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Steve Cates

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

STEVE CATES: BEFORE COMMON CORE – OBAMA, MARXISTS, AND THE SECRETIVE CHICAGO EDUCATION REFORM

By Steve Cates on April 15, 2014 at 09:37 am
1 Comment

 

Did the Common Core Standards appear magically out of thin air? Unlikely.

“This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense, George.” (Candidate Barack Obama describing his relationship with William (Bill) Ayers to moderator George Stephanopoulus.

The genesis of the Common Core Standards movement has been little examined but documentation of how this phenomenon began is very important. Did the foundation of Common Core Standards begin in Chicago in the mid 1990s when Barack Obama was very much involved in “education reform” through the distribution of many, many millions of dollars? Why is the then very public effort of the late 1990s Chicago education “reforms” being hidden now?

1991: Mike Klonsky and William Ayers co-found the “Small Schools Workshop (SSW).”[1]

1994: Mike Klonsky and his wife Susan whom had/have a long history of communist affiliations were listed on a "Membership, Subscription and Mailing List" for the Chicago Committees of Correspondence, an offshoot of the Communist Party USA. [2]

1994: Barack Obama is appointed chairman of the Woods Fund and served on the board of that organization until 2001 (William Ayers became one of eight Fund directors in 1999). [3]

1994: Barack Obama becomes board member of the Joyce Foundation.[4]

1995: Chicago public schools go under the control of the Mayor Richard M. Daley (1989-2011).[5]

1995: William Ayers becomes the founding board member of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative.[6]

 

1995: In an interview for a book published that year, William Ayers claimed to be “a radical, Leftist, small ‘c’ communist.” [7]

1995: As the result of a $49.2 million grant, William Ayers founds the “Chicago Annenberg Challenge” (CAC) and Barack Obama was the organization board chairman from then until 1999. Obama would serve on the board until 2002. [8]

1995: CAC and SSW have the same 115 Sangamon St, Third Floor, Chicago mailing address, both entities used this address until 1999. [9]

1995: Small Schools Workshop (Klonsky and Ayers) obtains Chicago Annenberg Challenge grant of $1,056,162 (CAC, governed by Obama and Ayres give education grant to SSW). [10]

1996: Barack Obama officially joins and seeks the endorsement of the socialist/Acorn affiliated Chicago Chapter of the New Party. [11]

1997: William Ayers awarded “Citizen of the Year” by the city of Chicago (At the direction of Mayor Daley who stated in 2008 that, “I also know Bill Ayers. He worked with me in shaping our now nationally-renowned school reform program”). [12]

1997: Obama and Ayers are panelists at Michelle Obama organized event (November 20, 1997). [13]

1997: Obama writes review of William Ayers’ book “A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court” (December 21, 1997). [14]

1998: The Chicago Public Education Fund is created by the CAC with $2 million in “seed money” (Barack Obama is CAC board chairman). [15]

1999: Arne Duncan, the current Secretary of U.S. Department of Education and a primary advocate for the Common Core Standards who has been an Obama acquaintance since the late 1980s was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff for the Chicago Public Schools (Mayor Richard M. Daley). [16]

2001: Arne Duncan appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools (June 26, 2001). [17]

2001: The Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation gave the Chicago Public Schools a $12 million grant for school reform. [18]

2001: Obama begins serving on the Leadership Council of the Chicago Education Fund Board for about three years with William Ayers’ father Thomas Ayers and brother John Ayers. [19]

2001: Common Core Standards architect David Colemans’ Grow Network obtained $2.2 million in funding from the Chicago Education Fund. In the Chicago Public Education Plan Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, and Michael Klonsky are listed as members of the Education Plan’s discussion groups. [20]

2002: The Bill and Malinda Gates foundation begins a multi-year school reform funding process that reached approximately $28 million by 2012. [21]

The preceding is incomplete as the listing of activities, amounts, organizations, and people is voluminous. Suffice as to say, after many years and millions of dollars (as much as $150 million with matching grants to CAC funding) the Summary of the August 2003 Final Technical Report of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Research Project makes the specifies that:

“The Challenge’s “bottom Line” was improving student achievement and other social and psychological outcomes. Our research indicates that outcomes in the Annenberg schools were much like those in demographically similar non-Annenberg schools and across the Chicago School system as a whole, indicating among the schools it supported, the Challenge had little impact on student outcomes.” [23]

In 2008, when researcher Howard Kurtz attempted to access the CAC documents that are stored at the Daley Library of the University of Illinois Chicago he was denied. The records remain classified as highly restricted. [24]

Barack Obama was mistaken when he stated that Bill Ayers was just some guy in the neighborhood. Barack Obama was mistaken that Bill Ayers was a professor of English. Barack Obama has seemingly nurtured the perception that his primary claim to fame prior to elective office was as a “Community Organizer” while never being forthright about his activities during the education reform days of Chicago leading people to believe something that is demonstrably incorrect.

The primary activity of Barack Obama during the 1994 through 2002 period was education reform in Chicago along with a bunch of people who call themselves Leftists and communists. Many of those people are now actively involved in the implementation of the Common Core Standards in America. Is this either an accident or a coincidence?

 

 

 

References Cited

 

[1]: “In 1991 Klonsky and Ayers co-founded a project known as the “Small Schools Workshop” (SSW), premised on the notion that if high schools were to limit their enrollment to no more than 400 students (and optimally to fewer than 200), the learning atmosphere on campus would be improved. Klonsky has served as SSW’s director since 1993”.

http://www.redstate.com/diary/jeffdunetz/2010/05/10/barack-obama-bill-ayers-and-mike-klonsky-the-three-marxist-amigos/

 

 

[2]: “In 1994 Mike Klonsky and his wife Susan Klonsky (Sue Eanet), were listed on a "Membership, Subscription and Mailing List" for the Chicago Committees of Correspondence, an offshoot of the Communist Party USA (Chicago CoC "Membership, Subscription and Mailing List" 10.14.94)

http://keywiki.org/index.php/Mike_Klonsky#cite_ref-2

“Movement for a Democratic Society is a multi-issue activist organization affiliated with the newly revived Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)…… Original members of the 2006 Movement for a Democratic Society board included:….Michael Klonsky”

http://www.keywiki.org/index.php/Movement_for_a_Democratic_Society#2007_MDS_board

 

[3]: “Woods Fund of Chicago…Board of Directors….Barack Obama (Director 1994-2001)”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woods_Fund_of_Chicago

 

[4]: “Previous notable board members include US President Barack Obama who served on the board from 1994 through 2002”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Foundation

 

[5]: “With Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg poised to take control of the New York City schools, raising new questions about the future of the education establishment, some of the answers may come from Chicago, where Mayor Richard M. Daley won control of the schools in 1995”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/15/nyregion/for-mayoral-control-of-schools-chicago-has-a-working-blueprint.html

 

[6]: "The Joyce Foundation strongly supports the proposal for the Annenberg Challenge Grant submitted from Chicago. At its meeting just two weeks ago, our Board of Directors approved a grant of $80,000 to Professor William Ayers at the University of Illinois at Chicago to establish the Chicago School Reform Collaborative - the working group that Ayers organized to develop and submit the CAC grant proposal and that would become an arm of the CAC once established in 1995."

http://www.catholiccitizens.org/platform/platformview.asp?c=48219

 

[7]: “Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? "I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," Mr. Ayers said in an interview in Ron Chepesiuk's, "Sixties Radicals," at about the same time Mr. Ayers was forming CAC”.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122212856075765367

 

 

[8]: From 1994 to 2002, Obama served on the boards of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project; and of the Joyce Foundation.[31] He served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999. (Chassie, Karen, ed. (2007). Who's Who in America, 2008. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who. p. 3468. ISBN 978-0-8379-7011-0).

 

[9]: “Contact Person:

Olivia Mulcahy and Susan Klonsky
Small Schools Workshop

115 South Sangamon Street, First Floor
Chicago, IL 60607”

http://web.archive.org/web/20020922153719/www.chi-challenge.org/implement3.htm

 

[10]: “External Partner: Small Schools Workshop

Grant Award: $1,056,162 (First funded December 1995)”/p>

http://web.archive.org/web/20020922153719/www.chi-challenge.org/implement3.htm

 

[11]: “Minutes from a January 11, 1996 meeting, Kurtz claims, prove Obama’s affiliation with the group. The New Party’s Chicago Chapter had apparently recorded the president’s extensive involvement, including a purported request that he be endorsed by the movement.

“Barack Obama, candidate for State Senate in the 13th Legislative District, gave a statement to the membership and answered questions,” the minutes read. “He signed the New Party ‘Candidate Contract’ and requested an endorsement from the New Party. He also joined the New Party.”

 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/06/07/report-new-documents-show-obama-was-a-member-of-the-far-left-new-party/

 

[12]: “Ayers worked with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley in shaping the city's school reform program, and was one of three co-authors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge grant proposal that in 1995 won $49.2 million over five years for public school reform. In 1997 Chicago awarded him its Citizen of the Year award for his work on the project. Since 1999 he has served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty, philanthropic foundation established as the Woods Charitable Fund in 1941”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers

 

[13]: “Just a few weeks before this review was published in the Chicago Tribune, Obama and Ayers appeared together on a panel about juvenile justice organized by Michelle Obama on November 20, 1997:”

http://www.amren.com/news/2008/10/barack_obamas_r/

 

[14]: “On December 21, 1997, Barack Obama wrote a short review of William Ayers’ book A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court, which had recently been published by Beacon Press. Here’s a photo of how the review appeared in the Chicago Tribune:”

http://www.amren.com/news/2008/10/barack_obamas_r/

 

[15]: “The Chicago Annenberg Challenge spawned the fund and became its first donor in June 1998 when it committed to donate $2 million in seed money. Chicago Tribune Charities became the second lead donor when it added another $500,000 to the pot. Substantial gifts from the Pritzker Foundation and the Polk Bros. Foundation and a number of smaller donations have boosted the fund's total to nearly $4 million. Its fund-raising target this year is $10 million”.

http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/2005/07/27/new-foundation-sets-10-million-grants-goal

 

[16]: “Mr. Duncan’s acquaintance with Mr. Obama began on the basketball court nearly two decades ago but has flowered since he became the chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools in 2001, and Mr. Obama has used him as a frequent sounding board in discussions of education policy”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/us/politics/16educ.html

 

[17]: “Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed Duncan to serve as Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools on June 26, 2001”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Duncan

 

[18]: “As Dave Ferrero remembers it, negotiations for the $12 million grant the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave CPS in 2001 began about 15 months before Arne Duncan was promoted from deputy chief of staff to CEO.

