#DM7 Article: Clinton Maintains The Obama Administration’s Level Of Transparency

Posted on March 8, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

This is a reposting of my weekly Da Tech Guy Column: Clinton Maintains The Obama Administration’s Level Of Transparency

By A.P. Dillon

After the Select Committee on Benghazi requested emails from Hillary Clinton surrounding the attack in Benghazi, a real bombshell landed.

The State Department turned over about 300 emails from Clinton. All of them from a personal email account. Transparency! 

According to a New York Times article, Hillary Clinton apparently never had a government email address during her four years as Secretary of State. It would appear that no measures were taken to archive any of her emails on the agency’s servers, which is required by the Federal Records Act.

The media is all aflutter.

The media is stunned at the lack of transparency. None of them can really explain it, including former White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, who appeared on the TODAY show with Matt Lauer.

Ok, so Gibbs can’t explain it, but where’s Jay Carney?  Flashback to 2011 – Carney says ‘all of our work is done in work email accounts‘. In 2013, Carney walks back that comment and instead says staff routinely have ‘alternate email accounts’.

Well, Carney should tell Jason Baron that, because he is laboring on the theory that high-ranking officials don’t use personal email accounts:

“I can recall no instance in my time at the National Archives when a high-ranking official at an executive branch agency solely used a personal email account for the transaction of government business,” said Mr. Baron, who worked at the agency from 2000 to 2013. Source: NY Times

The question remains, will the ‘most transparent administration in history’ defend this incidence as they did in 2013?

The security ramifications of this revelation are frightening.

Just ask former CIA director and U.S. Army General Petraeus, who is plead guilty this week to “unauthorized removal and retention of classified information”.

According to the Washington Post, the private account Clinton was using was created the day she was set to start confirmation hearings by the Senate.

Are you Ready For Hillary?

Related Reading:

Instapundit — IT’S COME TO THIS: Hillary fallout: Josh Earnest now basically arguing that official government e-mail accounts are optional; Update: For aides too?

Documents Obtained by Judicial Watch Reveal Top Hillary Clinton Advisers Knew Immediately that Assault on Benghazi was Armed Attack

 

DM7 small LL1885A.P. Dillon resides in the Triangle area of North Carolina and is the founder ofLadyLiberty1885.com.
Her current and past writing can also be found at IJ Review, StopCommonCoreNC.org, WatchdogWireNC and WizBang. 

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Government | Tagged , | 1 Comment

NC Public School Forum ‘Eggs and Issues’ – Pushing Common Core

Posted on March 8, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

NCSPIN Upside DownLast month the NC Public School Forum hosted an event called ‘Eggs and Issues’, which covered education topics.

NC SPIN did a special taping of the event.

The attendees were mainly business community members and the panelists included:

  • Chris Fitzsimon, Director of NC Policy Watch
  • John Hood, President, The John Locke Foundation
  • Craig Horn is a retired food broker and entrepreneur
  • Andre Peak is a retired executive with IBM and is chairman of the NC Business Committee for Education and co-chair of the Academic Standards Review Commission for the state
  • Keith Poston, President and Executive Director of the Public School Forum
  • Tom Campbell, Moderator

The conversation covered teacher pay, differential pay for teachers, school choice, virtual charters and lastly, Common Core.

The discussion on Common Core starts around the 22:30 mark. 

Government here to help common corePay attention to the moderator, Tom Campbell, as he cuts off Andre Peek’s answer regarding Common Core and launches into a small rant about standards in our state being the “initiative du jour”. Campbell then goes into a sad set of statements about opposition blaming Obama.

Around the 25 minute mark, Campbell turns to Keith Poston for more answers about Common Core and ‘sticking with the standards’. Poston’s response is predictable and a set of assumptions not based in fact or evidence.  Poston tied having the same standards in all states to kids being able to get a job where ever they want.

Poston continued and said, “we’re going to make a mistake if we back off high standards.” The implication here being we shouldn’t drop the fundamentally flawed and experimental Common Core.  His claim is based on the false assumption that Common Core is indeed a set of higher standards, which has no evidence to back that claim up.

