Texas will discontinue the state-run curriculum system used by at least 875 of the state’s school districts amid complaints that it contained lessons with an anti-American agenda. The internet-based CSCOPE system was developed last November in an effort to help districts follow the state’s complicated educational requirements. It provided approximately 1,600 online lesson plans for the state’s teachers. On Monday the 20-member board that manages CSCOPE signed a letter pledging to end the system by late August, reports the Associated Press. Senate Education Chairman Dan Patrick (R-Houston) announced the news at a press conference. Although the curriculum was created by 20 regional Texas Educational Service Centers (ESCs) that provide support for local school districts, conservative activists complained that its optional lessons promoted a "progressive pro-Islamic curriculum," according to the Texas Tribune. Activists took particular offense to one lesson that compared Boston Tea Party activists to terrorists and another that asked students to design a flag for a socialist country, reports the outlet. Furthermore, activists complained about the fact that many lesson plans were not available to the public, although the Associated Press notes that this is a result of concerns about intellectual property rules. Dr. Kyle Wargo, a board member of a regional ESC, said that CSCOPE is being discontinued because of practicality concerns. "One, maintaining the lessons and developing lessons is not practical," Wargo explained at the press conference, according to Texas Public Radio. "The second thing I would say why we are not going to be in the lesson plan business is those lessons have a lot of subjectivity to them. Those lessons, every lesson, needs to be developed at the local level." Patrick said CSCOPE lessons were not transparent enough, per the Longview News-Journal: We do not want to hold back technology ... but we cannot just let anything get into the classroom without the parents having the right to see it, and without the legislature and the state board of education and the teachers and the local school boards and superintendents having a major say and the knowledge of what’s in that classroom. Thomas Ratliff, vice chairman of the State Board of Education, decried the decision to scrap CSCOPE and said it was politically motivated. He also suggested the decision to end CSCOPE could pave the way for censorship in the classroom. "I value and trust the professional staff and locally elected school boards to reflect the value and priorities of their local communities. This looks like a slippery slope to Internet filters, censorship, and other limitations on teachers in the classroom,” Ratcliff said in a statement obtained by the Longview News-Journal.

Joan Walsh, Salon

In every U.S. state, Americans are struggling to get by in large part because their state governments aren’t doing enough to ensure they have a livable wage or the benefits necessary to make life affordable, according to the Economic Security Scorecard, a report released Tuesday by the nonprofit Wider Opportunities for Women. The scorecard, which ranks states on effectiveness in promoting policies that provide economic security -- including a livable minimum wage, quality jobs that offer benefits like paid sick leave and government programs offering child care assistance and housing help -- gave no state an “A.” Four states received the report card’s lowest grade of “D+.” The report’s findings indicate states are focusing on individual policies like raising the minimum wage or guaranteeing housing preservation, which can be easily “undermined” when they aren’t combined with other initiatives aimed at boosting economic security overall, Shawn McMahon, Wider Opportunities for Women’s acting chief executive, told The Huffington Post. The result is a piecemeal system that leaves many states unaffordable for struggling residents, putting the nation’s economy at risk. “Individuals and families need more than one element of economic security to actually be secure,” McMahon said. “When a state ignores certain areas of policy, both the individual citizens and the state as whole will likely at some point in the future pay the price.” One of those Americans already paying the price is April Thomas, a 31-year-old mom supporting her three kids on an $8-per-hour wage. Thomas receives food stamps, but said she still struggles to find the money to pay the $28 per month to cover her government-subsidized childcare and has had to ask co-workers for help pay her rent. “My checks aren’t anything, I had to tell my daughter last month that I couldn’t get her a birthday present,” Thomas told HuffPost. Thomas lives in St. Louis, one of the worst areas for economic security, according to the Wider Opportunities for Women report. Missouri ranks 42nd out of all 50 states, according to the scorecard, and the state scored a “C-.” But even in states that provide relatively good economic security, residents still struggle. Vickii Sibley lives in New York, ranked ninth on Wider Opportunities for Women’s list. Still, she comes up about $50 short of covering her expenses every month, despite having a job and receiving some government support. “I’m robbing Peter to pay Paul all the time,” Sibley, 36 and supporting her son, told HuffPost. “I’m always late, I’m always shifting things.” Sibley and Thomas’ experiences are not only troubling for them, they pose a danger to the rest of the country as well, McMahon said. That's why state governments need to develop policies that don't just change programs at the "micro level," but instead boost economic security as a whole, he said. “We’ll see that a lot of workers have trouble in the workforce whether it’s gaining employment, keeping employment, caring for their families as necessary and really it weakens the entire economy,” McMahon said. Despite concerns over tight state and local budgets in the wake of the economic downturn, the report found that a state's economic security had little to do with its fiscal health. “Our research suggests it’s something else,” McMahon said. “We think that primarily a matter of political will, that’s what it comes down to ultimately. We do know that policy is always a budgetary issue, always a matter of money on some level, but money is not the determining factor.” Check out Wider Opportunities for Women's full report, including all state rankings, below: Economic Security Scorecard 2013var docstoc_docid="157512225";var docstoc_title="Economic Security Scorecard 2013";var docstoc_urltitle="Economic Security Scorecard 2013";

James Taranto, Wall Street JournalDemocracy is in peril: That is an emerging theme of the liberal left's response to the Obama scandals. The argument misses the point, no doubt deliberately. What we are witnessing now is not a crisis of democracy but a crisis of authority. The administrative state, in thrall to a decadent cultural elite, has lost the consent of the governed."After a week of scandal obsession during which the nation's capital and the media virtually ignored the problems most voters care about--jobs, incomes, growth, opportunity, education--it's worth asking if there is something especially...