"Those last two pieces started to fall into place right around the time [Duncan] was named," Ferrero says. "Something clicked when that transition took place. We got from Arne an assurance that he was behind the idea."

http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/2005/08/22/funders-warm-softer-gentler-ceo

 

[19]: “Barack Obama served on the Chicago Public Education Fund board’s Leadership Council for approximately three years, along with Thomas and John Ayers, the father and brother (respectively) of Weather Undergrounder Bill Ayers”.

http://www.maggiesnotebook.com/2008/08/breaking-why-the-obama-ayers-connection-matters/

 

[20]: “Clark wrote that as CAC was closing down, a pilot program called Grow Network was starting up in New York. Founded by David Coleman--known as the “Architect” of the Common Core standards - and Jason Zimba, the Grow Network negotiated a contract in 2001 with the Chicago Public Education Fund on behalf of Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

In that same year, current U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan began as CEO of CPS; two years after taking on his new role, Coleman’s Grow Network finalized its $2.2 million contract with CPS to provide the school district with student performance data for the 2002-2003 school year”.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/12/04/Roots-of-Common-Core-Lie-In-Association-Between-Barack-Obama-And-Bill-Ayers

 

 

[21]: “Chicago joins New York, Los Angeles, Boston and 10 other school districts around the U.S. in signing the compact agreement. All are eligible to submit proposals to the Gates Foundation to win a share of the grant. CPS has received approximately $28 million from the Gates Foundation since 2002 to spur innovation approaches to education reform”.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-12-07/news/ct-met-cps-charter-gates-1207-20111207_1_charter-schools-cps-chief-jean-claude-brizard-largest-charter-networks

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday, April 06, 2014

STEVE CATES: AT THE CORE OF COMMON CORE - WHAT IT IS REALLY ALL ABOUT

By Steve Cates on April 6, 2014 at 11:53 pm
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The Core of the Common Core

 

The American political left has always wanted more and more control of education through the centralization of power to the Federal Government. In the early 1990s they tried to push Outcome Based Education on the nation but people figured out what the real deal was and it was rejected. But the leftist/socialist/progressives just keep on trying. Common Core Standards (CCS) is the latest push to have as much of the decision making for all students as possible to come from Washington D.C. by way of bureaucratic dictate, regulation manipulation, and likely financial rewards and penalties. The proponents keep circling back to “rigorous standards”, “preparing to compete in the 21st century”, “accountability”, and all sorts of buzzword mumbo jumbo that sounds great. The technique by the implementers is to keep circling back to the standards and inferring that anyone who does not agree with implementing the CCS is supporting substandard education.

 

But the argument about the CCS is a distraction as the standards are the veneer covering the Trojan Horse. Adoption of the CCS is about much, much, much more. It is really about the fundamental transformation of the American education system that empowers the Federal leviathan. By understanding the genesis of this movement, the people involved, and the process undertaken the reader will understand that North Dakota’s participation will result in building the infrastructure of Federal control.

 

This document is the expanded outline that will used to construct a series of articles designed to provide a thorough documentation of the genesis and process of implementation of these “standards.” The upcoming articles will provide the quotes, the sources cited, and links to primary documentation that will prove that ALL of the statements in this article are irrefutable.

 

President Obama, Arnie Duncan (current U.S. Secretary of Education), Bill Ayers (who has claimed to be a communist for the past 40 years), David Coleman and a cast of far left of center education reformer folks are directly connected and have for at least 10 years been in the process of implementing a leftist oriented change in American education with the stated purpose by many of those reformers of centralization of education to the U.S. Federal government. Common Core Standards (CCS) is their latest vehicle.

 

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Hewlett Foundation, The Annenberg Fund, and various other leftist non-profits provided very, very, very, large amounts of money to put this in place on the private side. Almost everybody involved has been bought off. The two entities that are claimed to have created these standards, the National Governor’s Association, and the Council of Chief State School Officers received millions. Bill Ayer’s brother John was during this process, a Vice President of the Carnegie Corporation overseeing philanthropic distribution of grants for education reform.

 

The CCS were written by a small and select group (27 people) in a manner unlike any accepted practice of standards construction. The development was done behind closed doors with few educators but lots of representatives of the education testing industry. There was NO public participation, NO transparency, and almost NO educator participation.

 

The U.S. Department of Education has been pushing THESE standards and the various instrumentalities of their implementation with only one degree of separation. The 2009 Stimulus money was the carrot offered states in the form of billions of dollars in grant conditional on the state adoption of “rigorous” standards. The CCS miraculously appear and many states take the money and without consulting their legislatures (as in ND), put these standards in place.

 

The U.S. Department of Education provided in excess of $351 million dollars to two entities to develop the assessments (tests) that would be aligned with CCS. These two entities were the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). North Dakota is a member of the SBAC.

 

McREL (Mid-continent Research Education Laboratory) of Denver who was the primary driving entity of Outcome Based Education and Goals 2000 during the early 1990s and 2000s is a creature almost exclusively of US Department of Education funding. They offered the service of doing a GAP analysis of a number of states’ “standards”, amazingly they found those standards wanting in comparison to the CCS. McREL was then the entity that facilitated the meetings with the ND standards committees guiding them (in my opinion) toward adoption. Dr. Wayne Sandstead was a board member of McREL during 2007 but other years of membership are unknown at this time. Board membership of the State Superintendent is a US Federal requirement for McREL.

 

In January of 2012, PARCC and SBAC were award a huge contract (channeled Federal $$) to education publisher Pearson to develop a “Technology Readiness Tool.” Amazingly, Pearson is the leading if not primary provider of curriculum for CCS aligned schools. It is my conjecture that once a school system spends lots of money for the software, hardware, and curriculum content that the provider (like Pearson) is locked onto the gravy-train for a very lucrative long haul.

 

The assessments designed under the direction of the US Department of Education dictates the curriculum. There was a very short window between adoption of CCS and the demand for curriculum materials that are aligned, a limited number of publishers could respond. Whomever has the inside track on the assessments will have a significant control of the curriculum market.

 

David Coleman was hired as the President of The College Board who develops and administrates standardized tests and curricula used by over 5,900 educational institutions. One of The College Boards’ primary tests is the SAT and related variants (PSAT/NMSQT, etc.). The Gates Foundation has provided multiple millions of dollars in grants to The College Board. This is a little odd as The College Board, though a non-profit had revenue of over $660 million in 2010 (most readily available amount). Coleman has repeatedly emphasized the alignment of nationalized college entrance tests with CCS. It has been significant evidence that the realignment of the college testing will result in huge amounts of income for Coleman/Common Core linked entities.

 

There is ample evidence that the Federal Government has a desire to build a massive database of student information. Part of the requirements of the CCS adoption by states was the construction of normalized/coordinated/compliant databases to be provided to US Department of Education. The design of this/these data structures are documented to include information about students far more extensive than the answer to examinations. There is evidence that the assessment process will include the ability to monitor biometric indicators of student reactions during assessment process with the capability of archiving such information. There is significant evidence of the assessment entities building the infrastructure for data mining of student data.

 

At the Annual Strategic Data Project (SDP) Beyond the Numbers Convening hosted by the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, May 17, 2013, David Coleman explained his role as in the 2012 Obama campaign and the use of massive databases for the analytics to dominate that election and the significance of data analytics for public policy. Coleman made it clear during that speech that he and other people related to the Obama organization fully intend on data mining and the subsequent analytical use of student data.

 

·         The implementation of the Common Core Standards in North Dakota is the result of a very deliberate process began and guided by the Who’s Who of the progressive education left.

 

·         The standards were not constructed in any manner similar to the established process of creating standards of any type.

 

·         There is no scientifically rigorous evidence that Common Core Standard will actually have an effect on the “problem” they are purported to address.

 

·         There was no debate or notification to the citizens of the state of North Dakota as to the magnitude of the changes, either structurally or financial, that adoption of the standards would be demanded of the state’s citizens.

 

·         Design of the assessments and the alignment to those assessments means that an official body of knowledge will be established by entities that are beyond the reach of political processes.

 

·         Federal grants were given to the non-profits that guided the analysis of and subsequent adoption of the standards at the state level in a number of states.

 

·         Every proponent involve was paid off by non-profits, or big corporations, or U.S. Federal Government money.

 

·         There is much money to be made by the well connected education services business by the process of pass-through grants from organization existing largely or solely on US Federal dollars.

 

·         Data mining of student information beyond simple exam results is repeatedly indicated by the designers of Common Core standards, assessments, and the US Department of Education.

 

·         There is specific demand of database integration compatibility as a specific condition of federal education funding. 

Friday, March 28, 2014

STEVE CATES: THE MANIPULATED MEETING? - COMMON CORE AND THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

By Steve Cates on March 28, 2014 at 01:27 pm
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The meeting held in Bismarck on the evening of March 27th was claimed by the Bismarck-Mandan Chamber of Commerce (Chamber) to be to discuss the “facts and fallacies of Common Core” according to their meeting announcement. How accurate is this claim? In town halls, school board meetings, and a majority of open informational meetings the public is allowed to directly ask questions of “officials” with give and take in a conversational manner so the dialog results in coherent, sequential communication. That is not how it is done in a guided manipulated setting designed to give the appearance to those not familiar with the technique of the controlled outcome process.

