West Virginia Man Sues the DOE over the Teaching of Evolution, Claims Officials Violated Constitution by “Propagating” a Religious Faith in Public Schools

Posted on May 30, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro
Kenneth Smith

Kenneth Smith

By Elaine Magliaro

Kenneth Smith, the parent of a Jefferson County student, has “filed a federal lawsuit against local, state and federal education officials claiming the teaching of evolution, which he says is a religion, violates his child’s Constitutional rights.” According to Andrea Lannam of the Charleston Daily Herald, Smith “filed the four-page federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia against the Jefferson County Board of Education, state Superintendent Michael Martirano, National Institute of Health director Francis Collins, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the U.S. Department of Education.” Smith is representing himself.

The lawsuit, filed on May 12th, said Smith’s “complaint is against all Defendants, who’ve fostered the propagation of religious faith in our West Virginia public school machinery and government at large.” Lannam said that “Smith alleged education officials violated the U.S. Constitution because he claimed they are ‘propagating’ a religious faith in public schools.”

The lawsuit said, “Their actions during the 2014-2015 school year affects my child’s future directly through the state grading system to enter college and the ability to earn economic security and a good job in her chosen veterinarian medical field of work, by being taught a faith base (evolutionary ideology) that just doesn’t exist and has no math to back it.”

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Posted in Christianity, Constitutional Law, Courts, Creationism/Intelligent Design, Dept. of Education, Education, Education Policy, Evolution, Government, Religion, Science, United States | Tagged , | 1 Comment

On the Subject of Jeb Bush’s Team of Foreign Policy Advisers and Neocon Warmonger Paul Wolfowitz (With a Mark Fiore Political Cartoon Video)

Posted on May 30, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

PaulWolfowitzBy Elaine Magliaro

Political cartoonist Mark Fiore:

Jeb Bush has performed a valuable service with his recent missteps and flubs, he’s reminded the world of the baggage he willingly carries. I’m not tarring him with the same brush as George W. Bush just because they are brothers. Jeb has voluntarily staffed his foreign policy team with 17 people from his brother’s administration. (This is out of a foreign policy team of 21, mind you.)

Sure, the dynasty thing is bad enough and it’s the same Bush family as before—  but whether Jeb is a Bush or not, he deserves to be pilloried for putting people like Paul Wolfowitz in places where they might have an impact on, you know, foreign policy.  (It boggles my mind Wolfowitz is actually showing his face in public, never mind appearing on cable news and advising another Bush.)  

A couple of weeks ago, David Corn wrote an article for Mother Jones titled The Jeb Bush Adviser Who Should Scare You. It was about Wolfowitz—“a top policy architect of the Iraq War.”

Corn:

Wolfowitz, who was deputy defense secretary under George W. Bush, was a prominent neocon cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq. He was also the top conspiracy theorist in the Bush-Cheney crowd. As Michael Isikoff and I reported in our our 2006 book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, Wolfowitz, prior to the Iraq War, was a champion of a bizarre theory promoted by an eccentric academic named Laurie Mylroie: Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, not Islamic extremists such as Al Qaeda, was responsible for most of the world’s anti-United States terrorism.

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Posted in American History, CIA, Conservatives, Countries, FBI, Foreign Policy, George W. Bush, Government, Government Propaganda, History, Humor, Iraq, Neoconservatives, Political Science, Politics, Presidents, Propaganda, Short Video, United States, War, War on "Terror" | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Despite Public Outrage, Arkansas State Representative Faces No Consequences for “Rehoming” Two Adopted Daughters to a Household Where One of the Young Girls Was Raped

Posted on May 30, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

JustinHarrisHardyBy Elaine Magliaro

Back in March, I wrote two posts about Arkansas State Representative Justin Harris who gave up his six-year old adopted daughter to a man who subsequently raped her. (You can read those posts here and here.)

An excerpt from my March 6th post:

Justin Harris, a Republican state representative, is said to be “facing serious scrutiny after he apparently ‘rehomed’ his adopted daughters to a household where one of the girls, age 6, was sexually abused by the father.” The father–a 38-year-old resident of Bella Vista named Eric Cameron Francis–was arrested by State Police on April 4, 2014, for the rape of the 6-year-old girl who was in his temporary care. The rape occurred in January of 2014, when Francis’s wife was out of state. Francis, who confessed to the sexual assault, is currently serving a 40-year sentence.

A babysitter of the Harrises had also claimed that Hustin and his wife Marsha believed that their adopted daughters were possessed by demons and had an exorcism performed. Harris and his wife denied the accusation.