Thomas Sowell, National ReviewAn all too familiar scene was enacted on the campus of Swarthmore College during a meeting on May 4th to discuss demands by student activists for the college to divest itself of its investments in companies that dealt in fossil fuels.As a speaker was beginning a presentation to show how many millions of dollars such a disinvestment would cost the college, student activists invaded the meeting, seized the microphone and shouted down a student who rose in the audience to object.Although there were professors and administrators in the room -- including the college president -- apparently nobody...

A top liberal SuperPAC in the 2012 election had undisclosed financial ties to the private equity firm Bain Capital — something that some people close to the group say interfered with its core mission of attacking Bain veteran Mitt Romney’s business record.

NEW YORK -- The trial of the New York City Police Department's controversial stop-and-frisk practice ended on Monday as lawyers defending the city were peppered with sharp questions from the federal judge hearing the case. But whether U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin will declare stop-and-frisk unconstitutional -- and whether she will impose changes on NYPD procedures -- were questions that lingered over the closing arguments in her Manhattan courtroom. Civil rights attorneys led by the non-profit Center for Constitutional Rights are suing the city on behalf of black and Latino residents. The lawsuit, filed in January 2008, draws to a close in the waning months of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's three terms in office. It centers on one of his defining legacies: the massive expansion of reported stop-and-frisk searches, which last year resulted in 533,042 stops, 87 percent of them on blacks and Latinos. While the Democratic candidates vying to replace Bloomberg mostly agree the police tactic needs to be modified, Bloomberg has repeatedly credited stop-and-frisk with the city's record-low crime rates. But inside court, Scheindlin has barred the city from boasting about the program's effectiveness, which is disputed. Instead, she is considering only whether the police stops violate the Constitution. The testimony of 12 witnesses who described 19 different stops, argued plaintiffs' lawyer Gretchen Hoff Varner, proved that the NYPD is "tossing the requirements of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments out the window, and making people of color afraid to leave their homes." Police officers in court repeatedly claimed that the stopped witnesses fit a description of crime suspects. But Hoff Varner said "in stop after stop, the description comes down to one thing: male black." The city claimed witnesses' testimony showed only that police usually do have a good reason for a stop, from a suspicious glance to a readjusted waistband. And a statistical analysis of police stops purporting to show racial bias, city lawyers agued, failed to take into account the race of crime suspects. The plaintiffs proved "no indication of racial motivation whatsoever," said city lawyer Heidi Grossman. Both sides detailed the accounts of many of the 19 stops that form the basis for the trial. One particularly pointed exchange was over the NYPD's encounter with Devin Almonor, who was stopped at age 13 while cops were responding to reports of street fight involving youths in Harlem. Police said they stopped Almonor because of the disturbances, combined with a suspicious glance over his shoulder and his jaywalking. "While jaywalking on its own may not be indicative of a crime, in the totality of all the circumstances" it was a reasonable basis for a stop, " Grossman said. "If jaywalking in New York City is consistent with committing a crime," Hoff Varner shot back during her closing arguments, "then we all would have gotten stopped." "They had gone there looking for a young black male and they found one," Hoff Varner said, charging that police changed their reason for the stop afterwards. "They stopped first and invented reasons later." Scheindlin repeatedly interrupted Grossman and another city lawyer, at one point asking why nine out of 10 stops do not result in any police action. "That's a big error rate," Scheindlin said. If the race of crime suspects is used as part of the analysis of stop-and-frisks, the judge later added, "you may worry that they're adding race in as a reasonable suspicion factor." Legal observers have suggested that Scheindlin seems likely to rule against the city. In a related lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union about a stop-and-frisk practice aimed at private residential buildings in the Bronx, the judge ruled in January that the city had violated New Yorkers' constitutional rights. In this case, Scheindlin suggested that she would need to piece together one constitutional violation, such as stops without reasonable suspicion, with the plaintiff's statistical analysis of stops, to find a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause guaranteeing that people will not be treated differently because of their race. The plaintiffs have suggested a wide range of potential outcomes, from changing the NYPD's training practices to creating new forms to document stop-and-frisk encounters, to appointing a court monitor with the power to stop racially biased stops. Scheindlin said she was "intrigued" by one potential remedy -- making some officers work with "body-worn cameras" to document every interaction. She asked the city whether a court-appointed expert might be less intrusive than a monitor.

In my nightmares, I can't get to my children. They are trapped somewhere that should be safe, but has become sinister and terrifying. I am close enough to see their prison, but unable to enter it. It's the worst of my recurring dreams, a sign to me that my psyche needs tending, and my subconscious is going to its darkest edges and requires light. I have always, blessedly, been able to wake up. The parents of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma are living that nightmare. My thoughts are with them. I suspect my dreams will be too. The Red Cross is on the scene in Oklahoma. To donate, go here or text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief.

Is Barack Obama our nation's second "Teflon president"? The question has occurred to me before, but it became impossible to ignore after the last week of "Scandalgate." Even after multiple scandals all vying for the top headline throughout the week, over the weekend CNN reported poll numbers showing Obama currently enjoys 53 percent of the public's approval for the job he's doing. His numbers actually rose from the last time the poll was taken, when Obama was at 51 percent approval. That's pretty stunning news, after the week the president just had. Which is why it's now time to ask the question -- does Obama have the "Teflon" quality of having nothing stick to him, no matter what? Of course, this might be a premature conclusion to draw, for quite a number of reasons. The first of which is that it's still pretty early, as Washington scandal cycles go (except for Benghazi, which has been around for months). More revelations are likely on the way, and they could bend public opinion in either direction, really. But you can bet the Republicans are going to spend a whole lot of time digging, for the foreseeable future. So even if nothing major comes to light, there will still be a steady stream of wonky details from congressional committees, which the pundits will chew over with delight. The second reason drawing any conclusions or predictions is premature is that it's too early for the public, as well. While people who constantly keep abreast of every tiny shred of political news (and I do include myself in that group) are already fully aware of the scandal details, the general public simply doesn't pay that close attention to politics. The number of people who get their news from late night comics is astounding, and has to be factored in. No matter what the political scandal, it takes time to seep in (or percolate up, take your pick) to the public's consciousness. Any poll takes a few days to conduct, and more time to compile, so CNN was asking the public pretty early on in the scandal cycle to begin with. Give it another week, and the numbers may shift dramatically, as more and more people become informed (in whatever way) about the details of what's going on. The third reason it's too early to declare a trend is that this is only one poll. It may be what pollsters call an "outlier" -- a random skewing of the responses that winds up being mistaken about the direction of the public's opinion. This isn't to knock CNN or their polling -- outliers can happen to any polling organization, and it's why smart poll-watchers only believe a valid trend exists after multiple polls begin to show the same picture. Even with all of these caveats, if the CNN poll does turn out to be indicative of the public's true feelings, it is pretty remarkable. Which leads to the Reagan comparison. Ronald Reagan (at least, up until the Iran-Contra scandal) was the first to be called a "Teflon president" because no matter what scandals popped up on his watch, he appeared to float above them all. Nothing stuck, hence the Teflon label. Barack Obama has long admired the transformational nature of Reagan's presidency (which has often been mischaracterized as Obama supporting or approving of Reagan's actual agenda, which is a completely different thing and not true). But the comparison in the two men's political skills seems to becoming more and more apt. Scandal after scandal (or, at least, what his opponents label "scandal," at any rate) is thrown at Obama, and not much of it gains any traction with the public, outside of people who already don't approve of Obama and never will. Take a look at a comparison chart of job approval numbers for Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan (and please note, this is a chart of monthly averages which doesn't include any Obama numbers for this month, yet): [Click on graph to see larger-scale version.] The blue and brown lines show Ronald Reagan's approval and disapproval. The green and red lines show Obama's. Reagan, by this point in his term (and excluding the first year's "honeymoon period"), had experienced higher highs and lower lows than Obama has. Reagan spent a whole 10 months with a lower job approval rating than the lowest number Obama has ever charted, and Reagan dipped well below 40 percent in his worst month. By comparison, Obama (also excluding the initial honeymoon) has kept his approval rating almost exclusively between 45 and 55 percent. That's amazingly stable. Obama did spend four months below 45 percent and hit a low of 43.4 percent in the middle of the debt ceiling budget fight in 2011. But other than that, his numbers don't change all that much, no matter what story is breaking. Even the death of Osama bin Laden didn't push Obama much above 50 percent approval, and if you remove that data point and his second post-election "honeymoon," his approval has stayed within the 45-50 percent range for over three years. That's a much tighter range than even Mr. Teflon himself, Ronald Reagan, could manage. During this period, the Republicans have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at him. They have made it their party's highest priority to tear down Obama, and they have stunningly failed to convince the public to change their mind about the man all that much. Perhaps this is a big part of the problem. Perhaps crying "Kenyan!" too often has discredited their alarms, to put this another way. The populace hears that Obama is a socialist or hates America or is trying to destroy this or that aspect of American life -- and they collectively yawn, because they are considering the source. Republican scandal overreach may be coming home to roost, to mix the metaphors a bit. Perhaps the CNN poll will indeed prove to be an outlier. Perhaps Obama's numbers aren't actually going up even after the trifecta of scandals last week. It is really too early to identify that trend, and we'll have to wait a week or so to see some other polls to figure out what's really going on out there. But I would be willing to bet that even if Obama's numbers do go down, they won't go down all that much. It seems that roughly 45 percent of the public will approve of Obama no matter what the other side throws at him, and roughly 45 percent of the public will never approve of the job Obama's doing (even killing bin Laden didn't convince them, remember) no matter what happens. The 10 percent in the middle will fluctuate by a few points, but on the whole, remain within a tight range. I don't know what else to call that but Teflon.   Chris Weigant blogs at: Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigantBecome a fan of Chris on The Huffington Post  

WASHINGTON -- People who falsely claim they have received a military medal in order to obtain money or government benefits could face up to a year in jail under legislation that easily passed the House Monday. The Stolen Valor Act, sponsored by Nevada Republican Joe Heck, is a second attempt by the House to revive a law on fraudulent claims to medals that was struck down by the Supreme Court in June last year. The legislation is identical to a measure that passed the House overwhelmingly last September but saw no Senate action before the last session of Congress ended. The vote Monday was 390-3. The Supreme Court, in invalidating the Stolen Valor Act of 2006, ruled that while making false statements about receiving a military medal might be contemptible, such lies were protected by First Amendment free speech rights. The case involved a former California politician who lied about being a decorated military veteran. It has long been a crime to wear, manufacture or sell military declarations or medals without proper authorization. As rewritten, the bill more narrowly focuses on those who lie about receiving medals "with intent to obtain money, property or other tangible benefit." That could include those who claim medals in order to receive veterans benefits, land a government contract or get a job reserved for veterans. Offenders face fines and up to a year in prison. The bill, said Heck, "resolves these constitutional issues by clearly defining that the objective of the law is to target and punish those who represent their service with the intent of profiting personally or financially." After the Supreme Court ruling, the Pentagon announced it would establish a database of military valor awards and medals, making it easier to validate claims. The site, , lists individuals who were awarded the Medal of Honor or a Service Cross prior to or after Sept 11, 2001. It also lists Silver Star recipients for actions since Sept. 11. http://valor.defense.gov/ Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., has similar legislation pending in the Senate.