Here is how the controlled outcome process went in this case:

Stacked Panel: All of the Chamber sanctioned panelists were advocates and that the Chamber has a public position in support of the Common Core Standards (Common Core). There was no one at the front table, in a position of “authority” who opposed Common Core. This is an aspect of the technique that infers validity while inferring by lack of sanctioned opposition, the inferior position of the opponents.

Venting Without Dialog: The meeting opened with the attendees being allowed to make statements. This is the “venting” stage. Attendees get the impression that they are asking questions while the panelists do not have to respond to those statement/questions. This part of the technique also allows the proponent panelists to know specifically what the concerns are so that they can prepare in advance to tailor their answers without having to participate in any immediate give and take (dialog) with a questioner that includes in-depth follow-up and clarification discussion (answering questions).

Warm and Fuzzy Support for Standards: Ryan Townsend gave presentation on how cute he was, how cute his children whom he loves are, and how important therefore, these standards are to him and them. In the presentation were examples of how Common Core was judged to be needed by McREL Laboratory analysis (he did not mention that the Federal Department of Education is primarily if not the sole financial support of McREL). Mr. Townsend did not mention that McREL guided the adoption process of the standards. Mr. Townsend took no questions during or after his presentation. This is odd as educators know that when people want to learn about something as in a classroom, those people need to ask questions that involve dialog.

Chamber Picks the Questions: When it came to the direct question period the audience had to write their question on a piece of paper. Why one would ask, were the members of the audience not allowed to just stand up and dialog with the panel, and participate in a direct line of questioning that would allow follow up and clarification in the manner that is done in classrooms or public meeting were real question result in answers? Instead, the Chamber (whom are advocates of Common Core) selected the questions that the panel would answer. No dialog, no follow up, no give and take as is the norm for when “facts and fallacies” are examined in real life settings. What questions were not asked?

It would have taken no longer to structure this meeting so that people could stand up, ask a direct question of panelists and had the ability to follow that question with two-way dialog until the question was fully answered.

If this meeting was to “expose the facts and fallacies of Common Core” it would have had the structure and process of town hall, PTA, and all public meeting where the aim is transparency and clarification. Was this in fact, a manipulated process that was by design advocacy with the intended façade of legitimacy? Was this meeting application of the technique of the controlled outcome process?

 

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

STEVE CATES: SANFORD HEALTH WILL ENABLE ABORTIONS TO CONTINUE IN NORTH DAKOTA

By Steve Cates on February 12, 2014 at 06:49 pm
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During the North Dakota Legislative Session of 2013 SB2503 passed both houses and became law. That law stated:

An abortion may not be performed by any person other than a physician who is using applicable medical standards and who is licensed to practice in this state. All physicians performing abortion procedures must have admitting privileges at a hospital located within thirty miles [42.28 kilometers] of the abortion facility and staff privileges to replace hospital on – staff physicians at that hospital. These privileges must include the abortion procedures the physician will be performing at abortion facilities. An abortion facility must have a staff member trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation present at all times when the abortion facility is open and abortions are scheduled to be performed.

Today it was verified that Sanford would enable abortion to continue in North Dakota when Darren Huber, spokesperson for Sanford Health in Fargo stated that:

"Sanford has  had an open medical staff model for over 100 years.  This means that physicians  whether employed by Sanford or not have the right to practice within our  hospital as long as they meet certain educational, training, certifications and  other quality metrics at the time they apply for privileges.  Medical Staff  Bylaws create the road map for who can and cannot have privileges at Sanford and  it is based on objective criteria that is completely focused on protecting  patients and providing safe patient care. The criteria in the Bylaws is applied  in a neutral unbiased manner.  Sanford follows the law and it’s Medical Staff  Bylaws in considering all applications that it receives."

However it is phrased, Sanford Health has become the abortion enabler of North Dakota. This raises interesting ethical questions for North Dakota's population.....if you are providing any money for any reason to Sanford Health are you a party to killing unborn children?

 

 

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

STEVE CATES: SB 2305 - ELEVATING MEDICAL PROTECTION OF WOMEN AT ABORTION CLINICS

By Steve Cates on January 30, 2013 at 02:27 pm
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TESTIMONY SUBMITTED IN SUPPORT OF SB 2305

This proposed legislation should be supported by all who put the health and wellbeing of women who are patients seeking elective termination of a pregnancy above all else.

The safety of abortion is touted by it’s advocates using statistics and terms indicating infrequency of problems. The number of procedures does, though, result in significant incidents of harm to actual human beings as a result of procedures executed by itinerate physicians.

This is a preemptive measure intended to avoid as much as is practicable unintended consequences of itinerate surgery.

Medical Privileges is a BIG DEAL for both physicians and the hospitals extending such privileges. The process has significant correlation with risk management and legal exposure. It is undertaken very, very thoroughly. For a REASON.

A more rigorous vetting of itinerant physicians by hospitals done by their professional peers WILL improve the care of women patients and thus the outcomes of their surgery or medically induced termination.

The constitutionality of a state’s duty to protect it’s citizens by establishing pre-emptive measures in general, and in this manner itinerate physician scrutiny specifically, is well established in case law.

Abortion practitioners and academics concur that establishment of medical privileges will result in improved outcomes following elective pregnancy termination.

 

ABORTION COMPLICATIONS – IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Red River Women’s Clinic Website

http://www.redriverwomensclinic.com/Medication%20abortion.htm 

It can take anywhere from about a day to 3-4 weeks from the time a woman takes the first medication until the medical abortion is completed.  The length of time depends in part on the medications taken and when the misoprostol is used.  The majority of women who take mifepristone will abort within four hours of using misoprostol.  About 95% of women will have a complete abortion within a week. 

Possible Complications:  About 95-98% of women will have a successful medical abortion.  Complications are rare.  However, a small percentage of women (approximately 0.5-2%) will need a suction aspiration (similar to a surgical abortion) because of heavy or prolonged bleeding.  Rarely, in approximately 0.1-0.2% of cases, a blood transfusion might be required to treat very heavy bleeding. 

In about 1% of cases or fewer, the medications do not work and the embryo continues to grow. In these cases, a suction procedure (surgical abortion) must be done to empty the uterus and complete the abortion.  Deciding to continue the pregnancy to term is not an option after taking the first medication because the medications can cause birth defects in the pregnancy.

 

SAFETY OF ABORTION

• Medication abortion accounted for 17% of all nonhospital abortions, and about one-quarter of abortions before nine weeks’ gestation, in 2008.

• Fewer than 0.3% of abortion patients experience a complication that requires hospitalization.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html

North Dakota Abortion Numbers and Statistical Probabilities by Year

2011    2010    2009    2008    2007    2006    2005    2004    2003    2002

1,247   1,291   1,290   1,386   1,235   1,298   1,231   1,357   1,354   1,219 = 9 yr total = 12,3908

12,908 X 0.003  38.24 (9 year estimate) or  4.3 per year requiring hospitalization

How many are complicated but do not require hospitalization?

Medical termination does not work…who finishes in the case of critical need?

What about the conscience of medical professionals that would have to complete the procedure should there be horrific problems as a result of an abortion?

A Google search of the two words “Ambulance Abortion” will yield insightful results.

 

ITINERANT PHYSICIANS – A SPECIAL CASE

 “Itinerant surgery is defined in this inspection as the practice by a physician (normally residing in another city) of traveling to small rural hospitals to perform surgery. The surgeon tpically is not available for follow-up care, having traveled to another rural hospital or returned to his or her home base all in the same day. The American College of Surgeons will and have excluded physicians from fellowship for performing itinerate surgery”. United States Department of Human Services, Office of Inspector General report (1988).

“The American College of Surgeons has long condemned the practice of "itinerant surgery," where doctors operate on patients and leave follow-up care to a family physician. But it has refrained from issuing guidelines on locum tenens. Paul Collicott, a director of the ACS, says it's "a necessary part of surgical practice today," given the overall shortage in the field. He says it's the responsibility of each temporary surgeon to make sure patients are handed off to another surgeon for postoperative care.” - Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2009

“I pledge myself to pursue the practice of surgery with honesty and to place the welfare and rights of my patient above all else.  I promise to deal with each patient as I would wish to be dealt with if I were in the patient’s position, and I will set my fees commensurate with the services rendered.  I will take no part in any arrangement, such as fee splitting or itinerant surgery, which induces referral or treatment for reason other than the patient’s best welfare”. Portion of the Fellowship Pledge – American College of Surgeons, International Fellowship Requirements

 

ABORTION PROVIDERS CLAIM SIGNIFICANCE OF LEVEL OF CARE

Termination of pregnancy is not a benign medical procedure. In some cases, serious complications, even life-threatening ones, arise and necessitate optimal and evidence-based treatment.

According to John Thorp, Jr., an abortion provider who is the author of a leading abortion textbook and who is as well as a physician is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) School of Medicine:

“there are few surgical procedures given so little attention and so underrated in its potential hazard as abortion.”

W.M. Hern, in ABORTION PRACTICE 101 (1990):

“Serious complications can only be evaluated in full service hospitals and often occur after regular business hours. Given the frequency of short-term complications from abortion (2-10%), follow-up medical care is often needed on an urgent basis to treat infection, bleeding, or organ damage. If recognized and attended to promptly, long-term consequences can be minimized. Often, though, abortion procedures are performed in freestanding clinics during weekday hours and complications are managed in urgent care centers or emergency departments after hours or on weekends.”