Poston went one step further and proclaimed that, “the Common Core standards we incorporated into our state are the highest standards we’re ever going to have.”

Yes, he really said that.

Following Poston’s remarks, John Hood then was asked about testing. His responses were well-rehearsed sounding and Hood actually launched into a series of comments supporting Poston’s false position and statements on Common Core.

“In this particular case, you can’t go backwards, you can’t stay where you are…As Keith just illustrated. In fact, the screw ups with our testing program in the past demonstrate that simply repealing common core and going back to the system we had before is not an answer.”

Hood then mentioned how pleased he was that North Carolina has adopted the ‘battery of ACT tests’.  Hood also mentioned the need for tests like the ACT in K-8.

Mr. Hood, you do realize those tests are all aligned to Common Core, right?  Do you also realize that versions of the ACT are already in K-8 and those are Common Core aligned as well?

The purpose of tests like ACT, WorkKeys and EXPLORE isn’t to inform instruction and assist the student, they are designed to assess the student and place them in a silo going forward.

Very disturbing and disappointing commentary from Mr. Hood.  Someone please ask him what office he is intending to run for.

 

Related Reading:

Public School Forum Declares Book Closed on Common Core, Whistles past Many Shortcomings

Poll: Strong Support for Opportunity Scholarships, Strong Opposition to Common Core

 

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core, EDUCATION | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Common Core Weekend Reads – 03-08-15

Posted on March 8, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Common Core kermitThese are the Common Core Weekend Reads for March 8, 2015.

This is a review of the past week of news on Common Core nationwide and in North Carolina.

Articles are organized by category.

Prior Edition of Weekend Reads: 02-22-15

* Last weekend, the CC weekend reads were not available. This edition will be longer than usual to include some news that should have been included on 3-1-15.

NC Academic Standards Review Commission (ASRC) Updates:

NC ASRC Site 

NC UPDATES:

APUSH:

QUOTES OF THE WEEK: The Fordham Agenda & Desperation

“These events haven’t convinced conservative reformers and others of the unlikelihood of a No Child reauthorization. In fact, both former Fordham Institute President Checker Finn and Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute have pieces out lionizing the Student Success Act as legislation that reaffirms the role of states in setting education policy.

The fact that both Finn and Hess conveniently ignore that this was actually done by No Child, which gives states wide leeway in meeting basic accountability for student achievement in exchange for federal dollars they agree to receive, shows that both men are engaging in pure intellectual sophistry.”
– DropOutNation, No Child Reauthorization has no shot

*  *  *  *

“Republicans are vulnerable here,” said Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank that backs education reform. “They really have to be careful about backing away from their commitment to accountability and to higher standards. 

“The Republican Party has been a leader on this in Colorado and in other states. I don’t think they want the label as ‘the party of no’ when it comes to education reform.”​
-Denver Post, Colorado GOP reverses course on Academic Standards, tests

LEGISLATIVE/LEGAL:

POLITICAL/PROTESTS:

HIGHLIGHTED ARTICLES:

THE WEEKEND READS:

TESTING UPDATES:

VIDEO CLIPS OF THE WEEK:

TWEETS OF THE WEEK:

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Academic Standards Review Commission, Common Core, Testing | Tagged | 1 Comment

Wake Commissioner Representing The Citizens By Blocking Them?

Posted on March 7, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

One new Wake County Commissioner appears to have a temper. The other claimed she would represent and work with all Wake citizens.

How quickly those claims fell flat:

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), POLITICS NC, Twitter | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Wake Commissioner Representing The Citizens By Blocking Them?

Poll: Strong Support For NC Opportunity Scholarships

Posted on March 6, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

A recent poll by Civitas shows very strong public support for the Opportunity Scholarship program, of which legal arguments about the program are being heard at the North Carolina Supreme Court.

Civitas reported that overall approval for the program stood at 68% with a high percentage of minorities (80%) supporting it.

A closer look at the breakdown of those numbers by political leaning tells an even more impressive story, with 75% of registered Democrats supporting the program:

With regard to party registration support is high among all groups with the relative rankings probably a bit surprising to most people.  Fifty-nine percent of respondents registered as Republicans favor the program (29% oppose). Three quarters (75 percent) of registered Democrats who were polled favor the program (21 percent oppose), along with over  two-thirds (68 percent) of registered Independents.