The Truth-o-Meter says: Pants on Fire! | Michele Bachmann decries “huge national database” run by IRS with "personal, intimate" details During a recent interview with Fox News, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., raised the specter of the Internal Revenue Service -- an agency currently under fire for appearing to target conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status -- collecting a database full of "intimate" details about Americans. Referring to an inspector general’s report on IRS scrutiny of conservative groups, Bachmann said, "So now we find out these people are making decisions based on our politics and beliefs, and they're going to be in charge of our health care. There's a huge national database that's being created right now. Your health care, ... >> More

During a lecture I gave on American free press rights to a group of foreign journalists, one reporter in attendance shared his fears that government officials back home tap his phone and monitor his communications in an attempt to discover the identities of his confidential sources. He asked if that happens in the United States and what protections American journalists have. My answer was: rarely, and only in narrow settings with a search warrant, largely because of the First Amendment. Later that day, news broke that the United States Department of Justice had secretly collected two months of telephone records from reporters and editors at the Associated Press, the world's largest news organization, for the likely purpose of rooting out sources for stories about foiled terrorist plots. Despite the First Amendment, journalists entwined in a federal "leak" investigation find themselves mostly without legal protections, immunity or other privileges that would allow them solid grounds to quash a subpoena. State shield laws or common law reporters' privileges, available in 49 states, do not apply to federal cases. We observed this in 2005 when the New York Times' Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to reveal her confidential communications with a source (one she did not even use in a news story). We are seeing it again with Army Private Bradley Manning, who is currently in the midst of a military trial for providing classified military information to the website WikiLeaks. Meanwhile, attempts at creating a federal shield law have failed, and reports have surfaced that the federal government is prosecuting six current or former government officials for possibly leaking confidential information to reporters. Even as a staunch free press advocate, I admit that the government has an obligation to protect certain state secrets. But once information reaches the press and the public, the resulting investigative witch hunts raise questions about how free our press really is. The Department of Justice does have guidelines for subpoenaing journalists, but they are malleable, and courts have refused to infuse them with binding legal authority. These guidelines require approval of the Attorney General, which appears to be easily gained, and a "reasonable" belief that a crime occurred and the information sought is "essential to a successful investigation." Further, that "all reasonable efforts" have been made to obtain the information from alternative sources. Additional elements include limiting the subject matter sought, avoiding large volume requests and using the material for verification purposes. The government claims to have satisfied these requirements in the case of the AP, and a spokesman stated, "We value the freedom of the press." But that's a difficult statement to believe when the world's leading newsgathering operation and potentially its sources are being investigated. The spokesman also said the government seeks to "strike a balance" between the free flow of information and the administration of justice. Admittedly, this is not an easy balance. Government officials struggle to protect secrets, the press fights for access, sources try to protect themselves and the public may ultimately get less information. The idea of striking a balance in a leak investigation or press subpoena case comes directly from Justice Lewis Powell's decisive concurring opinion in Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), the Supreme Court's final word on reporters' privilege, in which the court ruled that reporters have no privilege, and no greater rights under the First Amendment, to avoid testimony before federal grand jury cases. Widely considered guiding judicial statement on reporters' privilege, Justice Powell's opinion acknowledged that subpoenas served on reporters should be used as a last resort for information with a close relationship to a potential criminal investigation. Further, these subpoenas should be issued in good faith and not be used to harass the press. When the government comes knocking on a newsroom door - or more precisely, seeks telephone records or other documents - it is difficult to see the good faith, much less to not feel harassed. These cases create an even broader concern for the independence of the press. In his Branzburg dissent, Justice Potter Stewart voiced his fear of government "annexing" the press as an investigative arm. If the public feels the government only has to call up a reporter to find out what is going on, the constitutional independence of the press is shattered. Moreover, even if nothing comes of this current investigation, the government may achieve its ultimate goal, instilling fear into other potential news sources and discouraging them from speaking to reporters or revealing secrets that the public needs to know. That does not sound like the American free press. Roy S. Gutterman is an associate professor and director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