Dr. Thorp also asserts that:

“When the [abortion] provider is an ob-gyn and has admitting and treating privileges at a local hospital, he or she is more likely to effectively manage patient complications by providing continuity of care and decrease the likelihood of medical errors.”

Nationally, 73% of emergency departments report inadequate on-call coverage by specialist physicians, including obstetricians/gynecologists who are particularly difficult to secure. According to O’Malley, A., Draper, D. & Felland, L. in their publication Hospital Emergency On-Call Coverage: Is There a Doctor in the House?

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF SURGEONS

Code of Professional Conduct

II. RELATION OF THE SURGEON TO THE PATIENT 

E. Postoperative Care 

The responsibility for the patient's postoperative care rests primarily with the operating surgeon. The emergence of critical care specialists has provided important support in the management of patients with complicated systemic problems. It is important, however, that the operating surgeon maintain a critical role in directing the care of the patient. When the patient's postoperative course necessitates the involvement of other specialists, it may be necessary to transfer the primary responsibility for the patient's care to another physician. In such cases, the operating surgeon continues to be involved in the care of the patient until surgical issues have resolved. Except in unusual circumstances, it is unethical for a surgeon to relinquish the responsibility for the postoperative surgical care to any other physician who is not qualified to provide similar surgical care. 

F. Continuity of Care of the Surgical Patient

The surgeon will ensure appropriate continuity of care of the surgical patient. An ethical surgeon should not perform elective surgery at a distance from the usual location where he or she operates without personal determination of the diagnosis and of the adequacy of preoperative preparation. Postoperative care should be rendered by the operating surgeon unless it is delegated to another physician who is as well qualified to continue this essential aspect of total surgical care.

It is recognized that for many operations performed in an ambulatory setting, the pattern of the patient's postoperative visits to the surgeon may vary considerably; it is, however, the responsibility of the operating surgeon to establish communication to maintain proper continuity of care. 

 

MEDICAL PRIVILEGES – HIGH LEVEL PEER REVIEW – BIG DEAL

An entire legal specialty field

William and Mary Law Review [Vol.  29:609

A  hospital with  a respected staff and a reputation  for  high-quality care  will  be  attractive  to skilled physicians,  who  want access  to the  broad  patient  base  and  desire  the  prestige  of membership  on the  hospital  staff.

Staff privileges  are  one  of the most  important  assets  of a physician's  practice.

Although specific  procedures for review  of staff privilege  applications may  differ  at various  hospitals, some  general  similarities  exist. Several  groups  within the  hospital structure  participate  in the process  of  considering  an  application  for  privileges.  The  medical staff plays  a significant  role  in that process  by  evaluating the  professional  capabilities  of the applicant. The physicians  on the hospital's  credentialing  committee  investigate  the  applicant's  background  to  determine  the  extent  of  his  past  medical  training  and performance,  whether  he  is  licensed  and  board  certified,  whether he  carries  malpractice  insurance,  and  any  other  information  that they believe is relevant. The  committee may report to the staff as  a whole,  to  its  executive  committee,  or  directly  to  the  governing board.  The  board  is responsible  for making  the  final  decision,  although  many  boards  may  give  great weight  to  the findings  of the committee. If the decision  is unfavorable  to the physician,  the hospital  generally  provides  an  internal  procedure  for  appeal  and review.

 

Burdensome V. Life-Impacting Consequences

Abortionist Dr. Thorp acknowledges that “[a]ll competent physicians endure the ‘burdensome’ nature of applying for hospital privileges for the safety and well-being of their patients.”

Dr. James Anderson, a board-certified emergency medicine physician who serves as clinical professor at the Medical College of Virginia, opines regarding requiring physicians associated with abortion clinics to have hospital privileges, “s consistent with the time-honored practice of requiring training and credentialing of physicians who are making decisions and doing procedures that have life-impacting consequences. If a physician cannot obtain privileges for the specific requested procedures at his or her local hospital, then in my expert opinion, the physician is not qualified to do the surgical procedures that have life-changing or life-threatening impact.”

 

Constitutionality of Proposed SB 2305

This proposed law would likely prove to be of no unconstitutional purpose. As Casey held, a regulation serves a “valid purpose” if it is “not designed to strike at the right [to abortion] itself” and furthers the State’s “legitimate interests…in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus that may become a child.” 505 U.S. at 846.

 

Simopolous v. Virginia, 462 U.S. 506, 511 (1983) affirms that “[t]he State has a legitimate interest in seeing to it that abortion, like any other medical procedure, is performed under circumstances that insure maximum safety for the patient”.

 

Simopoulos, 462 U.S. at 516 affirms that , “In view of its interest in protecting the health of its citizens, the State necessarily has considerable discretion in determining standards for the licensing of medical facilities”.

 

Greenville Women's Clinic v. Bryant, 222 F.3d 157, 172 (4th Cir.2000), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1191 (2001) (“Greenville I”), held that a “valid purpose” was served by a regulation requiring abortion clinics to be associated with a physician who has admitting privileges at a local hospital.

Gonzales, supra, 550 U.S. at 163 (“The Court has given state and federal legislatures wide discretion in areas where there is medical and scientific uncertainty.”); id., at 157

 

Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 731 (1997) (“[t]here can be no doubt that the government ‘has an interest in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession’”).

 

The Supreme Court has upheld health-related abortion-clinic rules that merely “may be helpful” and “can be useful.” Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 80, 81 (1976).

 

Two federal circuit courts have expressly found that “admitting privileges at local hospitals and referral arrangements with local experts” are “so obviously beneficial to patients” undergoing abortions as to easily withstand a facial constitutional challenge alleging them to be undue burdens.

Greenville Women's Clinic v. Commissioner, South Carolina Dept. of Health and 317 F.3d 357, 363 (4th Cir. 2002) (“Greenville II); Women’s Health Ctr. of West County, Inc. v. Webster, 871 F.2d 1377, 1382 (8th Cir. 1989).

 

Accord Tucson Woman's Clinic v. Eden, 379 F.3d 531, 547 (9th Cir. 2004) (holding that Arizona statute requiring only abortionists who performed a certain number of abortions per month to obtain admitting privileges did not violate equal protection because it was rationally related to achieving a legitimate end).

 

 

 

Saturday, November 24, 2012

ALLAN BROWNFELD: DOES FREE SPEECH END WHERE RELIGIOUS SPEECH BEGINS?

By Steve Cates on November 24, 2012 at 01:10 am
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ALEXANDRIA, VA -- In recent days, we have witnessed an assault on the freedom of students to express religious ideas freely and openly, an assault that would never occur if students' opinions on any other subject were involved.

In Kountze, Texas, School Superintendent Kevin Waldon, after consulting with lawyers, banned the district's cheerleaders from putting Bible verses on the banners they hoist at the beginning of football games; his concern was that the signs amounted to school-sanctioned religious expression. A group of the cheerleaders and their parents sued Mr. Waldron and the district. In October, a judge issued a temporary injunction, barring the district from prohibiting the banners for the rest of the football season while the case proceeds to trial.

Governor Rick Perry and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott have criticized the district's ban on the signs and registered their dismay. The cheerleaders' case centers on whether the banners amount to private speech protected by state and federal laws, or whether they are government-sponsored speech that can be regulated and censored. Lawyers for the students argued that the banners were private speech because the cheerleaders created the messages after school without guidance or financial assistance from administrators.

Attorney General Abbott said the district's action against the students was improper. He argued that the banners were protected by a state law that requires school districts to treat student expression of religious views in the same manner as secular views. That law, signed by Mr. Perry in 2007, is called the Religious Viewpoint Antidiscrimination Act.

"We're a nation that's built on the concept of free expression of ideas," Governor Perry said. "We're also a culture built upon the concept that the original law is God's law, outlined in the Ten Commandments. If you think about it, the Kountze cheerleaders simply wanted to call a little attention to their faith and to their Lord."

 

The superintendent said the lawyers he had consulted advised him to prohibit the signs. The advice was based on a Supreme Court ruling in 2000 in another Texas case, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, stating that prayers led by students at high school football games were unconstitutional. Mr. Abbott's office said the ruling did not apply in the cheerleaders' case; the office intervened in the lawsuit, in part, to defend the constitutionality of the 2007 state antidiscrimination law.


When a Texas court issued a temporary injunction allowing the cheerleaders to display their banners for at least the remainder of the season, Jeffrey Mateer, general counsel of Liberty Institute, a national legal organization that seeks to defend and restore religious liberty, and Erin Leu, a constitutional attorney at the Liberty Institute, stated, "Free speech prevailed, reminding us of the well-established principle that students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

When the Supreme Court struck down school-sponsored prayer in Santa Fe v. Doe, the court declared, "There is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Exercise Clause protects."

In this case, noted Mateer and Leu, "...both Texas law and the school's policies affirm that when students speak at school events, including football games, they are engaging in private speech and their views do not reflect the position of the school.... The Kountze cheerleaders alone decide what message to place on their banners. The team is student-run, with school officials present only to monitor safety. Each week two cheerleaders take turns leading the team, including choosing whether to create the banners and, if so, what messages they should bear. The supplies to create the banners are paid for with private funds, as are the cheerleaders' uniforms, further demonstrating the private nature of their speech.... We better serve our students by educating them about our country's commitment to free expression rather than shutting out certain views. Otherwise, our schools do a great disservice to students and fail to prepare them to be citizens of our free society."


In fact, reference to God has been present in our public life from the very beginning. The Declaration of Independence acknowledges God in four separate places. The Framers of that instrument announced that the colonies were assuming "the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them." The Declaration states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Those who signed the Declaration proclaimed: "And for the support of this Declaration, with the firm reliance in the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

The Continental Congress opened its sessions, beginning in 1774, with prayer delivered by a clergyman. In 1776, regular chaplains were authorized and subsequently appointed by Congress. In 1787, Congress provided an annual salary for the chaplains. In 1787, Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance for the governance of the Northwest Territory. Article 3 proclaimed: "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall ever be encouraged."

The intent of the First Amendment was to make government neutral among religious sects, not neutral between religion and non-religion. Professor Charles Rice, in his book, The Supreme Court and Public Prayer, writes: "... the public life of the American states was based upon the unapologetic conviction that there is a God who exercises benevolent providence over the affairs of man. This is not to say that all Americans then recognized God, or that there was agreement on all the details of his attributes. But to those who assert that the First Amendment was designed to prevent the government from recognizing God and praying His aid, it can rightly be said that they will have to find evidence for their claim elsewhere than in the history of the period prior to 1787."

It is a dangerous retreat from our belief in both freedom of religion and freedom of speech to treat religious speech in any way differently from other forms of free expression. While we believe in separation of church and state, and are opposed to the government expressing preference for one form of religious expression over another, our society has never agreed to remove reference to God from the public marketplace of ideas.

###

 

The Conservative Curmudgeon is copyright (c) 2012 by

Allan C. Brownfeld and the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation, http://www.fgfbooks.com. All rights reserved. This column may be forwarded or re-posted if credit is given to the author and fgfBooks.com.

 

###

 

Allan C. Brownfeld is the author of five books, the latest of which is THE REVOLUTION LOBBY (Council for Inter-American Security). He has been a staff aide to a U.S. Vice President, Members of Congress, and the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.

 

(more...)

Monday, September 17, 2012

DR. PAUL KENGOR & JUDGE BILL CLARK: ON LIBYA THREE DECADES AGO: OBAMA SHOULD REMEMBER REAGAN’S RESOL

By Steve Cates on September 17, 2012 at 11:08 am
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Editor’s note: A version of this piece was written for USA Today shortly after the Libyan revolution in early 2011.

Ronald Reagan clashed with Libya and its dictator Moammar Gadafi for the first time over 30 years ago. The details of that encounter must be revisited—particularly President Reagan’s sense of resolve and clarity of purpose—as once again President Obama’s foreign policy grapples with the anti-American sentiment and attacks on U.S. diplomatic posts in the Middle East.

One of us (Clark) was there in Washington in the 1980s, serving as acting secretary of state, in the absence of Secretary of State Al Haig, when the news hit regarding Gadhafi’s latest antics. Clark was in constant communication with Reagan and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. All had been close friends, colleagues and confidants dating back to California in the 1960s, when Clark was Governor Reagan’s chief of staff.

The crux of the crisis was, as usual, Gadhafi himself. The location was the Gulf of Sidra, off the North African coast in the Mediterranean, an area of obvious strategic importance. Gadhafi had already persisted in making himself a nuisance to the civilized world. In the late 1970s, he issued a direct challenge to the United States.

Each year, the American Sixth Fleet conducted extensive naval exercises in these waters. This was acceptable action in international waters, appropriate maneuvers for battle-readiness, particularly for the nation that led NATO. U.S. actions went on without dispute or provocation. That changed when Gadhafi unilaterally extended Libya’s presence beyond its historic 12-mile coastal limit into a much wider swath that went 100-200 miles from Tripoli to Benghazi, deep into the Gulf of Sidra. He was attempting to establish it as a Libyan lake, off limits to America and the West.

The Carter administration chose not to challenge Gadhafi, rescheduling and relocating U.S. exercises, ordering the Navy to stay clear of Gadhafi’s muscle-flexing. In 1981, however, a new president and new team—new principals with new principles—came to Washington. Ronald Reagan made clear he would not let America be bullied. Reagan and Weinberger announced that exercises would take place, as scheduled, just outside Libya’s 12-mile coastal limit.

More than that, the Joint Chiefs of Staff established new rules of engagement for the U.S. fleet, which Reagan quickly approved. The rules stated that if U.S. forces were fired upon, they could fire back immediately, without seeking layers of approval. “Anytime we send an American anywhere in the world where he or she can be shot at,” declared Reagan, “they have the right to shoot back.”

Reagan went further. During a National Security Council briefing, the admiral in charge asked precisely how far U.S. aircraft would be permitted to retaliate against Libyan aircraft. Reagan answered: “All the way into their hangar,” into Libya itself.

Reagan understood that a bully continues bullying until he’s punched in the nose. That moment came with early morning exercises in August 1981, led by the USS Nimitz. The Libyan air force set course, with a large number of aircraft, including Soviet MiGs. After a series of confrontations, two Libyan fighter jets locked on two American F-14 Tomcats escorting our ships, firing air-to-air missiles. The American pilots wasted no time making good use of the Reagan-approved rules, firing back with heat-seeking missiles. No need remained to follow the Libyan jets all the way to their hangars; they went down in the Mediterranean.

This demonstration cooled off Gadhafi, though it did not end his mischief. He continued his terrorist activities, operating not defiantly in the open but covertly, pursuing an extensive hit list, including Clark as one of the principal targets. His killing of innocent civilians in countries deemed threats to his regime eventually prompted the Reagan administration to order U.S. aircraft to Libya in April 1986. Targets in Tripoli and Benghazi were of a military and personal nature. Some of the nearly 100 bombs delivered on Gadhafi’s homeland landed at Splendid Gate, Gadhafi’s barracks, injuring his family members. Gadhafi, sleeping in a tent outside the compound, barely missed injury but did receive a rude awakening.

Consistently, President Reagan held firm against protests from the international community, from France, and from American liberals insisting that the Gulf of Sidra would be another Gulf of Tonkin: “Vietnam” all over again.

President Obama has a terribly difficult job with the present crisis in Libya and throughout the Middle East. To be clear, we’re not advocating military action. We don’t want war. We believe the lessons of the Reagan years—and those immediately prior—speak for themselves, namely: The Middle East situation demands a sense of direction, clarity, and confident purpose. Uncertainty suggests weakness. The Washington rule stands the test of time: The principles never change—only the principals.

— Judge Bill Clark was President Reagan’s deputy secretary of state in 1981 and national security adviser from 1982-83, among other posts. Dr. Paul Kengor is co-author (with Pat Clark Doerner) of Clark’s biography, “The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand.” Dr. Kengor is also professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and author of the New York Times best-selling book, “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.”

© 2012 by The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The views & opinions
expressed herein may, but do not necessarily, reflect the views of Grove City College.

 

Monday, June 04, 2012

DENNIS M. PATRICK: READING? SERIOUSLY?

By Steve Cates on June 4, 2012 at 02:00 pm
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Serious reading is not for everyone and it certainly is not for the undisciplined person. The more serious the reading challenge, the more discipline required. In the age of distractions where TV, smart phones and the internet compete for attention, reading discipline becomes the first casualty

Why read at all? Reading is a solitary (not lonely) act allowing a person to interact with thoughts and ideas of other minds.

For the most part, people read for recreation. As such, books become great companions. Even so, some people read to gather information on a particular topic. However, this type of reading involves a bit more skill than the common recreational riffler.

Acquiring sound, general knowledge and a knowledge of ultimate things comprises the realm of serious reading. It is a fortunate generation that produces one or two great minds. Our chance of meeting one of these great minds is nil. Nevertheless, it is possible to be taught by the greatest minds that ever lived by reading their books.

Every serious reader’s library should contain a copy of “How to Read a Book” by the late Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001), educator, philosopher and author from the University of Chicago. His book remains a classic on the fine art of reading.

Adler is more concerned with serious reading than reading for entertainment. Reading, as he defines it, is “the process whereby a mind...elevates itself by the power of its own operations. The mind passes from understanding less to understanding more. Skilled operations that cause this to happen constitute the art of reading.”

Dr. Adler identifies four levels of reading. In elementary reading a person passes from non-literacy to beginning literacy. The second level is inspectional reading. At this level, a given amount of material is covered in a set amount of time. The objective is to examine a book concisely. The third level, analytical reading, involves the best and most complete reading possible in an unlimited amount of time. This level of reading obtains a deeper understanding. Finally, the highest level of reading is the most complex and systematic type of reading. Few people attain this level. Dr. Adler refers to this as syntopical reading. A reader reads many books and places them in relation to one another and to a subject around which they revolve.

Adler is not the only writer to encourage serious reading. Yale University professor Harold Bloom reached the same conclusion and pursues this theme in his book “How to Read and Why.” This volume should be of interest to the casual reader and bibliophile, alike.

Want to expand your enthusiasm for reading and your reading repertoire? Do so by dipping into a few of the following volumes for encouragement.

“How To Read Slowly: A Christian Guide to Reading with the Mind” by James W. Sire makes the case for reading with reflection to enhance enjoyment and gain a return on time invested. His book contains practical chapters on how to read fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

“The Practice of Reading” by Denis Donoghue offers something more esoteric. His elegant book discusses the importance of reading texts closely and imaginatively in order to derive a satisfying interpretation. In doing so, he demonstrates what serious reading entails.

“Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs To Know” by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. demonstrates that good teaching is not possible unless teachers can count on students sharing a body of fact and tradition. This is a book about building a foundation of common knowledge through reading that further enables students to understand what they read.

Fr. James V. Schall, S. J., wrote an odd book about books and reading when he penned “Another Sort of Learning.” He proceeds on the basis that many students and adults alike have never learned to raise, much less answer, the great questions, the ultimate questions, of life. To learn is a verb, and its object is truth.

Another odd but useful book is “A History of Reading” by Alberto Manguel. This is a light but informative work exploring the answer to the question: who shall be the master, the writer or the reader? If book collecting is “the gentle madness,” then Manguel would contend that reading those books is the most civilized of passions.

It is one thing to read. It is quite another to read well. Take time, or make time, to hone reading skills and discipline. Whether reading seriously or for pleasure there is no better time than the luxurious days of summer to revive the art of reading and to lose one’s self in a book.