Raw Story:

They eventually “rehomed” the girls, ages 5 and 3, in October 2013 to a friend and preschool employee of theirs – Eric Francis – who is now serving a 40-year prison term for abusing one of the Harris’ adopted daughters and two other children.

The couple left their adopted daughters with Francis even after firing him over poor work attendance in January 2014 — when court documents show he admitted to raping the girl while his wife was out of state.

It now appears that the “serious scrutiny” that Harris underwent did not result in any negative consequences for him. Benjamin Hardy of The Arkansas Times reported on Thursday that nearly three months after the news broke about the “rehoming” of his two adopted daughters, Harris “continues to serve as state representative from District 81 — a job that this year saw a boost in salary, from $15,869 to $39,400.” Hardy noted that Harris and his wife Marsha “also continue to run Growing God’s Kingdom, which gets 90 percent of its funding through state and federal revenue streams.”

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Posted in Arkansas, Christianity, Crime, Education, Government, Hypocrisy, Politics, Religion, States, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Picture of the Day for May 30, 2015: On the Subject of Religion in Public Schools

Posted on May 30, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

Posted by Elaine Magliaro

ReligioninSchools

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Posted in Christianity, Conservatives, Constitutional Law, Democracy, Government, Politics, Religion, United States | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Picture of the Day for May 28, 2015: Regarding Senator Joe Barton of Texas, Climate Change, and the “Great Flood”

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

Posted by Elaine Magliaro

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Posted in Big Oil, Climate Change Deniers, Climatology, Conservatives, Denialism, Government, Government Propaganda, Political Science, Politics, Propaganda, Science, Texas, United States | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Comedian and Writer Brooke Arnold Talks about Her Experience Being Raised in the Same “Exploitative and Abusive” Fundamentalist Christian Organization That the Duggars Are Affiliated With

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

ATILogoBy Elaine Magliaro

There’s an interesting article by Brooke Arnold titled I could’ve been a Duggar wife: I grew up in the same church, and the abuse scandal doesn’t shock me, which was posted over at Salon today. Arnold noted that unlike many of her colleagues who have been covering the Josh Duggar molestation scandal, she was raised in a “home school cult” known as Advanced Training Institute (ATI), the fundamentalist Christian organization that the Duggar family is affiliated with.

FYI: Arnold is an author and a stand-up comic who is currently writing a memoir called “Growing Up Fundie.” The memoir tells about her experience being raised in the “exploitative and abusive” Christian sect–which she left.

About ATI from Gawker:

ATI is a “Biblically based” homeschooling program that lets Christian families integrate their kids’ daily, hours-long moral learnings with just a dash of secularism. Its various pillars include doing exactly what’s expected “instantly and cheerfully,” not asking questions, strict adherence to patriarchal standards, and, of course, shielding yourselves from any influence or human that might lead you off the beaten (sometimes literally!) path.

The home-education program is just one of many bizarre offshoots of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, a group “dedicated to giving clear instruction and training on how to find success by following God’s principles found in Scripture.” Or rather, they’re dedicated assuming you buy its expansive back-catalogue or pay to attend one of its seminars, education programs, camps, youth academies, training sessions, what have you.

Arnold said that Josh Duggar’s confession that he had molested young girls in his family’s home when he was a teenager didn’t surprise her. She added that it should not “surprise anyone with any intimate knowledge about this organization, because ATI’s theological beliefs and practices cultivate an environment where women and children are more vulnerable to rape and sexual abuse.” Brooke continued, “Ironically, the same theological beliefs and practices at the heart of this scandal are the same beliefs that created the Duggars as a media phenomenon, and drew viewers and fans to their TLC show ‘19 Kids and Counting.’”

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Posted in Education, Equal Rights, Media, Religion, Reproductive Rights, United States, Women's Rights | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Court Releases Photograph of Two Chicago Cops Posing As Hunters with Black Suspect Wearing Antlers

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

By Elaine Magliaro

Here’s a photograph of Chicago Police Department officers Jerome Finnigan (left) and Timothy McDermott (right) posing with an unidentified suspect. (Note: The photo was obtained by The Chicago Sun-Times from a court filing.)

ChicagoCopsPosewithBlackSuspect

The Chicago Police Department didn’t want the public to see this “racially charged” photograph. A Cook County judge, however, refused to keep “the shocking image” of two former police officers “with what the police department says is an unidentified African-American drug suspect” a secret.

The Polaroid photograph was believed “to have been taken in a West Side police station between 1999 and 2003. It was “given to the city by the feds in 2013 and resulted in McDermott, a clout-heavy cop, being fired last year by the police board in a 5-to-4 vote.” The four dissenters felt that Officer McDermott should only have been suspended. According to the Sun-Times, the majority of the board wrote that “appearing to treat an African-American man not as a human being but as a hunted animal is disgraceful and shocks the conscience.”