Just about a year ago, one of our more news-savvy members of Congress showed off his discerning assessment of news sources by posting a very important article on his Facebook page. The article, revealing the shocking news that Planned Parenthood had opened an "$8 Billion Abortionplex," was from one of the nation's most highly respected and reliable news source -- The Onion! The congressman was Rep. John Fleming (R-LA). Well, it seems that Congressman Fleming's ability to separate fact from fiction hasn't improved much in the past year. The stories he's now believing might not come from The Onion, a site that anybody with half a brain would immediately recognize to be satire, but the headlines are just as far-fetched and the stories just as fictitious. Here's what Fleming had to say last week in Congress: Transcript of above video: Mr. Speaker, I want to be certain that the administration and Pentagon leadership do not deny our men and women in uniform one of the very freedoms they are fighting to protect. On Monday I led on a letter sent to Defense Secretary Hagel demanding details about a meeting between Pentagon officials and ant-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein. Weinstein has spent nine years at war -- those are his words -- at war with evangelical Christians who he says are committing "spiritual rape" against the U.S. military. Christians who are merely exercising their First Amendment right or primary duties in the case of chaplains. Mr. Weinstein exploits freedom of speech to name call and to label Christians as the "Christian taliban" and "al Qaeda," but he seeks to shut down the religious freedom of expression of service members in the process. I have trouble with several anti-Christian steps the Pentagon has taken in recent years. That is why my colleagues and I seek answers from Secretary Hagel on this important question now. I know it's becoming increasingly hard to tell if a headline is from a less than reliable alarmist news site or a satire site like The Onion, but you'd think a member of Congress who has already embarrassed themselves once by falling for a fictitious story would at least check to see whether or not another seemingly unbelievable story is true before repeating it -- and especially before repeating it on the floor of the House of Representatives. But not Congressman Fleming! He's apparently fallen hook. line, and sinker for the rapidly spreading, but completely untrue, story that the Department of Defense has decided to start court-martialing Christians to rid them from the military. Where did such a ridiculous story come from? Breitbart.com, aided by FOX News and a whole bunch of fundamentalist Christian websites and organizations, particularly the Family Research Council. Almost immediately after it was reported by the Washington Post that Mikey Weinstein, the president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), along with MRFF board member former ambassador Joe Wilson and MRFF advisory board member Col. Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, breitbart.com went into action. The meeting took place on April 23 and was reported on by the Washington Post on April 26. On April 28, breitbart.com came out with the headline: "Pentagon Taps Anti-Christian Extremist for Religious Tolerance Policy." Other articles quickly followed: May 1: "Pentagon May Court Martial Soldiers Who Share Christian Faith" May 3: "Pentagon Defends Unconstitutional Policy Against Soldiers Sharing Faith" May 7: "Pentagon Began Relationship with Anti-Christian Extremist in 2009" May 7: "Congressmen Probe Religious Bigot's Influence at Pentagon" May 8: "Senators to Hagel: Explain DOD Policy on Religion" May 11: "Congress Must Tell Pentagon to Protect Troops' First Amendment Rights" May 13: "59 Congress Members Demand Hagel Explain Meeting with Anti-Christian Extremist" May 13 "Congress Investigating Obama Admin's Hostility to Religion in the Military" And those are just the ones from breitbart.com! FOX News also joined in, of course, as did other right-wing media outlets. WorldNetDaily, in one of it's articles, quoted Kelly Shakelford of the The Liberty Institute, which has launched an "Armed Forces Religious Liberty hotline," saying: "They are about to implement a new policy under which any members of the military 'caught' talking about their Christian faith will be subject to court martial or imprisonment!" To list all of the articles that have come out spreading this ridiculous claim, not to mention the petitions that have been launched to fight this fictitious threat of Christian persecution, would turn this into a 20,000 word post. (Just do a search of Google news on "Christians" + "court-martial" to get an idea how far the lies have spread, as well as what the DoD and others are doing to try to combat these lies.) In an unexpected twist, Glenn Beck's The Blaze, after interviewing Mikey Weinstein, actually put out an article debunking some of the claims coming from other right-wing sources. C'mon, if even Glenn Beck isn't buying a conspiracy theory, it must be a pretty over-the-top conspiracy theory, right? And yet millions of people are actually believing it, including Congressman John Fleming and fifty-eight other members of Congress who signed onto Fleming's letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel demanding answers about this "scandal." But what I want to focus on here is breitbart.com, not only because that was the website responsible for launching the manufactured scandal, but because of the obvious connection between breitbart.com and the Family Research Council (FRC), an organization whose executive vice president is none other than Jerry "my god is bigger than your god" Boykin. For those who don't remember, Boykin's "holy war" and other Islamophobic comments, made in uniform when he was an Army general, were even denounced by the Bush administration. The author of all the breitbart.com articles listed above is Ken Klukowski. And who is Ken Klukowski? Well, he just happens to be the director of the FRC's Center for Religious Liberty. So, what we have here is not news reporting, but a representative of Jerry Boykin's organization using a pseudo-news site to push a conspiracy theory to further his organization's agenda. Then, on May 14, Congressman Fleming went on the FRC's "Washington Watch" radio show, and was asked by FRC head Tony Perkins why he wrote the letter to Hagel demanding information about Mikey Weinstein's meeting with Pentagon officials. Fleming's answer? He said they "got a report" saying that "Christians could be brought up on charges for evangelizing" and that this even "included chaplains." They "got a report?" And who was reporting this? Why, the FRC's own Ken Klukowski on breitbart.com, of course! By the time Fleming went on the FRC's radio show, the lies started by Ken Klukowski and picked up by FOX News and others had been debunked by a number of other sources, including the Department of Defense itself, which had put out several statements saying that what breitbart.com had reported was not true. The U.S. military has no plans to start court-martialing Christians just for being Christians or simply talking about their religion. Is Mikey Weinstein really an anti-Christian extremist? Over the past few weeks, MRFF's Mikey Weinstein has been called a lot of names, ironically by people who like to criticize him for name calling. Weinstein has been called an "anti-Christian extremist," an "anti-Christian crusader," a "militant atheist," and many other similar names. Congressman Fleming, during his appearance on the FRC's radio show, claimed that Weinstein "hates people who believe particularly in Christianity but also in other faiths." Tony Perkins, on the same show, called MRFF "one of the most anti-Christian organizations I've seen." FRC vice president Jerry Boykin has been an enemy of Weinstein for years, publicly calling him names like "demon," and in the recent brouhaha claiming that "anti-Christian and left-wing activists met at the Pentagon with military leaders." So, is it true? Are Weinstein and MRFF anti-Christian? Absolutely not! Is MRFF a left wing-organization? Again, absolutely not! Not only are 96% of MRFF's clients are Christians, but MRFF's staff and volunteers are probably the most diverse group out there -- both religiously and politically. Mikey himself is a Republican who, after graduating from the Air Force Academy and serving as a JAG officer, served as a White House counsel in the Reagan administration. MRFF's Advisory Board includes members of all religions, including several Christian ministers who served as military chaplains. But to those who take the word of the FRC and breitbart.com as gospel without bothering to check the facts, Weinstein is the "spawn of Satan" (another name he's been called), a man out to rid the U.S. military of all vestiges of religion -- with the help of the Obama administration, of course. What's really behind the attacks? Why has a single meeting between Weinstein and Pentagon official sparked such outrage and become a viral story in right-wing circles? Well, it seems to be as much an attack on the Obama administration as it is on Weinstein and MRFF. It is not Weinstein alone who, according to the FRC, breitbart.com, et. al., is trying to cleanse the military of Christians -- it is all part of a diabolic plot being carried out by the Obama administration! Weinstein has also been labeled "intolerant" and a "bigot," ironically by the likes of the FRC's Jerry Boykin, a man who claims that Islam -- not radical Muslim extremists, but the religion of Islam itself -- "should not be protected under the First Amendment." Congressman John Fleming has displayed his brand of religious "tolerance" by doing things like barring Muslims from the Subway restaurant that he owns in Louisiana. Yes, these are the people who are calling Mikey Weinstein a "bigot" and claiming that it is he who is "intolerant." While the FRC has been the most visible of the fundamentalist Christian organizations pushing this manufactured scandal, a number of other organizations, including the American Family Association and Wallbuilders, the organization of infamous pseudo-historian David Barton, have also been playing a big role. Barton's organization, for example, put out an article on his website in February 2012 titled "America's Most Biblically-Hostile U.S. President," which is periodically updated with what Barton claims are examples of Obama's "hostility toward Biblical people of faith" and "preferential treatment of Muslims." The examples in Barton's article, which includes a section titled "Acts of hostility from the Obama-led military toward people of Biblical faith," has been repeatedly quoted and cited as evidence by other organizations and right-wing news outlets who seek to manufacture yet another Obama "scandal." (A Google search on the title of Barton's article currently returns 121,000 hits.) The repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell is also fueling the fire. Part of the fear-mongering consists of spreading lies that under the "Biblically-Hostile" Obama, not only will the rights of all Christians in the military to practice their religion be taken away, but military chaplains will be forced to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies against their will. The incessant claim from certain members of Congress that legislation is immediately necessary to "protect" military chaplains is ridiculous. No such legislation is necessary. Under already existing regulations, no military chaplain ever has, or ever will be, forced to do anything that goes against their beliefs. What is Mikey Weinstein really talking about? Much has been made of Mikey Weinstein's colorful language and use of metaphors, particularly his calling a particular type of Christians "monsters," and describing some of the actions of this particular type of Christians as "spiritual rape." These words, very clearly used by Weinstein to describe only a minority of Christians, usually referred to as "dominionists," have been repeatedly taken out of context to claim that Weinstein has called all Christians "monsters," and said that any sharing of their faith by any member of the military in any way is "rape." In no way has Weinstein ever said these things about all Christians. He has always made it very clear that he is talking only about those who do things that any decent person would consider "monstrous." When an Army chaplain serving a special forces unit comes right out and says that he waits until the soldiers are broken down by training and have gone without food or sleep for three days to take advantage of their vulnerability to evangelize them, that chaplain's behavior is nothing short of monstrous. (Need proof? See the video of this chaplain in action and a whole bunch of other equally egregious examples here.) When a rape victim goes to an Army chaplain for assistance and is told that the rape was God's will and that God was trying to get her attention so that I would go back to church, that chaplain's behavior is monstrous. When a military youth ministry is allowed to stalk "unchurched" military children by following their school buses, the behavior of that ministry, and whatever chaplains or commanders are allowing this to go on, is monstrous. Weinstein is in no way calling a soldier who invites their peers to a Bible study, for example, a "monster" or a "spiritual rapist." This label only applies only to those who grossly abuse their position or rank to do monstrous things, as in the examples above. Let the fundraising begin As with any good manufactured threat, the "scandal" of the dangerous Mikey Weinstein meeting with Pentagon officials has launched a number of petitions and fundraising campaigns. By May 2, a petition from the FRC, launched on April 29 and promoted by breitbart.com, had over 110,000 signatures. (it's now up to over 167,000.) The FRC has also created what it calls the "American Hero Defense Fund" to raise money to fight their manufactured threat of Christian service members being court-martialed simply for being Christians. The May 2 press release put out by the FRC to garner even more signatures on its petition contains a list of unbelievable examples of Christian persecution by the military, using many of the same examples found in David Barton's "America's Most Biblically-Hostile U.S. President" list. On May 15, the FRC's Tony Perkins sent out a mass email with the subject line "We must stop the persecution of Christians in military," which repeated the examples in the press release and added some more. The examples listed by the FRC and Barton are, not surprisingly, a bunch of wild exaggerations, and outright lies, carefully worded to scare the bejeezus out of their already frightened and outraged audiences. The FRC claims, for example, that the "Air Force suspended a 20-year-old class on 'Just War Theory' because it included scriptural references." Barton's version of this one is: "The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory to officers in California because the course is taught by chaplains and is based on a philosophy introduced by St. Augustine in the third century AD -- a theory long taught by civilized nations across the world (except now, America)." Did the Air Force really stop teaching Just War Theory merely because it came from St. Augustine or because the presentation being used contained a few scripture references? Of course not! What really happened was that a group of Air Force officers, most of whom were Christians, came to MRFF for help in removing a mandatory part of nuclear missile officer training that the officers (not MRFF) had nicknamed the "Jesus Loves Nukes" speech. This presentation didn't merely include a few scriptural references, as the FRC claims; it included slide after slide of Bible verses, ending with "Jesus Christ is the mighty warrior." The presentation also quite offensively quoted former Nazi and SS officer Wernher von Braun as a moral authority. (More details can be found here.) Another example used by Barton and the FRC is the "Jesus rifles." Again, it was not MRFF who came up with this name, but what the soldiers who came to MRFF said they were commonly called. The rifles, which were being used both by our own troops and the Afghan and Iraqi forces they were training, were nicknamed "Jesus rifles" because of the Bible verse references stamped on their sites, called ACOGs, made by Christian weapons manufacturer Trijicon. This is how Barton described list of "Acts of hostility from the Obama-led military toward people of Biblical faith," this was the issue with these rifles: "Because of 'concerns' raised by the Department of Defense, tiny Bible verse references that had appeared for decades on scopes and gunsights were removed." The FRC's list similarly says: "Department of Defense orders removal of tiny Bible references on military scopes and gunsights." Now, compare Barton's and the FRC's description of the military getting rid of these "tiny Bible verse references" to what MRFF was hearing from soldiers who were actually having to use the "Jesus rifles." Here's an excerpt from one of the emails MRFF received about them: Nothing in my first 2 deployments prepared me for what happened with the Trijicon ACOG gun sights during my 3rd deployment to Afghanistan. I will never forget the day it occurred. It was morning and there was a mandatory formation of several companies. A very senior NCO was yelling at us which is not that unusual. He asked a private what it was that he (the private) was holding in his hand and the private said it was his "weapon" several times to which the senior NCO replied "and what ELSE is it"? FInally, the senior NCO said that the private's rifle was also something else; that because of the biblical quote on the ACOG gunsight it had been "spiritually transformed into the Fire Arm of Jesus Christ" and that we would be expected to kill every "haji" we could find with it. He said that if we were to run out of ammo, then the rifle would become the "spiritually transformed club of Jesus Christ" and that we should "bust open the head of every haji we find with it." He said that Uncle Sam had seen fit not to give us a "pussy 'Jewzzi' (combination of the word 'Jew' and Israeli made weapon 'Uzi') but the "fire arm of Jesus Christ" and made specific mention of the biblical quotes on our gun sights. He said that the enemy no doubt had quotes from the Koran on their guns but that "our Lord is bigger than theirs because theirs is a fraud and an idol". As a Muslim and an American soldier I was fit to be tied but I kept it in. There were many Afghans, both civilian and military, on base within earshot of what was being yelled at us and I can only wonder in shock what they must have thought. This senior NCO was apparently also the head person of a conservative, crazy Christian group called the "Christian Military Fellowship" and made a big deal about the importance of joining to everyone. He told us all that we MUST read a book called "Under Orders" in order to make it through this combat deployment and said he had many copies for everyone. Some of my friends went and got their copies. I refused. Finally, this senior NCO ended his yelling by warning us that if we did not "get right with Jesus" then our rifles would not provide spiritual strength despite the bible quotes on our ACOG gunsights and that we would be considered "spiritual cripples" to our fellow units and soldiers. (The soldier's entire email and more details can be found here.) In addition to emails like the one above, Mikey Weinstein had also received a call in the middle of the night from a very rattled soldier who had just had the business end of one of these rifles stuck up his nose by an Afghan man because of that "tiny Bible verse reference" on it. This wasn't merely a constitutional issue; these rifle sites were putting our troops in danger! Barton's and the FRC's so-called infringements on the rights of the poor, persecuted Christians also include some outright lies, such as the one about cadets at the Air Force Academy being stopped from participating in the Operation Christmas Child program. According to the FRC,"The Air Force Academy rescinds support for Operation Christmas Child, a program to send holiday gifts to impoverished children across the world, because the program is run by a Christian charity." Barton's list uses the exact same wording as the May 15 email sent out by the FRC. Did this really happen? Were Air Force Academy cadets really prohibited from participating in Operation Christmas Child? Well, no. The program was merely put under the auspices of the chaplain's office rather than the command structure, in accordance with a memorandum on religious neutrality that had been issued by the Air Force's chief of staff. The cadets could, and did, continue to participate in Operation Christmas Child. On Barton's list, this lie about Operation Christmas Child is followed by another outright lie: "Even while restricting and disapprobating Christian religious expressions, the Air Force Academy pays $80,000 to add a Stonehenge-like worship center for pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans at the Air Force Academy." The version of this one in the FRC's email is: "The Air Force Academy pays $80,000 for a Stonehenge-type worship center for pagans, druids, and witches." Besides showing just how "tolerant" Barton and the FRC are of religions other than their own, the claim that $80,000 was spent on this worship area is completely untrue. Seriously, have any of these people believing this talking point actually stopped to wonder how putting a circle of rocks on a hilltop could possibly cost $80,000? Of course not. They just keep repeating this so-called "fact" to shock their audiences. The truth is that this money was already being spent on a project that had nothing to do with the worship area. The boulders that now form the outdoor worship area were moved from the hillside to the hilltop as part of an erosion control project that was already underway. Erosion had made these boulders a safety hazard, in danger of falling down the hillside and crashing into the Academy's Visitors Center and Cadet Chapel, so they were moved from the hillside to the top of the hill. When the 10th Civil Engineer Squadron moved the rocks to the top of the hill in spring and early summer of 2009, they arranged them in a circle. Months later, when the pagan lay leader at the Academy was looking for a suitable site for a worship area, he realized that there already was one -- the circle of boulders that had been moved to the top of the hill during the erosion control project. All that needed to be added to the already existing site to turn it into a worship area was some flagstone to make a floor and a small altar in the center of the circle. So, no, the Academy's outdoor worship area didn't cost anything even close to $80,000. The only other significant expense has been the installation of security cameras, made necessary when some nice Christians decided to send a message by placing a large wooden cross at the site. These are just a few of the lies currently being spread by the FRC and David Barton, aided by their friends in Congress and the right-wing media, to demonize MRFF, Mikey Weinstein (and, of course, our secret Muslim president Barack Obama), and because of these lies, millions of Americans now actually believe what really does sound like an Onion headline -- that the Pentagon is planning to cleanse the military of Christians!

