact, bother Hannity. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. No, Mr. Call Screener, no calls on this either. I’m just not interested. This bores me, the whole topic. I’m just raising it, to address it, knock it down, done with it, hopefully never to be spoken again on the Mark Levin Show. Let’s take some calls, shall we? Kerry – Houston, Texas. The great KTRH country, home of my buddy Michael Berry. Go!
Teen employment hits record lows, suggesting lost generation
By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — For the fourth consecutive summer, teen employment has stayed anchored around record lows, prompting experts to fear that a generation of youth is likely to be economically stunted with lower earnings and opportunities in years ahead.
The trend is all the more striking given that the overall unemployment rate has steadily dropped, to 7.4 percent in August. And employers in recent months have been collectively adding almost 200,000 new jobs a month. It led to hopes that this would be the summer when teen employment improved.
In 1999, slightly more than 52 percent of teens 16 to 19 worked a summer job. By this year, that number had plunged to about 32.25 percent over June and July. It means that slightly more than three in 10 teens actually worked a summer job, out of a universe of roughly 16.8 million U.S. teens.
Radio Host Mark Levin Addresses Ted Cruz Eligibility Issue posed by Ridgewood Resident at Bookends Book Signing
Partial Transcript of the Mark Levin Show aired live on Monday, August 19, 2013
(prepared using the podcast recording of the show provided free of charge at www.marklevinshow.com)
[start at 0:26 of the podcast recording]
Hello everybody, Mark Levin here, our number 877-381-3811, 877-381-3811.
Mark Levin: Before we jump in, all I can say is, Wow! You guys, open your microphones a second. Thousands of people at both booksignings. Wasn’t that unbelievable?
Staffer: There were a lot of people there, it was great.
Mark Levin: And the people were just spectacular, weren’t they? Except for one guy in New Jersey which I’ll talk about later.
Staffer: [chuckles]
Mark Levin: This… this birther stuff is way, way out of contr…”Now Ted Cruz” … I swear I almost hit this guy… “Ted Cruz is not a citizen!” No, he’s born to an American mother, no he’s born in Canada to an American mother. So all you pregnant ladies travelling overseas: According to certain birther, uh, groups, if you have a child while you are on vacation, they’re not Americans. They’re not natural-born Americans. I just thought you’d wanna know, if you were thinking of your kid as a potential presidential candidate, uh, because they say so. They have no historical background whatsoever… None! But it’s, it’s just amazing! Absolutely stunning! But we had so many wonderful people, and let me add, all races, both genders… I don’t know the sexual preferences, that wasn’t a requirement to say hello…young people, elderly, middle age people. A particularly young crowd, yeah, we had dogs come too, everybody so well behaved, and uh, it was a pleasure. In New York, we were there about four-and-a-half hours, in New Jersey about five, five-and-a-half hours, and I wanted to be respectful to everybody, so… I just want to thank you all, and this Saturday, Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, at Barnes and Noble. I should add, if you want to see the crowd that was at New York, Mr. Producer went down the line, and this was early on, this, this line kept growing and growing throughout the day…you can go look at uh MarkLevinShow.com on our website, as well as the social sites MarkLevinShow Facebook, MarkLevinShow Twitter. Um, Christians, Coptic Christians are being wiped out in Egypt. Their churches are being burned to the ground….
[stop at 3:01 of the podcast recording]
…
[restart at 59:22 of the podcast recording]
Mark Levin: Alright, lets go to uh, Steve in New York, the great WABC, go!
Steve: Great one, it’s great to talk to you, what an honor.
Mark Levin: My honor, thank you, my friend.
Steve: Oh, I got a great story for you, I loved your uh, Hannity special, I enjoyed it very much, I listened to it three times over the weekend…
Mark Levin: Oh, thank you.
Steve: …I got my wife, I got my wife to tape for me, or TIVO it, and she watched it. And she really enjoyed it. She’s not big on politics or anything, and she gets sick of hearing me talk about it, but it was funny ‘cause she said “He is so calm, Steve.” He was, she was trying to do a little wifey/husband training? And…
Mark Levin: Uh huh.
Steve: she said “He is so calm, and he gets his point across. He didn’t raise his voice, or get upset…
Mark Levin: [chuckles]
Steve: …or anything!”
Mark Levin: [breaks out into laughter]
Steve: …and I laughed so hard. I said “How do you, uh, where do you think I learned how to yell?” [laughs] “I just listen to Mark.” And she knows you’re my hero, I go around quotin’ ya, and tellin’ everybody to listen to ya, and…
Mark Levin: Well, that’s great.
Steve: she just … to get me to calm down a little, and I said you just need to listen to Mark. [laughs]
Mark Levin: Well, thank you, uh…well listen, you know what, this is called passion, just remind her it’s passion, you know, and um…what was truly exceptional about the Hannity program, number one, the man has enormous class and decency, and number two, he was asking me questions because he wanted me to inform the public about what I’d written, and to engage the studio audience. And notice we didn’t have a bunch of left-wing bomb throwers just yelling and talking over people. There were conversations actually occurring, did you notice that?
Steve: Yes, there was no crazy, I mean a lot of times he’s got the left wingers on there, and it’s just, kind, it’s almost funny to watch, but that was so interesting and…and it didn’t get me upset, and it just, I just wanted to listen to it over and over and absorb every second of it, and every bit of information, it…it’s just brilliant, Mark, I, you know I hope when um…we’ve got President Cruz, he has the wisdom to make you his chief of staff or vice-president.
Mark Levin: No, no no no no no. And he’s got a great chief of staff, by the way. No, I…I do what I do, and uh, and he will do a great job should he be president. Thank you for your call my friend. And uh, I’m so sick of these birthers. I was going to tell you about this, uh, incident. Just a wonderful group of people, uh, we were in Bookends, Ridgewood, New Jersey, and everyone was respectful until…and it was hot outside, it got hot, hotter than uh originally forecast and it was a very long line, and you know we try to go through it quickly out of respect for everybody in line, but I also try to be respectful to everybody in line. Um…but this fella [breathes out] gets in my face and first of all he points to some obscure note on page I don’t know whatever and he said [cough] excuse me folks, and he says “You were wrong about this, you were wrong about”, and honestly I, I, I didn’t have time to read it, and I’ll go back and check it, if I’m wrong about it I’ll fix it, and that happens sometimes in these books when you’re going into the notes, you might put a word when you mean another word, or a state when you mean another state, so I’m going to check it out, I just haven’t had time. And then he goes, he says uh “And Ted Cruz is not eligible to be president. He’s not a natural-born Citizen.” And I thought to myself, you know I, this is not a subject that I have studied so thoroughly, but he’s born of a mother who is an American citizen. Doesn’t that make him a natural-born Ci… “No, but he was in Canada when he was born!” Okay, but she wasn’t Canadian, she was an American citizen! She was an American citizen. And so, the issue isn’t what the Constitution says in that regard, the issue is how do we interpret that. And the way I interpret it is, his mother’s an American citizen, so he’s an American citizen! That’s not a constitutional issue, that’s an interpretive issue… or, a statutory issue if Congress has passed some law subsequent to that to enforce that provision of the Constitution. So, the face of the Constitution isn’t terribly helpful. If he was born of non-citizens in a foreign country that would be easy, and there’s a lot of easy cases. So the guy gets in my face, and he starts pointing and pointing, and I looked at him and I pointed back, and I cursed, unfortunately, but the, because, uh you know, he was…he was a nutjob. And I thought to myself: Why do you come here and do that? Is this, is this sort of the way you…you excite yourself or something? No. So, I just want you folks to know who like Ted Cruz. I…I assume they’re going to do this to Rubio, or some of these other people too, whether you like ‘em or not for president I’m just making a point, but now this has become an entire industry. And of course [chuckles] Ted Cruz [laughs], he immediately issued today or yesterday his long form birth certificate. Now, some of this is probably coming from the left. So now they’re the birthers. But some of it’s coming from others, too. People just get obsessed, or