Click on the link to read the Sun-Times article: CPD cops posed for photo standing over black man dressed in antlers.

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Posted in Courts, Equal Rights, Law Enforcement, Local Government, Police, Racism, United States | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Stateside California: Pregnant Black Woman Who Refused to Provide Identification Slammed to Ground and Arrested by Barstow Police

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro
Charlena Michelle Cooks

Charlena Michelle Cooks

By Elaine Magliaro

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) obtained a video taken in January outside a school building by a police body camera of an officer “responding to an apparent traffic dispute.” The dispute  was between Charlena Michelle Cooks, who was 8 months pregnant and black, and an unidentified white woman. After arriving on the scene, the officer spoke with the white woman who had called police and had accused Cooks of acting “all crazy.” After examining the woman’s car, the officer said, “I don’t see a crime that has been committed.” After promising the unidentified woman a police report, the police officer headed over and spoke to Cooks.

David Edwards (Raw Story):

Cooks explains that the argument occurred because the woman disagreed with the way she was driving in the parking lot. Cooks also said that the woman frightened her daughter, who was in second grade.

“She called the police for whatever reason, I don’t know,” Cooks says. “Should I feel threatened by her because she’s white? Because she’s white and she’s making threats to me?”

At that point the officer asks for Cooks’ name, but she insists that she does not have to tell him.

The officer responded, “I actually do have the right to ask you for your name.”

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Constitutional Law, Courts, Equal Rights, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law Enforcement, Local Government, Police, Racism, Short Video, United States | Tagged , , , | 90 Comments

NEWSFLASH: Josh Duggar Sued the Arkansas Department of Human Services after the Agency Investigated His Sexual Molestation Case

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

Josh-Duggar-640x362By Elaine Magliaro

In Touch Weekly reported this morning that Josh Duggar’s molestation case didn’t end when Springdale, Arkansas police “closed their investigation in 2006 because the statute of limitations had run out.”

According to In Touch, Springdale police “referred the matter to the Families in Need of Services agency, which has jurisdiction over minors. The Department of Human Services (DHS) was then brought into the case.” Nine months later, Josh Duggar reportedly sued the Arkansas Department of Human Services. In Touch reported that a “trial was held on August 6, 2007.”

Joan Shipps of Raw Story reported that although the “Springdale police declined to prosecute Josh Duggar for molesting several girls — including some of his sisters — in 2006, the department referred Duggar’s file to the state’s Families in Need of Services agency, a body that monitors criminal cases against juveniles.” She said that Families in Need then informed the Arkansas’ Department of Human Services of the allegations against the former star in TLC’s hit reality show, “19 Kids and Counting.”

In Touch said that the “results of the investigation into the Duggars and Josh’s trial are sealed.” A source who was familiar with the Duggar investigation told In Touch that it was likely that Josh “appealed the DHS decision or finding from their investigation.” The source noted that DHS had the authority to apply “restrictions or stipulations about him being at home with the victims.”

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Posted in Christianity, Courts, Crime, Hypocrisy, Media, Religion, United States | Tagged , , , , , , | 24 Comments

Colorado Teacher Files Lawsuit Against School District Claiming It Is Promoting Christianity to Students

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

By Elaine Magliaro

Robert Basevitz, a high school teacher in Colorado, claims that administrators employed by the Fremont RE-2 School District are running one of their public schools as a religious school. Paul Maxon, Basevitz’s attorney, has filed a lawsuit against the school district for religious discrimination. In addition to the school district, the lawsuit also “names as defendants, Superintendent Rhonda Vendetti and Florence High School Principal Brian Schipper, both as individuals and district administrators.”

ColoradoChristianHuskies

Maxon told KMGH that his client “was Jewish and felt that the Fremont RE-2 School District, Superintendent Rhonda Vendetti and Florence High School Principal Brian Schipper had discriminated against him by conspiring to promote Christianity above all other beliefs.”

According to the ABC news station in Denver (7NEWS/KMGH), some of the religion-related things that the school has done include the following: projecting religious scripture onto screens at the high school, putting up signs promoting Sunday church services, and holding prayer circles around the flag pole.

Maxon said, “On a single day last year, there were no fewer than five Evangelical activities sponsored by the school.” Maxon said that the administration was “essentially running a public school as a Christian school.”

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Posted in Christianity, Constitutional Law, Education, Free Speech, Local Government, Religion, United States | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments