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Flagging kids in early age as ‘at risk” in early grades – does it help or harm?

[Author]by Alyson Bryant

VoiceWaves / New America Media[/Author]

 

Long before students have even entered ninth grade, teachers are looking to detailed data to figure out which kids are most likely to drop out of high school. Though this flagging system can call attention to a need for additional help to a potential dropout, there may be concerns, like inaccurate predictions, or worse, lowered expectations.

At Clinton Middle School in East Los Angeles, teachers are using a system called Early Warning Indicators, or EWI, which is part of a school transformation program called Diplomas Now, currently used in 14 cities around the country. The system is based on recent research out of Johns Hopkins University that shows what specific factors best predict the likelihood of dropping out of high school. The warning system uses three data points – suspensions or behavior, attendance, and grades in middle school — to identify kids at risk of not making it to high school graduation. According to an op-ed written by Diplomas Now in the New York Times, in the 2012-13 school year, “the program achieved a 41 percent reduction in chronically absent students, a 70 percent reduction in suspended students, a 69 percent reduction in students failing English and a 52 percent reduction in students failing math.”

Here’s how it works: After reviewing the trends, the teachers examine students’ names that are colored red or yellow, considered off-track or in danger of being off-track. At Clinton, signs of being off-track include coming to school less than 85 percent of the time, getting a bad behavior grade, or an F in any class. Students who show two or more of these signs are flagged.

The teachers then discuss the circumstances around each student, things like how often he or she visits the nurse, or what’s going on in the family. Then they brainstorm interventions. These can be simple, like saving an extra breakfast for a student, or more involved, like assigning tutoring or Saturday school.

Though teachers have always kept students’ needs in mind when grades have dipped or behavior has changed, typically those decisions were made within the teacher’s own classroom. Teachers don’t always know what’s going on in the classroom next door, and it’s fairly rare to have time carved out of the school day just to problem-solve around student data. Likewise, students often don’t realize that teachers are paying attention to their personal lives.

At Clinton, a student doing poorly in math class is every teacher’s problem, because that student is considered more likely to drop out. The faculty meets every month, hoping that within a month, they can bump a student back on-track — a process they call “recovery.”

But does being off-track definitely mean that a student will drop out? The kids interviewed at Clinton are in seventh grade and only 12 years old. Can data accurately predict if one of them is going to drop out of high school five years down the line?

That’s a question Chris West is wrestling with, based on his work developing an Early Warning Indicator system for Montgomery County Schools in Maryland. His system flagged “at-risk” students as young as first grade. One of his concerns is whether all this information can even be acted upon. He found that 76 percent of the students who dropped out had these warning indicators, but 47.4 percent of the non-dropouts had these indicators, too. What’s the risk of “mis-predicting”?

Ultimately, West said if you identify someone incorrectly, but they still show signs of disengagement, the effects of intervening could still be positive.

There’s another concern about these early flagging systems. What if knowing that certain kids are on the “at-risk” list colors the way teachers see them, and they start to expect less? Or what if the students start to expect less of themselves?

David Yeager, an adolescent psychologist at the University of Texas, worries that early warning systems could undermine a student’s resilience. “What if what’s the cure for under-performance in middle school becomes a disease when they move on to college, because they’ve been told they can’t do it on their own?” he said.

At Clinton, the students don’t necessarily know that they’ve been flagged. Principal Sissi O’Reilly said that her staff never uses the term “at-risk” to describe students. And because the teachers are intervening as soon as a student slips up, the interventions themselves can be small. “I’m not putting out fires, going around trying to solve problems. I’m supporting the system that supports individual kids,” said O’Reilly.

But English teacher Jason Black says he thinks it is okay to tell students outright if they’re being targeted. “I think that actually makes them feel good, knowing they have a team behind them, knowing that they have a lot of people they will let down,” said Black.

Eighth-grader Gabby said that she appreciated the intervention, because she already knew she was messing up. “My math teacher, she came to talk to me, she pulled me out individually and told me about my grades and she said English needs to be better… Then my history teacher pulled me out as well, so I knew that they really cared,” said Gabby.

And teachers end up grading themselves too, using the data trends to set goals for their own classrooms.

Creating the structure for this kind of data-driven attention doesn’t come cheap. There are almost as many support staff at Clinton as there are teachers, to provide wrap-around services, according to the principal.

Gabby went from an F to a B in English. But what happens when Gabby graduates from Clinton, and this strong support network disappears? For Andrea Schwartz who crunches the data at Clinton, that’s her biggest concern. “It keeps me up at night… How do we build up these kids so that they have a solid enough foundation that they can go on and progress?”

Outside of the Clinton campus, early warning data are collected on students throughout the Los Angeles School District. But according to Cynthia Lim at the Office of Data and Accountability, other schools don’t have the human capital to help teachers analyze and respond to that data consistently.

Alyson Bryant is a youth reporter for VoiceWaves in Long Beach.  This story was produced by Youth Radio in collaboration with VoiceWaves, a youth-led community media project in Long Beach founded by New America Media. Additional reporting by Robyn Gee at Youth Radio. Edited by Elizabeth Soep.s

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How many covert ops can dance on the head of a pin?

[Author]by Jon Rappoport[/Author]

 

These are notes on covert ops I’ve made over the years. They apply to any arena where deception is the name of the game.

Every covert op needs a cover story. That is, the public must be made to look in the wrong direction.

A cover story not only hides the identity of perpetrators, it also imparts the wrong meaning to the event being staged.