 

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Friday, May 11, 2012

SELWYN DUKE: THE REAL NEWS TODAY: OBAMA WAS ALWAYS FOR FAUX MARRIAGE

By Steve Cates on May 11, 2012 at 09:42 pm
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So another mask has dropped.  Barack Obama made history yesterday in becoming the first president to announce support for faux marriage.

And on January 20th, 2009 he made history in becoming the first president who supports faux marriage.

Obama revealed himself in a Wednesday interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts, saying, “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that, um, for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that, uh, I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

This statement was made after Obama explained his “evolution” on the issue, a hothouse transformation that included discussions with homosexuals on his staff.  But here’s the reality: the aforementioned “certain point” he reached had more to do with the electorate’s perceived evolution than anything else.  This is because Barack Obama has always been pro-faux marriage.

How do I know?  For starters, Obama isn’t a Christian, as he claims; he isn’t a Muslim, as some critics claim, although he is a Muslim sympathizer.

He is a moral relativist and de facto atheist.

But, unlike with my first two sentences, I repeat myself.

And being a thoroughly modern Alinskyite secularist, he will always be on the cutting edge of societal devolution, which includes support for the undermining of marriage. 

If that isn’t enough for you, though, consider that, writes ABC News, “n 1996, as a state Senate candidate, he [Obama] indicated support for gay marriage in a questionnaire, but Obama aides later disavowed it and said it did not reflect the candidate’s position.”  Allow me to translate: “Our guy was dumb enough to reveal that he supported faux marriage when he needs votes in areas in which blacks are numerically strong.  And, as you may know, the black community doesn’t look kindly upon faux marriage.  So just ignore that man behind the curtain!  Barack is down!”

And now Obama is a bit down in the polls.  What’s his game?  Did loose-cannon Biden put him on the spot by announcing his acceptance of faux marriage earlier in the week?  Or was half-slow Joe’s remark a trial balloon?  Is Obama trying to shore up support among his demoralized base?  Whatever the case, know that the president’s problem isn’t that marriage, like the matter of when life begins, is above his pay grade.

It’s that morality and telling the truth are above his pay grade.

And now think about this: If Obama was willing to drop the marriage mask before the election, what masks will be dropped after it when, as he said to Dmitry Medvedev, he has “more flexibility”?

For sure, he will continue to evolve.  Heck, he may even announce that he’s a communist before 2016 is up – no doubt after discussing the issue with the Marxists on his staff.

                                                         Contact Selwyn Duke  

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

DENNIS M. PATRICK: WE ELECT WHO WE DESERVE

By Steve Cates on May 8, 2012 at 11:06 am
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Day by day November approaches.

Question. Will Americans elect “leaders” who will restore America to its former greatness? Are America’s citizens, especially her youth, capable of electing a congress and an executive qualified to lead us back to the status of a respected world leader?

Don’t count on our education system to produce knowledgeable citizens. The education establishment rejected classical education, architect of our founders and great leaders, long ago.

From the introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood, Ph.D., to Boswell’s “Life of Samuel Johnson” comes this definition. “But the supreme end of education, we are told, is expert discernment in all things -- the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and genuine to the bad and the counterfeit. This is the supreme end of the talk of Socrates, and it is the supreme end of the talk of Johnson. ‘My dear friend,’ said he, ‘clear your mind of cant; don’t think foolishly.’ The effect of long companionship with Boswell’s Johnson is just this. As Sir Joshua (Reynolds) said, ‘it brushes away the rubbish; it clears the mind of cant; it instills the habit of singling out the essential thing; it imparts discernment.’”

This definition doesn’t exactly square with the contemporary view of education.

The end of education is not to “get a job.” This alien notion was imported from the former Soviet Union during its communist heyday and facilitated by the USSR’s use of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to further its own ends. Nor should the end of education be complicit with the latest fads of social and environmental indoctrination. Nor should education be a willy-nilly accumulation of unrelated factoids instilled over twelve years of babysitting.

It’s not the fault of contemporary education to which the regression of American culture can be ascribed. That would be far too simplistic. Our predicament runs far deeper.

The United States encountered an unanticipated cultural shift influencing not only education but religion, politics and all manner of public discourse. The very culture from which our freedom arose is at risk of being undone when citizens are successfully deluded into apathy by petty diversions and entertainments. Sociologist Neil Postman from the University of Pennsylvania articulated the cataclysmic cultural shift in his now-classic book “Amusing Ourselves to Death.”

Postman’s most important observation is that television, the ever blinking eye, teaches us to live a life without context. TV programs have nothing to do with anything that came before or comes after their broadcast. Commercials are imbedded without context. Accordingly, we learn to view life as a series of unconnected, random events, entertaining at best, but bearing no significance to a larger perspective. As a culture, we have lost our ability to integrate thoughts and experiences into a greater tapestry. The television medium trains us to live life in tiny segments unrelated to what went before or comes after any event.

As we transition from a television-based culture to a computer-based culture, the image remains central. Form (TV images and, later, computer technology) excludes content. Weighty and serious discourse wrestling with important matters is far less possible. Public discourse is no longer about rational argument but about entertainment and appearance. A frequent, rapid change of scenes must cater to a passive audience with a short attention span. Short attention spans do not allow time to lay out rational arguments. Postman maintains we have left the Age of Typography (the written word) and entered the Age of Show Business. Even news casts are stripped of context when news items are offered in bite-sized chunks of entertainment which the viewer can easily dismiss as trivia.

Ideologically, America is a far cry from where we started two hundred fifty years ago. The ideas of limited government, states rights trumping the federal government and the concept of a free citizenry has been all but lost in the Age of Show Business. And, if schools graduate students that can‘t, or won’t, read, so what?

Yes, November is coming and there is a lot of entertainment between now and then. Whom will the electorate choose?

 

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

BRENT MCCARTHY: IT’S DEJAVU

By Steve Cates on May 8, 2012 at 10:57 am
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Whenever elections rolled around Dorgan, Conrad and Pomeroy put on their flannel shirts to film commercials with soothing guitar music as they told us that they believed in North Dakota values. The biased North Dakota media did their best to convince us they were moderates, not your run of the mill Democrats.

Real unemployment numbers are nearing Great Depression levels thanks to their votes for socialism. We just about have $4 a gallon gasoline thanks to their votes against drilling. The federal government is borrowing money by the trillions to support their entitlement spending. They voted for the most radical legislation ever passed, a government takeover of our healthcare industry. After promising to protect Medicare, they betrayed seniors by gutting it to pass Obamacare. All three even voted for amnesty for illegal aliens.

Where are Dorgan and Pomeroy today? In Washington making big bucks lobbying for the healthcare nightmare that they passed and North Dakota didn’t want. You can’t get the corruption of Washington out of these career politicians.

North Dakota finally realized that Dorgan, Conrad and Pomeroy were left wing extremists marching to the beat of the radical and socialist Democrat party. We awakened from our nightmare and chased them out of office.

History has a funny way of repeating itself. Today Heidi Heitcamp is trying to distance herself from the Democratic Party while trying to convince us that she believes in North Dakota values. The biased liberal North Dakota media is trying to convince us that she’s a moderate. She says that she will protect Medicare after campaigning for Obamacare which gutted it. She referred to President Obama as “awesome”. She’s an extremist just like Dorgan, Conrad, Pomeroy and President Obama. There’s nothing new.

It’s dejavu. If we fall for the same old trick, we will wake up to another socialist nightmare.

DR. MARK W. HENDRICKSON: YO-YO ECONOMICS?

By Steve Cates on May 8, 2012 at 10:35 am
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Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared at Forbes.com.
 
President Obama recently referred to free-market economics as “you’re-on-your-own economics.” It’s a catchy phrase—rhythmic, alliterative, clever. Too bad it’s bunk.
 
The only genuine “you’re on your own economics”—let’s call it “yo-yo economics,” for short—is known as “Robinson Crusoe economics.” It applies only to those who really are on their own, like sole inhabitants of islands or hermits. Apart from those oddities, human beings don’t live in solitude, but are interdependently connected in a social division of labor.
 
In a free-market economy, individuals typically prosper to the extent that they contribute economic value to others. Those who earn high incomes are generally producing more of what people value than those earning lower incomes. To President Obama and his ideological kindred, social justice consists of government overseeing a compulsory redistribution of property from the productive to the less productive. Disdaining free markets as “yo-yo economics,” Obama advocates a radically different agenda—what we might call “we’ll always take care of you” economics, or, to use another child’s toy as an acronym, “BB economics” (as in “Big Brother economics”).
 
We may concede to the president that, in a free market, some people will be in need. These include children, the sick and disabled, and even some healthy, involuntarily unemployed adults. It is a non sequitur, though, to conclude that the federal government must provide economic support to those people. Relatives, friends, neighbors, churches, voluntary community organizations, etc., can address those needs at far less cost and with a much more personal touch than can federal bureaucracies. Even if one believes that government must be involved, local, county, and state governments are closer to the situation than Uncle Sam.
 
The declaration that federal programs are not essential is anathema to the president’s belief in BB economics. According to him, yo-yo economics “has been tried in history and it hasn’t worked. It didn’t work when we tried it in the decade before the Great Depression. It didn’t work when we tried it in the last decade.” Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Let’s correct those errors with facts.
 
1) What the president belittles as “yo-yo economics”—that is, a system characterized by voluntary economic transactions—predominated for the first 125 years of our history. The glaring and regrettable exception, of course, was slavery. The salient historical fact here is that during the period of yo-yo economics, the United States developed into the richest country in the world. Contrary to the president’s counterfactual statement, “yo-yo economics” did work.
 