conspiratorial, and there’s no end to it, on a matter like this, and there’s nothing I can say or point to that’s going to change their mind. But in my view there’s no doubt about it that he’s eligible for president, should he choose to run, just as I believe McCain was eligible for president, when he ran. So…that’s my opinion! You may not like it… But what particularly bothered me about this guy…he was disrespectful in his conduct to everybody else standing there. They were pleasant, talking to each other, you know…listening, watching and so forth. I’m a big boy; I’ve seen this and a thousand times worse. But he was quite obnoxious. He’s the only one…oh no there was another guy, had a prob, wha wha, he what…he had a problem, he was screaming upstairs, I don’t know what he was screamin’ about. It was kind of eventful there in New Jersey. No, there wasn’t anything like that in New York, was there boys? [Staff: No. Peaceful in ji…you know in Long Island] It was peaceful on Long Island! [chuckles] But is was peaceful in New Jersey, too. It really, really was. It was just terrific. If you could have seen that line, well, actually you can. We have the uh video, and this is just the start of the day with the line. It got longer and longer at uh… at Book Review in Long Island if you want to take a look on MarkLevinShow.com or MarkLevi…oh there is now? The…the New Jersey line? Okay. Both lines. On MarkLevinShow.com, are they both on the social sites too? Or…just the Long Island. But we’ll put the other one up later so some of you can see yourselves, too. Alright. GoldLine!
ObamaCare’s architects reap windfall as Washington lobbyists
By Megan R. Wilson – 08/25/13 12:06 PM ET
ObamaCare has become big business for an elite network of Washington lobbyists and consultants who helped shape the law from the inside.
More than 30 former administration officials, lawmakers and congressional staffers who worked on the healthcare law have set up shop on K Street since 2010.
Major lobbying firms such as Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, The Glover Park Group, Alston & Bird, BGR Group and Akin Gump can all boast an ObamaCare insider on their lobbying roster — putting them in a prime position to land coveted clients.
“When [Vice President] Biden leaned over [during healthcare signing] and said to [President] Obama, ‘This is a big f’n deal,’” said Ivan Adler, a headhunter at the McCormick Group, “he was right.”
Veterans of the healthcare push are now lobbying for corporate giants such as Delta Airlines, UPS, BP America and Coca-Cola, and for healthcare companies including GlaxoSmithKline, UnitedHealth Group and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.
Ultimately, the clients are after one thing: expert help in dealing with the most sweeping overhaul of the country’s healthcare system in decades.
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By KEN DILANIAN | Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency is facing its worst crisis since the domestic spying scandals four decades ago led to the first formal oversight and overhaul of U.S. intelligence operations.
Thanks to former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden’s flood of leaks to the media, and the Obama administration’s uneven response to them, morale at the spy agency responsible for intercepting communications of terrorists and foreign adversaries has plummeted, former officials say. Even sympathetic lawmakers are calling for new curbs on the NSA’s powers.
“This is a secret intelligence agency that’s now in the news every day,” said Michael Hayden, who headed the NSA from 1999 to 2005 and later led the CIA. “Each day, the workforce wakes up and reads the daily indictment.”
President Barack Obama acknowledged Friday that many Americans have lost trust in the nation’s largest intelligence agency. “There’s no doubt that, for all the work that’s been done to protect the American people’s privacy, the capabilities of the NSA are scary to people,” he said in a CNN interview.
In Education, the Goal Posts Move
August 9, 2013 12:20PM
By Neal McCluskey
Other than in Shaquille O’Neal’s stunning vision of the future of basketball, the goals in sports don’t move. If they did, it would make the games a whole lot more random, and the outcomes unreliable indicators of who is really the better team. But in education—as we’re seeing with the hue and cry over new test results in New York—the goals do move. A lot. That’s pretty ironic considering that the top-down measures are specifically intended to establish set standards.