Example: a war is set in motion, in order to bankrupt several governments. But the public is told the war means: “protecting democracy.”

Major covert ops have more than one objective. A war will bankrupt governments; it will also result in a peace treaty that creates a larger cooperative structure than previously existed, spanning several nations – and the men who end up running that larger structure are the same men who triggered the war in the first place. They wind up with more control and power than they had before.

Covert ops of great size and importance must include the laying of false trails. Thus, in the wake of the op, investigators will find clues that lead them down roads that come, eventually, to alleys that dead-end against blank walls.

In the process, they discover perpetrators who weren’t really perpetrators. They discover motives that weren’t true motives. They pick up hints that were deposited like break crumbs to divert and mislead.

In case some element of the actual covert op is revealed, there is the limited hangout. This is a confession. It offers a mea culpa, but only concerning a relatively trivial factor.

“Yes, our agency did make mistakes, and those mistakes led to the loss of public funds. But we are taking steps to assure nothing like this ever happens again…”

And of course, in order to “take steps,” the agency needs a larger budget.

A massive series of connected covert ops, over a long period of time, are built, as a kind of hierarchy that leads to some ultimate objective. This is the “ops within ops” strategy.

Identifying and derailing a handful of ops will not stop the overall program.

For example, an ultimate objective would be: the triumph of Globalism. This means putting the nations and peoples of the world under a single management system.

That system, an enormous bureaucracy run at the very top by a small secret group, would eventually make all important decisions involving: politics; the economy; money; credit; production and distribution of goods and services; energy; military use of force; media/propaganda content; medical treatment; mega-corporate power; natural resources; food; water; geo-engineering; freedom of speech; education; geo-distribution of populations.

In order to create this overarching reality, multiple systems of mind control, indoctrination, self-policing, and operant conditioning must be enacted and expanded.

Such a conspiracy (Globalism) does not need the conscious cooperation of many people who are “in on the secret.” That childish position is repeated intentionally by idiots and dupes and pawns and infiltrators.

Compartmentalization is the key. You can take any group and assign it various separate tasks, each one masked by “humanitarian” slogans, and you will get eager compliance.

Only a few people in charge see the big picture and understand how the separate tasks (ops) combine to achieve the overall goal.

The art and skill of covert ops involve coordinating such machinery to yield the desired result.

The main propaganda/media approach is: “Events that are taking place in the world are unrelated. These crises and problems are separate fires breaking out, without a central cause.”

To view this in action, just watch the network evening news. It’s an exercise meant to engender partitioned minds, which nibble a bit here, a bit there. Stories break out, are covered, and then disappear, to be replaced by new material.

The elite anchors are inducers of short-term memory and long-term amnesia.

Alongside media, a continuous downpour of propaganda urges the primacy of the group and the mass and the collective beyond any “selfish” concerns.

This op is intended to erase the very concept of the individual.

Why? Because the free, powerful, and independent individual can expose how “the group” is being recreated every day as a mythological symbol.

A symbol of (false) hope, caring, dependence, passivity, acquiescence, surrender, and envelopment within the banner of “enlightened humane leadership.”

If it quacks and walks like an organized religion, it is some version of an organized religion. It doesn’t need a God. It just needs a priest class to preach Rescue For All People.

Quack, quack. Op, op.

(Jon Rappoport is the author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit From The Matrix, and Power Outside The Matrix).

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What is the State, who is the government and who is the public?

[Author]FROM THE EDITOR:

Dear readers:[/Author]

I received the following article (below) from a very knowledgeable man in the Constitution of the United States, who has written intensely on the subject of freedom and government corruption for many years. He wrote me back and emailed me this following article. I won’t say his name to protect his privacy.

Please make your judgment and don’t believe what he says. Do your own research if you can, but you and all of us must understand how the system that governs us all, works.

The email that I sent out was about a message from Anonymous, the personage that wears a stylised Guy Fawkes mask that you’ve probably seen before in emails or in news.

After seeing the video, he responded with the article below:

“Disrupting and ridicule is a waste of time. Knowledge is where our salvation lies. See the following and let others have access to it.”

 

(THE OFFICE OF PERSON) Public “means” State

 

Any time you see things like, “public servant,” it means “State Servant”. Or when you see anything that refers to THE PUBLIC, it means, “The State.”

Everyone assumes that “public” means: the people. It has nothing to do with “people”. It means the STATE! Or State: They are synonymous.

In other words, a “Public Servant” does not serve YOU, meaning YOU are not the public. A “Public Servant” means a “State Servant” who only serves the fictitious corporation called the “State.”.

This is why no attorney working for a “State” [Public] Office serving only the “State” can answer any legal questions for YOU, and why they will always tell you they can NOT give YOU any legal advice!

Now think about that. “IF” government [State, Federal] was by the “private people” for the “private people”, where WE the “private people” created government [State] for OURSELVES to serve us, then wouldn’t every “State” [Public] Official be obligated to answer any of your legal questions? Wouldn’t they be obligated to provide YOU will any legal advice you ask for? Well “IF” they were truly YOUR State [Public] Officials serving YOU as the creator of the government [State] then, yes, they most certainly would be obligated to provide you with any legal advice you ask for?

However, if YOU as one of the “private people” actually are NOT the creator of government [State] and that government [State] was actually just created by only a select group of men who are the only creators of it, then that would make government [State] completely foreign to you as one of the “private people.”

Now that would be more logical as to why all government [State] Officials and their attorneys would always tell you that they cannot give you any legal advice and tell you that you must contact a private attorney instead.

By the way, speaking of attorneys in general regardless of whether they are government [State] attorneys or private attorneys, have you ever seen any attorney ever actually give you any legal FACTS? Have you ever seen any attorney willing to put his legal determination in writing swearing that his legal determination is indeed FACT?

The only thing I have seen is OPINIONS being given. Even the government [State] State Attorney General that issues written legal determinations are nothing but written OPINIONS of the State Attorney General. Every single letter ever written by a State Attorney General issued to a State Office or State Official or Judge is just that attorney’s own personal OPINION!

You know what they say about opinions. “Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one!”

If the best any attorney can ever offer you is just their own personal “opinion” when it comes to any legal matter or written law, then how could you ever possibly find an attorney that can ever properly defend you?

If you have for example, one attorney representing a plaintiff who presents nothing but his personal “opinions” of what some law may say, and then some other attorney who represents a defendant who presents his personal “opinions” of what some law may say, then some Judge will provide his personal “opinion” based on the two attorneys personal “opinions” they offered, and whatever personal “opinion” the Judge comes up with will be become his written “opinion” that will become a final order issued by the court. ALL based on nothing but personal “OPINIONS” and not one single FACT!

Now, who in their right frame of mind would ever choose to play such a game like that where you consent to be bound by a few “OPINIONS” that come from a few educated idiots? Since all they can offer is just “OPINIONS” then that means they can just make up anything they want because it is nothing but an “opinion” and they get immunity from liability no matter who is wronged in their personal “opinion.” YOU are the only one who is left holding the bag who is affected by the outcome of someone else’s personal “opinion” that is not based on actual FACT, but merely “OPINIONS”.

For those who choose to play the game, then this may be one way to stop a case from proceeding since to play the game, their rules entitle one to be represented by an attorney. If there is no attorney that can be found that can provide just the FACTS to properly represent one, then one cannot get an attorney to represent one’s self which is a violation of their rules of their game. Since the rules cannot be properly adhered to by being able to have an attorney that can represent one, then there is no way for the game [case] to be able to proceed leaving no choice but to fold up the game and just return everything back to its box!

Here is what Bouvier’s says for “STATE”

STATE:

In search for a verbal expression of that ENTITY which has been variously phrased as the “state”, the nation, the commonwealth, or the public, the first mentioned term was slow in coming into general use.

The “state” is just an ENTITY and that entity not being a real man or woman it is in fact fictitious in its existence.

Queen Elizabeth used the word republica in Latin or commonwealth in English. A statute referred to Guy Fawkes and others as having attempted “the overthrow of the whole state and commonwealth”: 3 Jac. I, c. 3; the Exchequer Chamber, in 1623, spoke of inconveniences introduced “in the republic” by remote limitations; Palm 335. The words “republic” and “commonwealth,” implying absence of a king, were abandoned only after 1600 when the word “state” came into use. It is little used in Blackstone, though he does speak of the “danger of the state”; 1 Com. 135.

Since 1600 the word “republic” and commonwealth” was replaced with the word “state.” Perhaps this is why there really was never a republic as a government and instead only a republican FORM of government which is a “state”.  The people did not answer, since there is in opposition, the king and together they constitute the state or commonwealth. See “The Crown as Corporation,” by F.W. Maitland, 17 L. Q. R. 131, 136, which begins with this question: “The greatest artificial persons, politically speaking, are the state. But it depends on the legal institutions and forms of every commonwealth whether and how far the state or its titular head is officially treated as an artificial person.” Pollock, First Bk. of Jur.113. There, you have it! The “state” is an artificial person.

Body Politic! The body politic of the “state” is the people as members. The only members are those elected and appointed who becomes a member upon being elected or appointed. So the word “public” MEANS the “state” and only its members who are only those elected or appointed.

You, a private man or woman is not a member because you were not elected or appointed to become a member. Therefore whenever you hear the word, the public, it means the STATE and those who are members of the “STATE” who are only those who are elected or appointed to become members and serve the STATE as State [public] Officials.

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“BPA-free baby bottles found to emit other harmful estrogen mimickers

[Author]by Mike Adams
[/Author]
Baby bottles from AVENT, Born Free, Green to Grow, Evenflo and Weil Baby all emit high or very high levels of hormone-altering chemicals, says new research published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health. (1)

“Many PC-replacement-products made from acrylic, polystyrene, polyethersulfone, and Tritan resins leached chemicals with [estrogenic activity], including products made for use by babies. Exposure to various forms of UV radiation often increased the leaching of chemicals with estrogenic activity,” write the study authors.

The conclusion of the study will send shockwaves across the baby products industry, stunning many parents who thought “BPA-free” meant “free from all hormone-disrupting chemicals.”

The study authors write:

Many BPA-free PC- replacement products still leached chemicals having significant levels of estrogenic activity, as did BPA-containing PC counterparts they were meant to replace. That is, BPA-free did not mean [free from estrogenic activity].

UV rays unlock hormone-disrupting chemicals

An article published by Mother Jones (2) reports the research, revealing that ultraviolet rays (UV) activate and “unlock” hormone-mimicking chemicals in BPA-free bottles made out of polyester (PES) and Tritan, the materials most commonly used in BPA-free bottles.

Over the last several years, the negative press about the hormone-disrupting properties of BPA (Bisphenol-A) led to a wave of new “BPA-free” baby bottles, water bottles and sippy cups. But just because a bottle is free of BPA doesn’t means it’s free of other hormone-disrupting chemicals.

“Many of the items above are advertised as healthy alternatives to plastics containing BPA and the hormone-altering chemicals known as phthalates,” writes Mother Jones. “Born Free markets its baby products as the ‘natural choice for moms who want a safe, calm experience every time they feed their baby.’ Weil Baby claims that its bottles are made from ‘revolutionary new materials’ that are ‘ultra-safe.’ After UV exposure, CertiChem’s study found that both companies’ products leached potent synthetic estrogens.”

UV rays are not only found in sunlight; they’re also used by parents to sanitize battle bottles (UV light exposure kills bacteria). According to this research, the very process that parents use to sanitize baby bottles may be releasing hormone-disrupting chemicals that harm their babies.

These brands of bottles showed estrogen-mimicking activity

According to researchers, all the following brands of bottles, baby bottles, sippy cups and water containers tested positive for estrogen-mimicking activity:

Baby bottles: AVENT, Born Free, Green to Grow, Evenflo, Weil Baby

Sippy cups: CamelBak (blue), Weil Baby

Water bottles: CamelBak (black), CamelBak (blue), Nalgene (blue)

Other products: Crate & Barrel acrylic wine glasses (red), Lock & Lock food  containers

Hormone-disrupting chemicals linked to cancer; multi-generational effects

What’s wrong with BPA and other hormone-disrupting chemicals? They’re linked to cancer, for starters. Even at tiny doses — just parts per billion — they may cause infertility problems, liver abnormalities, asthma and heart disease, according to scientists.

Even worse, some of these effects appear to be epigenetic and trans-generational, meaning they pass from one generation to the next. So a young mother who feeds her baby with baby bottles containing hormone-disrupting chemicals is not merely potentially harming her own baby; she’s may be harming her baby’s future babies as well, down through an unknown number of generations.

BPA-free isn’t good enough: TOPAS and ZEONOR polymers are the new “green”

This research also revealed that two brand-name copolymers named TOPAS and ZEONOR showed no signs of hormone-disrupting estrogenic activity, even when exposed to UV rays.

TOPAS and ZEONOR are “cyclic olefin polymers” or copolymers developed by materials scientists in Germany and Japan. They are both very expensive compared to the lower costs of Tritan and PES.

“TOPAS is the trade name of a cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) developed by TOPAS ADVANCED POLYMERS GmbH,” reports PolyPlastics.com. (3)

ZEONOR is a product created by ZEON chemicals, a Japanese company, and is used in medical applications, optical components and barrier films. (4)

To my knowledge, there are currently no baby bottles or water bottles available which are manufactured out of TOPAS or ZEONOR.

Interestingly, Nalgene green bottles made out of Tritan tested negative for estrogenic activity after exposure to UV rays, most likely due to the green dye acting as a kind of internal UV block. So if you’re looking for a plastic water bottle that’s available right now and shows no estrogenic activity, a green Nalgene bottle seems to be the way to go, based on this research.

Huge market opportunity for someone to launch water bottles made out of Zeonor or Topas

This research opens up a tremendous market opportunity for someone enterprising enough to introduce baby bottles and water bottles made out of cyclic olefin copolymers (COP or COC).

It might turn out to be the world’s most expensive water bottle ever, but there’s a huge demand for containers that don’t leach toxic chemicals into the liquids they’re holding.

If anyone reading this is seriously looking into launching COP or COC-based bottles, please contact us here at Natural News so we can help support your product launch.

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Mexican Indian women ask for apology and damages for human rights violations

[Author]by the El Reportero’s wire services[/Author]

 

Human rights groups called Monday on the Mexican government to comply with judicial rulings by apologizing and paying compensation to three Otomi Indian women who spent time in prison on kidnapping convictions that were later thrown out by the courts.

Amnesty International and the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center have launched a campaign aimed at getting the Attorney General’s Office to adhere to the terms of court rulings on the women, who “were victims of unjust acts by Mexican authorities.”

Jacinta Francisco Marcial, Alberta Alcántara and Teresa González, who operated market stalls in Queretaro, were arrested in August 2006.

The three women were sentenced to 21 years in prison on charges they kidnapped six federal agents who claimed that the vendors took them hostage in March 2006 during an operation targeting sellers of pirated DVDs.

The women were imprisoned for “a crime they did not commit,” the human rights groups said.

The Supreme Court ordered the women released from prison in 2010.

Marcial was released from prison in September 2009, followed by Alcántara and Gonzalez on April 28, 2010.

A special federal court issued rulings in November 2013 and in May of this year that “established an important precedent in Mexico in the area of reparation of damages for victims of human rights violations,” the human rights groups said.

The rulings impose limits on the actions of representatives of the state and require them to respect human rights, the groups said in a joint statement.

Compliance without delay is essential for the well-being of the victims and to show that such abuses will not be committed in the future, the human rights groups said.

The court ordered the AG’s office to pay compensation to the three women and to make a public apology.

The AG’s office, however, appealed the rulings in the Alcántara and González cases last November and could take similar action with regard to the Francisco Marcial.

The AG’s office contends that providing compensation to the three women would lead to paying damages to anyone acquitted in a criminal case.

The human rights groups want Attorney General Jesus Murillo to drop the appeals in the Alcántara and González cases, to not file an appeal in the Francisco Marcial case and to order his staff to comply with the court rulings.

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Joe Bataam is still here, and will be live in SF

[Author]El Reportero’s staff[/Author]

 

Those who still remember the legendary Joe Bataan, he will bring his old tunes and new taste to the Great American Music Hall on Saturday, July 19 at 8 p.m.

 

Unveiling of Mural in Mission to Chronicle

On Sunday, June 29, the 67 Sueños San Francisco chapter will unveil a mural in the Mission illustrating the humanitarian crisis facing unaccompanied children migrating to the U.S. 67 Sueños will also give work to lift the voice of these children by performing a spoken word piece highlighting their plight. The mural and performance were inspired by interviews 67

Sueños conducted with youth who migrated to the U.S. as unaccompanied children. These youth also helped to paint the mural, and they will bring their stories to life during the spoken word performance Sunday.

As many as 90,000 unaccompanied youth are expected to migrate to the U.S. by the end of this fiscal year, marking nearly a threefold increase. Primarily coming from Central America, these youth are fleeing their native countries to escape violence and abuse or to be reunited with their families. Earlier this month, civil and human rights organizations filed a complaint against the Department of Homeland

Security on behalf on more than 100 children who reported abuse from U.S. border officials.

The event will feature an introduction of the youth, an unveiling of the mural, an explanation of the stories depicted in the artwork, and the performance of the spoken word piece.

67 Sueños San Francisco Chapter will unveil the mural and performance of spoken word piece, at 23rd St. and Shotwell St., San Francisco. On Sunday, June 29, 6 to 8 p.m.

For more information call 510-967-1357.

 

Drum Talk – drumming lessons with professor John Santos

DRUM TALK is a unique, two-week intensive percussion residency, as part of the California State University Summer Arts Program. I will be co-presenting with Mario Pam, director of the world-renowned percussion powerhouse group from Bahia Brazil, Ile Aiyé.

This will be the maestro’s first time to the Bay Area!  We will be exploring the roots, commonalities and evolution of the drumming traditions of Cuba and Brazil with daily classes, lectures and a culminating performance by the participants. 3 units of transferable college credit!  Scholarships available. Thank you to professor Umi Vaughan (uvaughan@csumb.edu – 831 582-3116) for conceiving of this collaboration and making it happen.

The May 2nd application deadline has been extended.

csusummerarts.org For info call (562) 951-4060 or visit:

http://blogs.calstate.edu/summerarts/index.php/courses/drum-talk-rhythms-from-cuba-and-brazil/

On June 30th to July 13th, 2014, at Cal State University at Monterey Bay.

Also with John Santos, a Latin Jazz lecture. At the San Francisco Heritage and the SF Latino Historical Society. Latin Kazz om the San Francisco Bay Area: A Retrospective.

At the Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission St., San Francisco, on Thursday, July 17, 2014, at 6:00 p.m. www.sfheritage.org. or at ldominguez@sfheritage.org.

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Kate del Castillo calls on México City Mayor to ban circus animals

by the El Reportero’s news services

 

Actress Kate del Castillo is calling on Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera to sign legislation passed by the Federal District Legislative Assembly that would ban the use of animals in circuses.

The Assembly voted 41-0, with 11 abstentions, on June 9 to approve the Law on the Staging of Public Shows, which “prohibits the use of live wild or domestic animals during the staging of circus performances.”

The actress is backing the efforts of Peta Latino, one of the groups that lobbied for the legislation, to ban the use of animals in circuses on the grounds that elephants, lions, camels, bears, tigers and other animals are abused by trainers.

There is sufficient evidence that animals are often “beaten to force them to perform painful tricks” in circus acts, Del Castillo said.

The legislation would take effect one year after its publication in the Federal District Gazette, giving circuses time to develop new acts and find homes for the animals.

Some circus owners may put their animals up for adoption, Federal District lawmaker Jesús Sesma, a Mexican Green Party, or PVEM, member and one of the law’s main backers, told Efe.

The law prohibits circuses from presenting, selling or using live animals as lottery prizes or in games, as well as using animals “for the taking of photographs or any other related activity.”

The ban applies only to circuses and will not affect dolphin shows, theater companies, bullfights and other kinds of animal shows.

Violators will be subject to seizure of their animals and fines of more than 700,000 pesos ($53,722).

Mexico City is on its way to becoming the seventh entity in the federation to ban the use of animals in circuses, joining Colima, Guerrero, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos and Queretaro states.

Similar legislation has been proposed in the states of Aguascalientes, Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Puebla, Tamaulipas and Quintana Roo.

 

Larry Hernandez Asks for “Divine Protection” During Tour in Mexico

Singer Larry Hernández expressed concern about the violence so prevalent in his native Mexico and asks for divine protection during his upcoming concert tour south of the border.

“What’s happening in Mexico is very ugly and there’s nothing else I can do but commend myself to God and continue with my schedule of concerts in a number of Mexican states,” he said in an interview with Efe as the third season was beginning of “Larrymania,” the reality show about his life.

Hernández, who has reported receiving death threats on social networks, is one of the many singers of regional Mexican music who have put their lives in danger by singing ballads about drug kingpins, known as “narcocorridos.”

Another popular singer of regional Mexican music, Gerardo Ortiz, was also threatened with death if he should sing at a May 24 concert in Tijuana a pair of songs inspired by the drug lord of the Sinaloa cartel.

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Hitler survivor: Obama making U.S. totalitarian

[Author]by WND Faith[/Author]

 

When politicians really get pompous, self-important, self-righteous and demanding of their own way, they are likened to a dictator, a totalitarian, somebody like a Hitler.

Often that comparison is a step too far, given Hitler’s responsibility for millions, literally, of deaths.

The person making the comparison this time, however, shouldn’t be discounted: she survived Hitler’s totalitarian reign. And she’s reported nightmares because what she sees now is so similar.

Holocaust survivor Anita Dittman, whose story is told in the project being released Tuesday, “Trapped in Hitler’s Hell,” lived through Hitler’s rise to power, dictatorship, and death.

She is warning America that she sees now the same conditions she saw then.

Including a leader who lies, fails to keep his promises and has visions of more than grandeur.

The 86-year-old recently told attendees at Olive Tree Ministry’s “Understanding the Times” conference that the 2008 campaign images of Barack Obama with halos around his head and the worship-like adulation from crowds gave her nightmares.

The adulation offered by many to Obama has been well documented.

Broadcast veteran Barbara Walters admitted what many news watchers have thought about people in the media and their adoration of Obama.

“We thought that he was going to be – I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime – but the next messiah,” Walters told CNN’s Piers Morgan.

Order the special “Trapped in Hitler’s Hell” package now!

The response came after Morgan asked the co-host of “The View” why Obama has faced so much opposition, and “Why is he struggling so much to really fulfill the great flame of ambition and excitement that he was elected on originally in 2009?”

“He made so many promises,” she explained, then making the messiah comment.

Radio host Rush Limbaugh couldn’t help but weigh in on Walters’ messianic view of Obama.

“This is how the left promoted Obama. It’s how he promoted himself, and it’s how a lot of voters saw him,” Limbaugh explained on his national program.

“Believe me, she’s a believer. She’s not mocking or laughing at this. … If she were mocking it, she wouldn’t have paused and begged for understanding at Christmastime.”

He said media members bought hook, line and sinker “this messiah business” and actually considered Obama their political savior.

WND also reported MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews sounded somewhat scriptural when he described Obama coming to the MSNBC studios to do an interview with him.

Matthews gleefully told his reporter colleagues after the interview: “He came amongst us.”

Other messianic references to Obama seem to be multiplying of late. It was just days earlier when WND reported a new lesson plan for American school students, offered on an open marketplace for educators, was suggesting such a reference.

The lesson, created by Sherece Bennett, is based on the book “Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope” by Nikki Grimes.

Kyle Olson reported the plan on his Education Action Group website, commenting that it casts Obama “in a messianic light. Literally.”

In one passage, Olson points out, a young Obama sees beggars and wonders, “Will I ever be able to help people like these?’”

The lesson even uses biblical references to describe Obama, explaining how he changed his name from Barry.

“One morning, he slipped on the name he’d been born with. The name of his father, Barack. For the first time in his life, he wore it proudly – like a coat of many colors.”

Hollywood personality Jamie Foxx’s commented at the Soul Train Awards: “Thank God, and our lord and savior, Barack Obama!”

The adoration of Obama has often strayed into near deification.

“Obama is, of course, greater than Jesus,” the Dutch newspaper Politiken opined in 2009.

Then there was British recording artist Sting’s suggestion that Obama could be the divine answer to the world’s problems.

“In many ways, he’s sent from God, because the world’s a mess,” he said in interview with the Associated Press.

Earlier, it was an associate editor at a college newspaper who wrote, “Obama is my Jesus.”

Maggie Mertens, the associate editor at the campus paper at Massachusetts’ Smith College, said: “Obama is my homeboy. And I’m not saying that because he’s black – I’m saying that in reference to those Urban Outfitters T-shirts from a couple years ago that said, ‘Jesus is my homeboy.’ Yes, I just said it. Obama is my Jesus.”

It’s all too familiar, said Dittman, a young girl in Germany when Hitler came to power.

The film, produced by WND founder, Editor and CEO Joseph Farah and directed by WND Films Vice President George Escobar, and a companion book are being released Tuesday.

It was the gushing adulation of Obama that really triggered nightmares, Dittman said.

And the fact that establishment media reporters didn’t question his qualifications or competencies, while conservative news outlets that investigated his birth certificate were openly mocked. Media also never asked him hard questions about his disturbing history of close associations with communists and terrorists that included Frank Marshall Davis, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, she said.

Obama’s empty rhetoric that energized his followers chilled Dittman, who compared it to lies peddled in Germany painting promises of a bright future.

“It’s a similar time,” Dittman said. “We are financially in a problematic time. So was Germany. Hitler came in, and he made himself the savior, and people ate it all up because he made it sound wonderful how he would straighten everything out … and that is happening today, too.”

Obama’s promises included no tax increases on the poor, a five-day waiting period to sign bills so people could read them and creation of the most open and transparent administration in history.

Instead, Obama’s scandal-riddled presidency has included rushed spending bills, increased taxes affecting all and an administration that strategized to sic the IRS and Department of Justice on conservative groups.

In Germany, Hitler focused on the people’s emotions, offering them promises of prosperity: good jobs for the many unemployed, a return to stability and security.

He held massive rallies, featuring marching bands and banners, all organized, orchestrated and broadcast to the masses, commanding audiences with appealing messages and empty promises.

“The only promise Hitler ever kept was killing the Jews,” Dittman said.

The state of America’s churches also concerns Dittman, who said German churches fell away from the Bible before Hitler came into power.

She said many American churches are likewise walking away from the truth of Scripture, turning from biblical truths and opening the door to deception.