2) Later in our history, in the 1920s and 1930s, the superiority of the free-market/yo-yo over the government-intervention/BB model was clearly demonstrated. The depression of 1920-21 was as severe and rapid an economic contraction as any in U.S. history. Unlike the contraction in 1929-30 that eventually persisted for 12 years, the severe depression in the early ‘20s ended in 1922. By 1923, the economy was firing on all cylinders. Why?
 
The policy response of the Harding-Coolidge administration was to cut tax rates and slash government spending—basically to get government out of the way to let free markets make the necessary price adjustments. In the 1920s, yo-yo economics was an indisputable success. Obama’s insistence that “it didn’t work when we tried it in the decade before the Great Depression” is patently untrue.
 
In stark contrast to the successful policy response in the early ‘20s, Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt opted for BB economics: massive tax increases, government spending, new regulations. The result was the 12 years of made-in-Washington misery that became known as the Great Depression. Ignoring that grim historical lesson, Obama has persisted in pushing 1930s-style, debt-financed, “stimulus” spending and a huge expansion of government power over economic activity.
 
3) President Obama’s third historical inaccuracy was that “we tried [yo-yo economics] in the last decade” under George W. Bush and “it didn’t work.” Here, the president is half-right. It’s true that the last decade’s overall economic performance was inferior. The problem with the president’s statement is that George W. Bush’s policies were the antithesis of yo-yo economics—everything from the addition of a new federal entitlement (Medicare Part D) to Wall Street bailouts to expanding the annual federal budget from $2 to $3 trillion per year in only eight years.
 
The president’s aggressive historical revisionism is no mere academic debate. We’re not dealing here with inconsequential trivia like his 2008 gaffe about having visited 57 states. The stakes are much greater. Obama has contrived a historical narrative that justifies the kinds of economic policies that retard rather than promote prosperity.
 
The truth will make us free—and falsehood will make us less free. 
 
— Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson is an adjunct faculty member, economist, and fellow for economic and social policy with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.

© 2012 by The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The views & opinions
expressed herein may, but do not necessarily, reflect the views of Grove City College.
 

Friday, April 13, 2012

DENNIS STILLINGS: TRADITION OF CORRUPTION IN SMALL TOWN NEWSPAPER

By Steve Cates on April 13, 2012 at 01:36 pm
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During the night of August 28-29, 1889, a “mob” destroyed the offices of the Valley City Times-Record.  It was speculated that local anti-prohibitionist businessmen were involved, since the stance of the Times-Record was prohibitionist.  At the time, Valley City was known as a rough-and-tumble “wide open” town.

A different, more genteel, approach to press censorship occurred in 1947 when Don C. Matchan was the owner and editor of the Times-Record.  Matchan’s somewhat left-of-center editorials went against the grain of several local businessmen. They moved to force Matchan out.  This went strongly against the will of the community according to a newspaper poll conducted by Matchan.  The Matchan Affair was reported in Time magazine.

Whatever one’s opinion of Matchan’s views, he was an exceptional person and—probably motivated by the threat of lost advertising revenues—he moved on to … well, anywhere else.  After Don Matchan, the Times-Record was partly or wholly owned by out-of-state individuals or corporations and, most recently, ended up in the hands of Horizon Publications of Marion, Illinois.

In brief: In July of 2011, one of the Times-Record employees, reporting to the T-R Publisher, Nikki Zinke, went over Ms. Zinke’s head to Melanie Radler, President of the Times-Record’s owners, Horizon Publications.  This individual, angling for Zinke’s job, reported to Radler that Zinke’s editorial policies were causing problems in Valley City that might be affecting advertising revenues.

As far as I know, no evidence of revenue losses were presented, but apparently even a whiff of such a possibility got the attention of Radler and Horizon—and they responded.

Many of the citizens of Valley City and Barnes County had welcomed the genuine hard-hitting investigative reporting that had become part of the editorial policy of the Times-Record  This was in stark contrast to the puff-and-fluff pieces that had hitherto dominated the Times-Record’s pages and had cast a shadow on their efforts to create an image of Valley City as some sort of up-and-coming Mayberry.

Horizon Publications sent an agent to interview “influential” townspeople. The result was that Zinke was fired.

On August 15th, Editor Lee Morris, sick of the intrigue and backstabbing taking place, wrote a camouflaged account of the events leading to Zinke’s firing.  His highly critical column, vaguely titled “An American pastime and politics,” was disguised by using the byline of Gene Lyons, a syndicated columnist whose opinion columns appear regularly in the Times-Record.  Lee then slipped this column into the Times-Record copy just before it was sent to the printer.
Lee’s exposé was picked up by dozens of blogs and other news outlets worldwide.  In addition to media sources throughout the eastern part of this state, national and international news outlets re-told Lee’s story.  These publications included Forbes, Stinky Journalism, The Fort Worth Weekly, Mondo Times (“media coverage involving 31,250 media outlets worldwide”), Inside Milwaukee, Media Jobs Daily, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, even LankaWeb (Sri Lanka) and The Paepae, published in Auckland, New Zealand.

Triad Watch of North Carolina commented: “An amazing story of how local newspapers manipulate the news.” And, in the words of Gillian Shaw of Google+:

 

A stunning commentary on the state of journalism or lack thereof at the North Dakota Valley City Times-Record.  Even more stunning is the fact that departing Lee Morris managed to get [his opinion of it] printed in that paper as his final contribution.

 

Online articles and comments were 100% in support of Nikki Zinke.  It is also clear from these comments and articles that policies of censorship-for-profit are quite common in small-town newspapers.

It should be also clear by now that the efforts of certain Valley Citians, in consort with outside controllers, have given Valley City a widespread reputation for scandal far beyond what might have been caused by letting the Times-Record operate by its own lights under Nikki Zinke.

What we currently have is control of Valley City Times-Record news and editorial content that involves collusion between an outside agency and local malcontents.

What is the character of Horizon Publications, the owners of the Valley City Times-Record—the people who dictate the nature of its content?

Melanie Radler at Horizon Publications—who had set in motion Nikki Zinke’s firing on the basis of unsubstantiated accusations from Nikki’s in-house enemy—took over as president of Horizon when her father, David Radler, the founder of the business, was sentenced to prison. David Radler was convicted of fraud, along with his partner in crime, Conrad Black, both of whom illegally pocket millions.

Nikki Zinke has since gone on to publish North Dakota’s newest newspaper—The Independent of Barnes County (launched October 28, 2011)—dedicated to area issues, events, and culture.  Her efforts will cause the Horizon-controlled Times-Record some problems.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

STEVE CATES: BLUNT DISCOVERY PREFERENTIALLY PROVIDED AND WITHHELD

By Steve Cates on March 21, 2012 at 10:16 pm
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A major aspect of the prosecution of Charles “Sandy” Blunt was related to Mr. David Spencer, a senior staff subordinate of Blunt’s, departure from North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance (WSI). The Burleigh County State’s Attorney’s Office (BCSAO) PREFERENTIALLY PROVIDED to and PREFERENTIALLY WITHHELD from Blunt materials from four criminal investigation reports authored by Special Agent (SA) Michael Quinn of the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) during the fall of 2007.

These “Quinn Reports” consisted of a written narrative of investigation activities and hundreds of pages of inclusions/attachments. None of the Quinn Reports after June 19, 2007 with the investigation narratives were provided Blunt. BCSAO DID provide Blunt 186 pages of documents that the SA Quinn obtained from North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance (WSI) and the North Dakota Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Quinn described those documents as having been in the “Manila envelop.” BCSAO DID NOT provide 142 pages and a 1.25 hour long audio recording of a primary prosecution witness. Those materials included items listed in the reports as “ATTACHMENTS” as well as those not individually listed that came from as SA Quinn stated, “Manila envelope containing copies of documents provided by WSI under an Open Records request”.

 

Other than the 20 pages of the diary of a WSI senior staff member Mark Armstrong and 10 pages of OMB Spencer pay records, ALL of the evidence that the prosecutors provided Blunt from the fall 2007 Quinn Reports were from the “Manila Envelope.”

The vast majority of the provided “Manila Envelope” documents (181 of 186 pages) concerned Spencer and are available to anyone from WSI under North Dakota open records laws. The five pages (5 of 186 pages) of non-Spencer matter pages are email communications between WSI and the North Dakota State Auditor’s Office concerning pay grade evaluation of WSI employees.

The “Manila Envelope” documents were mostly basic personnel file related materials concerning the hiring process, internal agency policy awareness, employee performance evaluation, career development, expense submittal and reimbursement records, emails between WSI employees regarding Spencer leaving the agency, and OMB pay records, etc.

Fall 2007 Quinn investigation discovery materials were provided on only two dates:

 

August 25, 2008 Discovery

 

September 19, 2008 Discovery

 

In filing to the North Dakota Supreme Court and in testimony during her June 2011 attorney ethics hearing, Ms. Feland has repeatedly asserted that “ALL” evidence in possession of the Burleigh County State’s Attorney’s Office (BCSAO) was provided to Blunt. Feland has made claims that she kept “a stack” (as in a single stack) of evidence from SA Quinn which resided on a credenza behind her desk while waiting for confirmation that Blunt would be tried. She claims that when it was official that the trial would take place that she put “ALL” of the Quinn discovery Credenza Stack in “Kim’s box” (reference to her legal assistant Kim Bless) so that the assistant could process the discovery and send it “ALL” to Blunt’s attorney, Mr. Michael Hoffman.

 

This appears to be incorrect. It would seem that SOME of the Quinn documents, all supposedly from the same single “Credenza Stack”, given to Bless, were rigorously itemized on discovery check lists and provided to defendant Blunt. But for some reason the four Quinn reports themselves were never provided to defendant Blunt except Quinn Report “ATTACHMENT”s listed as gift certificate logs from 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and the Mark Armstrong diary.