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) warned graduates at Springfield College that no matter how much planning they do, they won't be able to prepare for every twist and turn coming their way. "You can't predict it all," said Warren, according to a release from the Springfield, Mass., college. "People will tell you to plan things out as best you can. They will tell you to focus. They will tell you to follow your dreams. They will all be right." Warren, the college's 2013 commencement speaker, addressed graduates at the MassMutual Center on Sunday. The private college awarded 1,607 degrees over the weekend, The Republican in Springfield reports. Warren herself received an honorary doctor of humanics degree. In her speech, the first-term senator emphasized unpredictability of life. "Never be so faithful to your plan that you are unwilling to consider the unexpected," Warren said. "Never be so faithful to your plan that you are unwilling to entertain the improbable opportunity that comes looking for you. And never be so faithful to your plan that when you hit a bump in the road -– or when the bumps hit you -– you don't have the fortitude, grace and resiliency to rethink and regroup." Earlier in her career, Warren taught at several law schools, including the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. Prior to running for the U.S. Senate, she oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program, worked to establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and was an assistant to the president in the Obama administration. She insisted in her speech that she had never intended to run for office, according to WSHM. "If you do not believe me," Warren said, "try to find a political consultant who will tell you that the best way to get elected to a national office is becoming a professor or tangling with bank CEOs."

Paul Brandus, The WeekWe just had a week that showed, once again, why the American people are right to hold their elected leaders in contempt, and why trust in government is so low. It really does seem like our lawmakers spend all their time trying to put the political screws to the other party "” while the people's business goes undone.Let's take the ongoing Benghazi saga. The White House, trying for a change to get in front of the controversy, released more than 100 pages of emails sent in the frantic aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attack. They showed that Republicans,...

Bob Woodward, MTPDAVID GREGORY: Bob Woodward, you're no stranger to these kinds of controversies in Washington. How has the administration handled this, this past week?BOB WOODWARD: Well, first of all, I mean people are making comparisons to Watergate. This is not Watergate. But there are some people in the administration who have acted as if they want to be Nixonian. And that's a very big problem. I think--

Chris Cillizza, Washington PostJohn Edwards was right. There are two Americas. In one America, the events of the past 10 days have exposed the true colors of President Obama and his administration. From edited talking points about the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, to the secret seizure of phone records of Associated Press reporters to the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, a single message has emerged: This is the inevitable result of government run amok.

Ryan Lizza, The New YorkerThe Washington Post reported today that, in the course of a leak investigation of a State Department employee who allegedly provided Fox News’s James Rosen with classified information, the Obama Justice Department not only subpoenaed Rosen’s private e-mails but also said that Rosen was “an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator” in the alleged crime.Rosen was not charged with any crime, but it is unprecedented for the government, in an official court document, to accuse a reporter of breaking the law for conducting the routine business of reporting on...

J.D. Tuccille, ReasonPerhaps the most chilling aspect of the U.S. Department of Justice "investigation" of Fox News chief correspondent James Rosen isn't the intrusive tracking of his movements and contacts — although that's disturbing enough — but the basis for the criminal charges he may ultimately face. At its heart, the allegation that Rosen broke the law "at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator” is based on nothing more than meeting with and asking questions of government adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, who told him the...

The Truth-o-Meter says: False | Michele Bachmann says the IRS is "going to be in charge of our health care" Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. is one of a number of Republican lawmakers who have recently sought to link the two longtime targets of conservatives -- the Internal Revenue Service and President Barack Obama’s health care law. In a May 15, 2013, interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, Bachmann invoked an inspector general’s report critical of the IRS’ scrutiny of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. She said, "So now we find out these people are making decisions based on our politics and beliefs, and they're going to be in charge of our health care. There's ... >> More

The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly False | Michele Bachmann says IRS "will have the ability" to delay or deny health care Last week was a bad one for the Internal Revenue Service. First, it faced widespread criticism over revelations that officials gave extra scrutiny to tea party and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. Now, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is charging that the IRS may be able to deny Americans the right to health care. During a May 15, 2013, interview on Fox News’ On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, Bachmann linked the IRS to a longtime target of hers, President Barack Obama’s health care law. Referring to an inspector general’s report on the IRS ... >> More

Carl M. Cannon, RealClearPoliticsMy father, Lou Cannon, covered the White House with distinction for the Washington Post for many years, beginning in the Nixon administration. He employed an easy rule of thumb when fielding phone calls from anonymous tipsters:If the caller said, "I have a story that will make Watergate look like a picnic," Dad would hang up on him.In the past week, Richard Nixon's name has been invoked often, and not in a way that pleases President Obama or his loyalists. Unless it's a reference to his dramatic 1972 visit to China, Nixon is not the president any of his successors...

Joseph Curl, Washington Times

Jillian Kay Melchior, NRO