“That’s how Hitler got into the churches,” she warned.

She also cited comparisons between Nazi Germany and America, including the country adopting socialized medicine, banning prayer from school and a growing fascination with mystical spirituality.

Markell said Hitler was fascinated with mysticism, because “he knew it would crumble the Christian faith.” She warned that Christian churches in America are likewise trying spiritual traps such as walking the labyrinth, “Christian” yoga and contemplative prayer.

During the 12 years Hitler was in power, Dittman suffered the kind of persecution she fears is in America’s future.

As a child, she was bullied by peers and teachers, publicly ostracized and condemned. She eventually was forced with her mother into the Jewish ghetto, where they lived in fear as they witnessed roundups, constantly battling starvation before and after being sent to a concentration camp.

Her story, as written by Markell and told in the WND documentary, portrays atrocities Dittman endured but leaves audiences uplifted, because of her constant focus on God and His amazing hand of protection over her.

“Anita has always been one who gives all the glory for her survival to the Lord,” Markell said. “And it was a daily survival, too, between 1933 and 1945. She had to call on God for supernatural wisdom (and) supernatural, just incredible, insight to escape, to survive. On and on and on, one scene after anther.”

She survived a Nazi nurse’s repeated diabolical attempts to kill her, was protected when forced out in the open during the bombing of Dresden, was provided protective “angels” in critically dangerous situations and, above all, given the grace to understand God’s wisdom in the verse she often quotes, Romans 8:28:

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.”

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The U.S.-Mexico border: A Constitución free zone

[Author]by David Bacon[/Author]

 

Under the Fourth Amendment, the people of the United States are not supposed to be subject to random and arbitrary stops and searches. But within 100 miles of a U.S. border, these rules don’t apply.

 

Last July, a worker phoned Alejandro Valenzuela, a young staff member at the Southside Workers Center in Tucson, Arizona. The police were at his home, the worker said, and were detaining him for deportation. Valenzuela and a friend drove over to observe – “to make sure his rights were being respected.” Over the next half hour the police grew increasingly hostile, demanding identification from Valenzuela, despite the fact that he was not driving the car, which was parked at the curb. They then detained Valenzuela and the worker.

Police then drove the two to Border Patrol headquarters. Neither was ever arrested or accused of a crime. Valenzuela was detained and intensively questioned for five hours, and finally released only when he could show he qualified for Deferred Action, which allows undocumented young people (DREAMers) to apply for deferred deportation and work authorization. The worker was eventually deported.

“On the street we get stopped and questioned because of the way we look,” Valenzuela charges. “It’s racial profiling.” On his behalf the ACLU filed the first challenge to section 2B of Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 “Show me your papers” law, which went into effect in September 2012. It authorizes police to enforce immigration law, and the ACLU argues it “unconstitutionally authorizes and encourages illegal police practices … the South Tucson police officers’ actions amounted to false arrest, violated Alex’s right to equal protection of the law and trampled his right to be free from unreasonable seizures.”

Tucson is 60 miles from the Mexican border, within a 100-mile zone where immigration authorities say important due process rights can be suspended. “SB 1070 interacts with this 100-mile area to enable these rights violations,” explains James Lyall, ACLU staff attorney in Tucson.

“It’s easy for police to stop people on a pretext, detain them longer than permitted, and turn them over to the Border Patrol.” The Valenzuela suit was one of the first actions taken by the ACLU Border Litigation Project, launched to document and litigate civil and human rights cases on the U.S. Mexico border.

Enforcing the “Zone”

Outside of communities like Tucson, the existence of a 100-mile “Constitution-free zone” is not well known. “There, the longstanding view [established in court rulings] is that the normal rules do not apply,” according to the ACLU. “For example, the authorities do not need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a ‘routine search.’” As of 2008, the zone potentially covered a staggering 197.4 million people-two-thirds of the U.S. population, including nine of the country’s 10 largest cities.

In Arizona, the impact is magnified by Federal enforcement and state legislation. Isabel Garcia, Legal Defender for Pima County (which includes Tucson), explains, “In Arizona we’ve become a laboratory for every kind of anti-immigrant, anti-human [rights] piece of legislation.” She points to Proposition 100 that amended the state constitution in November 2006 to permit the detention without bail of any undocumented immigrant accused of a felony. Under state legislation, a felony now includes using a fictitious document or a Social Security number belonging to another person.

The Project has documented other instances of immigration-related police misconduct beyond the 100-mile zone. They include an elderly Latino citizen jailed by Mesa police after picking a bottle from a trashcan, a passenger in a car stopped for a broken taillight taken to immigration authorities by Casa Grande police, a woman interrogated about immigration status after calling Tucson police about domestic violence, and a legal resident questioned about his status by Phoenix police while picking up his impounded car.

The ACLU of Arizona made 20 recommendations for changes in Tucson’s police practices. The most basic were to prohibit police “from questioning crime victims and witnesses about their immigration status,” from “extending any stop or detention solely to await a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or ICE response,” requiring officers to contact their supervisors before questioning people about immigration status, and to document “the reasons such questioning is believed necessary.” According to Arizona Public Media, the council unanimously approved council member Regina Romero’s motion to ask police to put public safety above checking immigration status.

Detained and Demeaned

In October, the ACLU demanded an investigation of the Border Patrol, citing five examples of unlawful stops by roving patrols within the 100-mile zone. Although U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) claims broad authority to conduct searches here, the ACLU complaint responds that “the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures extends to protect against unlawful investigatory stops.” Some of the documented mistreatment clearly exceeds this standard.