Earlier this week, New York released the results of its first statewide tests to gauge student mastery of the Common Core national curriculum standards. Not surprisingly, “proficiency” rates crashed, plummeting between 24 and 34 percentage points depending on the subject. But as Core supporters rightly warned, plummeting scores don’t necessarily indicate plummeting performance; they indicate that the goal posts have moved. Of course, supporters say the posts have moved higher—like basketball hoops in Shaq’s 2044—and that may be the case. But what’s more important is just that the goals are in different places—maybe they moved to the side, not up—and students haven’t been shooting in that direction.
This is far from the first time the goals have jumped, ducked, or shifted in the “standards” era. Throughout the No Child Left Behind years we saw states changing tests, standards, etc., so results often weren’t comparable from one year to the next. And New York itself revealed a few years ago that its tests had gotten easier over the years, rather than its education system getting much better.
Perhaps the most troubling consequence of all this is that these top-down standards-and-testing regimes are supposedly giving us bright-line indicators of student knowledge and ability, but that line is constantly leaping around. In other words, it’s shiny but worthless. And the line isn’t all that bright, really. Very often parents never get to see the tests their children take, especially year-after-year iterations to see how the exam has changed. And even if they could access the tests, how many have time to thoroughly vet them? I’d guess roughly zero.
Then there’s the problem of a baseline, which is going to be difficult to establish in New York with this year’s results. For one thing, it’s quite clear that the new tests were administered before the corresponding curricula were in place. The Common Core may be a higher or lower standard than what New York used to have, but again, for the tests, much of what matters is only that the Core is different. You may be a great all-around athlete, but if you’ve been training for baseball you’re not going to look so good if you suddenly have to play football. Moreover, there is decent reason to believe that some, or maybe many, types of test items will need to be changed in the next go-round because they were simply poorly constructed. If they are improved, scores will also go up—but that will be because the tests have gotten better, not the education.
From an immediate political and policy perspective, the worry about the latest goal teleportation in New York is not that people will reject the Common Core, as Core fans fear, but that when scores almost certainly rise next year Core supporters and school officials will declare the schools and Core “working.” But a score increase very likely won’t indicate improving education nearly as much as students and schools simply shooting in the direction to which the goal has moved. It may also very well reflect improvements made to test items after examining problems in this year’s assessment.
In the long term, the problem is clearly top-down goal-control to begin with. Aside from the basic problem that all children are different and need different things, the evidence is awfully clear that politicians love to reorient goal posts. Sometimes it’s because they don’t like the scores that the current goals are producing. Sometimes it’s because they are coerced into change. But as long as they keep doing it—and whenever you are trying to get votes, you will have a strong incentive to appear to “make things better”—the score of the game will be close to worthless. And that doesn’t really help anyone.
Global terror alert inconsistent with U.S. portrayal of weakened al Qaida
By Hannah Allam and Lesley Clark | McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s sweeping response to an alleged al Qaida plot – closing diplomatic posts in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia – suggests a terrorist organization that’s capable of striking virtually anywhere, not the one U.S. officials have depicted as a group that’s near defeat.
Counterterrorism analysts said Monday that the U.S. government’s global response to a threat emanating from Yemen, home to al Qaida’s most active affiliate, was at odds with how dismissive President Barack Obama was in a speech in May, when he said that “not every collection of thugs that labels themselves as al Qaida will pose a credible threat to the United States.
Embassy closings, travel warning renew debate over NSA data collection
By Ali Watkins, David Lightman and Adam Baron | McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHIGNTON — The closing of U.S. embassies in 21 predominantly Muslim countries and a broad caution about travel during August that the State Department issued on Friday touched off debate Sunday over the National Security Agency’s sweeping data collection programs.
Congressional supporters of the program, appearing on Sunday morning talk shows, said the latest rounds of warnings of unspecified threats showed that the programs were necessary, while detractors said there was no evidence linking the programs, particularly the massive collection of cell phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans, to the vague warnings of a possible terrorist attack.