Not to be missed in the poll were several questions on approval of Common Core.  The questions were basically the same, but the results appear to be broken out by two factors; region and political affiliation.

The overall percentages for both break-outs seemed the same, total Favor 34%, total Oppose 52%.  In the political affiliation breakout, favorability of the Common Core was strongest with Democrat males strongly favoring the standards at 30%.  Their female counterparts only strongly supported the standards at 18%.

Conversely, for strongly opposed, both Republican males and females broke over 50% each. Interestingly, Independent males strongly opposed the standards with 40% and Independent women strongly opposed at 36%.

 

 

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core, EDUCATION, Opportunity Scholarships (OSP) | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Disclosure For Thee, But Not For Me

Posted on March 6, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

“eviscerate, mitigate, litigate, cogitate and agitate”

Blueprint NC partner, Progress NC, has been engaged in an ethics complaint against Governor Pat McCrory for some time now.  Most recently, Progress NC has continued piling on by making video mash-ups to target the Governor.

The group, led by Gerrick Brenner, has focused only the Governor and seems to be paying little attention to the legal counsel responsible for actually reviewing and filing the economic interest documents.  I asked Progress NC on Twitter about this, however, they have not yet replied:

Perhaps Mr. Brenner has been too distracted by his recent ‘targeting and messaging’ participation in the America Votes State Summit.  For the uninitiated, America votes is a very well-funded, very liberal outfit who has received vast amounts of money from the secretive group, Democracy Alliance.  ‘Dark money’ transparency, anyone?

In a recent blog post on the Progress NC site, Brenner asserts that the complaint should be made public in the interest of transparency. However, Brenner himself seemingly isn’t as interested in transparency when it involved Progress NC.

Flashback to 2012; emphasis added:

And conservatives backing McCrory have quietly suggested that more should be known about Progress NC, a 501(c)3, and Progress Action, a 501(c)4.

At WRAL-TV’s request, Gerrick Brenner, the executive director for both groups, sent along the IRS form 990 for both group. The 2011 form, the latest available, gives rough outline of their budgets and operations.

But neither the 990 for the 501(c)3, which cannot directly advocate in a political campaign, or the 501(c)4, which is allowed to speak more directly about candidates and issues, lists donors for the group.

“We follow the rules of the road and the letter of the law, which are ultimately set by Congress,” Brenner said. Neither group is required to disclose its donors. We asked him if he would voluntarily give a list of donors or top donors for either organization.

“We have donors of all shapes and sizes all across the state, who share progressive values about the value of funding our public universities and public schools, and smart investments like Research Triangle Park,” Brenner said. But he declined to list specific donors. 

It’s worth noting that the 501(c)4’s board includes Brad Thompson, a former Raleigh city council member and former staffer for Sen. John Edwards, and Dean Debnam, CEO of Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling. The group has served as a mouthpiece for N.C. Citizens for Progress, a 527 group that has aired commercials targeting McCrory. 

See Progress NC’s donor connections.

This is not the first time Progress NC has had transparency run-ins. Jump back to 2013, where Progress NC had some trouble following the law:

It appears that possibly Progress NC hasn’t been following the law with regards to donations made to the organization. The general gist here is that Progress NC apparently did not renew its solicitation license for non tax exempt status around mid-May of this year, yet has been receiving donations under the pretext the organization was compliant.

If true, who knows how many donors have been affected as the Progress NC website still claims donations made to them to be tax exempt. Progress NC’s donation page says the same. NC Republican Party Chairman Claude Pope has called on NC Secretary of State Elaine Marshall to investigate.

If that weren’t enough, Progress NC was the group promoting and supporting the education protest group, AIM Higher NC.  Read: Progress NC Action Pushes Mystery Group Petition.

That ‘promoting and supporting’ included promotion of political candidates.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), BlueprintNC, Pat McCrory | Comments Off on Disclosure For Thee, But Not For Me