In May, Clarisa Christiansen was stopped by the Border Patrol n the desert west of Tucson, 40 miles north of the border, while driving her five- and seven-year-old children home from school. All are citizens, yet she was threatened with a Taser and knife, forced from her vehicle, interrogated, and left beside the road with a slashed tire.

In April, a American Indian woman was tailgated by a Border Patrol vehicle, dragged from her pickup, threatened and manhandled, interrogated and ridiculed, and detained for over an hour on the Tohono O’odham reservation. Other Native Americans have told her of similar treatment.

In March, a tourist from Oregon was threatened, detained and falsely accused of drug possession after hiking at the Fort Bowie Historical Site. A drug-sniffing dog did hundreds of dollars of damage to his car, but when his insurance company sought reimbursement, the CBP claimed the Federal Tort Claims Act “bars recovery for property damaged by CBP employees while the property is under detention.”

In May, a Latino citizen farmer was followed and detained on his property by Border Patrol agents holding automatic weapons. Agents trespass frequently, the family complains.

Two years ago, Suzanne Aldridge was stopped just outside of Bisbee, Arizona, 30 miles from the border, dragged from her car, handcuffed, and groped by a Border Patrol agent. Ten vans of agents, police and sheriffs searched her car with a drug-sniffing dog without her consent. She tried to file a complaint, but was given the runaround by CBP representatives.

In September, the ACLU of Washington and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project settled a lawsuit challenging CBP’s roving patrols on the Olympic peninsula, which lies within the 100-mile zone. As in Arizona, the Border Patrol conducted arbitrary vehicle stops, prolonged detentions and other forms of mistreatment. Fourth Amendment protections still apply, the settlement says.  “Border Patrol officially agreed to follow the Constitution and not racially profile Latinos and other minorities … People should not have to fear that they could be stopped and questioned without reason any time they drive or are passengers in cars,” said Sarah Dunne, legal director of the ACLU-WA?

The ACLU testimony made seven recommendations for humane reform. They include increasing CBP oversight, preventing excessive use of force, reducing the high number of border crossing deaths, increasing detention standards and inspections, discouraging local and state authorities’ involvement in immigration enforcement, abolishing the Operation Streamline court, and reducing CBP’s “zone of authority” from 100 miles to 25 miles from the border.

Let Them Go!

In December, Tucson Congressman Raul Grijalva was one of 27 signing a letter to President Obama opposing mass deportations. “Criminalizing American families or giving local law enforcement the responsibility to choose who stays and who goes is not the right option,” they said. Whether in court, in Congress or in the streets, the denial of rights in Arizona is being challenged and that challenge is growing.

Three facts about the Constitution-Free Zone

Fact 1

In the “Constitution-free zone,” Border Patrol agents don’t need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a “routine search.” All travelers crossing a border are assigned a risk assessment score that will be retained for 40 years.

Fact 2

The Border Patrol can put a checkpoint anywhere in the Constitution-free zone (think Fifth Avenue!). “One hundred air miles is still, technically, the border,” says Leslie Lawson from the Nogales Border Patrol Station. Everyone at a checkpoint must answer questions about citizenship status.

Fact 3

The Constitution-free zone extends 100 miles from any U.S. border. Two-thirds of the U.S. population (197.4 million in 2008) lives within this zone, which includes nine of the 10 largest metropolitan areas, and the entire populations of: Connecticut, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island; and over 90 percent of: California, Maryland, New York, Vermont and Washington.

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Mission Neighborhood Center receives multimillionaire grant

[Author]by Santiago Ruíz
MNC Executive Director[/Author]

Mission Neighborhood Centers, Inc. (MNC) is excited to share with the community, media, non-profit partners and government officials, that on Wednesday, June 4, they officially announced that Mission Neighborhood Centers, Inc. received a Notice of Award (NOA) from the Department of Health & Human Services, awarding them a Head Start and Early Head Start Grantee contract for five years. Head Start is a national program for low-income families that promotes school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of education, health, nutrition, disabilities support, parent engagement and other services to enrolled children and their families. Twenty-five percent of infants, toddlers and preschoolers nationwide live in families with incomes below the official poverty line. These children are at risk for a social delay or developmental disability.
As a community and an agency that works to serve the most marginalized sectors of families, MNC is committed to the continued opportunity to serve its community.
As leaders in the early childhood field for 40 plus years, with a relentless insistence on quality and adherence to rigorous high standards, Mission Neighborhood Centers-Head Start gets results for the neediest children. Its track record reflects capacity, quality, and a dedication to service delivery.
Decades of research show that a high-quality, pre-kindergarten program experience has lasting positive effects, particularly for the most at-risk children. MNC supports children in their preschool experience, and prepares them for school and a life-time of learning.
“By linking high-quality, coordinated health, social, community and educational support into its daily operations, MNC’s innovative bilingual social services in this diverse community has created a much needed pathway for success from cradle to career.” – Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi
The total contract award of over $4 million, will include base funding, to expand and serve 365 (3-5 year olds) and 48 Infants and Toddlers (3 months to 36 months) for a total of 413 children at a minimum of 10 facilities. “MNC accepts with great pride and joy this award and recognizes the tremendous assets our families offer to this community. It is our work to ensure that our families share in the thriving economy as well as ensuring their children sees continued success in high performing schools.” – Santiago Ruiz, MNC Executive Director

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