RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-college-affordability-20130823,0,6515784.story

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Obama administration will wade into the controversial business of rating colleges and universities based on their “value,” President Obama announced Thursday as he unveiled a set of proposals aimed at tackling the rising cost of higher education.

The “college scorecard” would help students decide whether a school is worth the hefty tuition bills and help the government decide where to spend federal aid money, while giving image-conscious schools an incentive to keep costs down.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/22/Increased-Graduation-Rates-Fail-to-Predict-Positive-Outcomes-for-Minorities

As schools and colleges across the nation prepare to begin instruction in the coming weeks, many are assessing the educational progress of American students. Educational data released this past summer depicts a mixed picture of the challenges and achievements of America’s student population. One of the most positive stories from the summer has been the rising graduation rates among minority high school students.

Education Week’s Editorial Projects in Education Research Center reports that high school graduation rates hit a 40 year high in 2010, (the latest year in which data is available). In 2010, the rate reached nearly 75 percent, which is the highest percentage of students graduating from high school since 1973.

The research center reports that gains made by minority students have helped boost overall U.S. graduation rates. In fact, Hispanics enjoyed the greatest boost in graduation rates, as their graduation rate jumped 16 points during the course of the decade and now stands at 68 percent. African-Americans made similar gains, as their graduation rate rose 13 points to rest at 62 percent in 2010. Asians experienced a 5 percent increase to 81 percent, while Native Americans experienced a 3 percent rise to 51 percent.

Whites also made significant gains during the same period, as they experienced a six percent boost and now enjoy an 80 percent graduation rate. While this news is promising, heavily urban and minority-concentrated areas still suffer from disproportionately high dropout rates. The Center named Detroit, Denver, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and New York City as school systems having the highest dropout rates.

The latest figures have generated a healthy amount of skepticism among public school critics and opponents of President Obama’s educational policies. Some allege that students may not actually be learning more, but rather that watered-down curriculum and generally low standards may have amplified these figures.

http://send.hadavars.com/index.php?action=message&l=2096&c=20803&m=19293&s=a317a26441993bdd8f740ee9a6c71bce President Obama’s maneuverability, domestically and internationally, will depend on the outcome of the very critical November, 2014 six-year- itch election campaign, which is already underway.  The outcome of Obama’s second midterm election – which clipped the wings of many second term presidents – will determine his capability to become a transformational president. It will […]

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Into-the-Fray-Muted-myopic-and-moronic-324010#disqus_thread It would be so nice if something would make sense for a change.– Alice in Wonderland Almost five months ago in this column (April 7), I warned: “With US foreign policy everywhere beleaguered by failure and paralysis, the only hope of any foreign success for the administration is by pressuring a pliant Israel on […]

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2013/08/resetting-us-foreign-policy Aside from the carnage in Benghazi, the most enduring image from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as US secretary of state was the fake remote control she brought with her to Moscow in 2009 with the word “Reset” in misspelled Russian embossed on it. Clinton’s gimmick was meant to show that under President Barack Obama, American […]

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5461 The danger from within As if Israel doesn’t have enough trouble protecting its civilians from external threats, such as Thursday’s rocket barrage from Lebanon into the northern Galilee. Now it has an internal demon on its hands: polio. Though no cases of the disease have been reported so far, a strain of the virus […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/obama-is-denying-energy-independence-to-america?f=puball Watching the events unfold in the Middle East, it occurred to me that, if we had a president who had even the slightest grasp of energy facts, we could be living in a nation that is not dependent in part on Middle East oil. Instead, we have a president who will not allow the […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/government-shutdown-blame-obama-reid There are two statements one can make with certainty about the current situation inside the beltway. First, truth is a rare commodity. What was promised to be the most transparent administration in American history has proven to, by comparison, make Richard Nixon’s Administration look like Wikileaks. And second, the Republican Party, at its highest […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/dont-rescue-the-muslim-brotherhood Ever since President Obama came to office, his administration has cultivated relations with, legitimated, emboldened, empowered, funded and even armed the Muslim Brotherhood.  This policy has amounted to our changing sides in what is best described as the War for the Free World. As documented in a free online, video-based course I produced last […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/356514/print Slowly at first, then all of a sudden, the Obama administration has devolved into the Obama regime. Obama does whatever he wants. Those pesky impediments on his predecessors — namely, federal law, the separation of powers, and the Constitution — have proved as tough as tissue paper in containing Obama’s ambition to impose statism […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356538/lets-talk-about-dual-allegiance-john-fonte

MY ISRAELI/AMERICAN FRIENDS WILL BRISTLE….BUT DUAL CITIZENSHIP IS WRONG ON ALL GROUNDS….RSK

Any comprehensive immigration bill should ensure that new citizens have to abjure their other loyalties.

This week, Senator Ted Cruz announced that he would be renouncing his Canadian citizenship, which he gained by dint of being born in Calgary. He did the right thing, but the entire issue of dual allegiance has yet to be seriously addressed during the debate over comprehensive immigration reform. So let us be comprehensive, if you will.

The Schumer-Rubio Senate bill, by making millions more immigrants eligible for citizenship in the coming years, will provide for a vast expansion of people eligible for dual citizenship. Is this positive or negative? I would argue that the status of dual citizenship per se is not necessarily a problem, but that dual allegiance, in the sense of the active exercise of loyalty and allegiance to a foreign state, is inimical to American democracy.

The concept of dual allegiance — the idea that some Americans (with the special privilege of voting in two nations) have political allegiance to a foreign state as well as to the United States — is inconsistent with the moral foundation of American democracy. Our form of government is based on equality of citizenship, and dual-allegiance citizens are by definition civic bigamists.

Dual-allegiance citizens exist in a political space beyond the American constitutional community. Besides being part of “We the People of the United States,” they are apparently members of another “people” — a foreign political community — with different and competing responsibilities and commitments. These foreign interests and commitments dilute their commitment, attachment, and allegiance to the United States. (For those who want the long version of this argument, see my 2005 report on the topic for the Center for Immigration Studies.)

The poster boy for dual allegiance is Univision’s Jorge Ramos, who wrote on his blog in January that, yes, he values his American citizenship . . .