 

Attorney Hoffman testified under oath in Ms. Feland’s attorney ethics hearing and specified which Quinn Report documents attachments were not provided as discovery by BCSAO to defendant Blunt (Feland Ethics Hearing Transcript of June 29, 2011, beginning on page 81). Oddly, those documents claimed by Hoffman to have not been provided were the EXACT SAME as those that neither BCSAO’s Bless nor Feland could provide a discovery checklist nor a photocopying bill for, even though the documents that Hoffman testified that he had not received came from the “Credenza Stack” that Feland claims to have put into “Kim’s box” and which Bless corroborated such under sworn testimony during the ethics hearing

 

 

BCI Quinn Report – 06/19/2007 thru 10/10/2007

From the first of the four not provided to defendant 2007 2007 BCI Quinn Reports:

 

The discovery provided by BCSAO to Blunt from first 2007 Quinn Report “Manila Envelope” was:

 

On August 25, 2008, Bless of the BCSAO transmits to Hoffman a Discovery Checklist Supplemental that consisted of 108 pages of document copies all of which were from the BCI Quinn Reports "Manila Envelope." From that BCSAO checklist:

 

20 _Hand written notes - 4/18/07 - 5/08/07

14_Various emails (Tim Wahlin, etc.)

1 _ Attendance Policy

15 _ Spencer paycheck information

24 _ Hiring Selection Paperwork

10 _ Personnel Action Form & Related Documents

12 _ Performance Information

8 _ Acknowledgments

2 _ Miscellaneous (Awards, Training, etc.)

2 _ Career Development Information

 

On September 19, 2008, Bless of the BCSAO transmits to Hoffman a Discovery Checklist Supplemental that consisted of 78 pages of document copies all of which were from the BCI Quinn Reports "Manila Envelope." From that BCSAO checklist:

 

4 _ December 27, 2004 (Ck #50047240)

10 _ March 22,2005 (Ck #50154876)

12 _ April 12, 2005 (Ref #001 01858)

4 _ April20, 2005 (Ref #00107990)

2 _ May 17, 2005 (Ref #00115922)

6 _ June 7, 2005 (Ref#00119567)

4 _ June 22, 2005 (Ref #00122247)

5 _ October 4, 2005 (Ref #00135590)

5 _ October 11,2005 (Ref #00137310)

4 _ December 6,2005 (Ref #00144199)

9 _ December 20,2005 (Ref #00146578)

6 _ April 26, 2006 (Ref #00240907)

3 _ June 27, 2006 (Ref #00254698)

4 _ September 7, 2006 (Ref #00265731)

 

 

BCI Quinn Report – 10/11/2007 thru 10/24/2007

From the second of the four BCI Quinn Reports 

not provided to defendant Blunt (emphasis added in red is material Hoffman testified to as not having received from BCSA):


 

There is no BCSAO Discovery Checklist documenting that the above listed items shown in red were provided to defendant Blunt by BCSAO.

 

BCI Quinn Report – 10/25/2007 thru 11/16/2007

From the third of the four not provided to defendant Blunt, 2007 BCI Quinn Reports (emphasis added in red is material Hoffman testified to as not having received from BCSA):

 

There is no BCSAO Discovery Checklist documenting that the above listed items shown in red were provided to defendant Blunt by BCSAO.

 

BCI Quinn Report – 11/17/2007 thru 12/12/2007

1.      No items of evidence were seized as a result of this report.

 

Cynthia Feland has repeatedly claimed that if discovery was not provided to defendant Blunt it was by accident. An oversight. Too much paper. Neglected to create a discovery checklist……..

This is all very curious as on November 3, 2008, at Blunt’s Pretrial Hearing, Hoffman makes it clear that the defense has little no law enforcement investigation reports or interviews of listed witness in the matter of David Spencer but Feland tells The Court that all of “our ducks” have been placed in rows (red bolding emphasis added):

 

Page 14

 

15 MR. HOFFMAN: It's brand new. It's not a

16 matter of him just being a witness or not, it's the

17 theory of the prosecution that's changing.

18 You know, when we got the original discovery

19 in this case, I would have to say that the State in

20 terms of either BCI, law enforcement doing an

21 investigation before they brought charges, was next to

22 nothing. It was based upon them meeting with state

23 auditors and state auditors saying these things are

24 questionable, and then charging. I think the

25 discovery, those they talked to -- well, Angie

 

Page 15

 

1 Scherbenske was one, Tammy Dolan was another at the

2 time of bringing the charges. These are witnesses that

3 are named on the Information. But most of the names on

4 the Information, in terms of discovery of law

5 enforcement going and talking to witnesses and making a

6 report, it doesn't exist. These are all names of

7 people. Yeah, we're familiar with them because they're

8 involved with WSI. We have knowledge of who they are

9 and what potentially they might say. But in terms of

10 the State doing an investigation where they go out and

11 talk to the people and here is the report of what this

12 person says, it doesn't exist except for Angie

13 Scherbenske, Tammy Dolan, and maybe another one. The

14 other isn't corning to my mind right now. But all of

15 this Dave Spencer is brand new. It changes the theory

16 of the prosecution.

 

In response to Hoffman’s statements, The State (through Feland) assures/guarantees Judge Romanick that they “made sure” that anything at all in The State’s discovery relating to the additional criminal offenses was “sent out” to Blunt:

 

Pages 17 and 18

 

16 As I stated to the Court, the interview that

17 was conducted of Mr. Spencer took place back in '07.

18 No, I'll be candid with the Court, it wasn't my intent

19 to necessarily not provide it, but while we were

20 waiting for the Supreme Court, there wasn't really any

21 ongoing discovery that went out at that point. We

22 didn't know where the case was going to be. As soon as

23 the Supreme Court came back indicating, yes, there was

24 sufficient evidence for probable cause, then as I

25 indicated, we went through the file and anything that

1 we had had in there that had not been sent, we made

2 sure that was sent out. At that same time we started

3 going through things in preparation for trial to make

4 sure that, you know, we had all of our ducks in a row,

5 if you will. If all of the witnesses were properly

6 listed, if all of the exhibits and things that we were

7 looking at had been provided to Mr. Hoffman. And we

8 have been continuing to provide that information.

 

It is critical to understand from the pre-trial hearing that it was made plain by Hoffman to The Court and Feland that he had not received any discovery in the form of interviews or reports by law enforcement regarding David Spencer or anyone/anything else between June of 2007 and the time of the hearing. To which Feland responds making the inference by omission that Spencer had been the ONLY person interviewed. From the BCI Quinn reports we know that many other witnesses were interviewed regarding Spencer. Feland somehow neglects to mention that Wahl, Wahlin, Bjornson, Peltz, and Long had also been documented to have spoken to Quinn and exchange records with Quinn as well.

 

Also, Feland claims that as soon as she knew that the trial was going to happen according to the Supreme Court, that she had everything pertaining to Blunt reviewed and whatever had not been sent was sent to the Defendant. Since she has been unable to provide any Discovery Checklists or billings sent to the defense for photocopying for the discovery supplements records, what exactly did BCSAO “review” to make sure all of “our ducks” were lined up?

 

How is it that only some of the “credenza stack” is listed and verified to have been provided the defendant?

 

Why can BCSAO not find the other documentation for the other portion of the “credenza stack?”

 

Where two stacks made?

 

Was only one stack turned over to the defendant?

 

Why can BCSAO not find the checklists or billing records for only those materials that Hoffman testifies he did not receive?

 

If you understand what is the material difference between what BCSAO provided and what they did not provide defendant Blunt, the question of why exculpatory evidence was withheld becomes readily apparent.

 

Perhaps most compelling are statements on the issue of what was withheld were those made by the North Dakota State Supreme Court Disciplinary Board Panel regarding in the matter of attorney Cynthia Feland. After review of hundreds of pages of documents, and after two days of witness testimony during the hearing that took place on June 29 and 30, 2011, the Panel states in their November 2011 Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Recommendation For Suspension that:

 

“When the Supreme Court returned the case to district court, Feland provided Attorney Hoffman with some documents that had been received during the appeal period, but there is no evidence that the full investigative reports and Wahl memo accumulated by Feland during the appeal were provided to Attorney Hoffman”. Page 4

 

“The investigative reports that were not provided to Hoffman included reports from BCI Agent Quinn that were obtained by the State during the time when the criminal case was on appeal from the trial court's dismissal. Included in those documents was a report that Agent Quinn spoke with Auditor Wahl, and Wahl basically repeated the same language that is in the Wahl memo to Feland of November 8, 2007”. Page 5

 

“The Panel concludes Cynthia M. Feland did not disclose to Michael Hoffman, defense attorney for Charles Blunt, the Wahl memo, and other documents which were evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tended to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigate the offense”. Page 9

 

From the June 30, 2011 Feland Ethics Hearing Transcript (page 369):


 

"MR. ULMER to MS. FELAND: I guess where I get confused in this particular -- not confused -- where I struggle is I think of a prosecutor's obligation to prosecute, but more importantly, I think of the prosecutor's obligation to also do justice. … but I still am struggling internally with where is the sense of justice here? This is one of the issues or why most folks walk around and go -- they demean the process. … So we're coming in with some sort of entrapment process rather than a straightforward where are we, and I think that's frankly what's wrong with the judicial system at this juncture."


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, February 10, 2012

CHARLES G. MILLS: THE WAGGING FINGER

By Steve Cates on February 10, 2012 at 11:29 am
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GLEN COVE, NY -- Governor Jan Brewer has been criticized by some for an encounter on the tarmac of an Arizona airport with President Obama. She was photographed pointing - or wagging - a finger at him. The truth is that she was doing her duty to a degree that is rare among state governors today.

 


There is clearly bad blood between the two. The Obama administration is attacking the constitutionality of Arizona's attempt to control criminal and disorderly illegal immigrants within its borders. Arizona, meanwhile, is joining with most other states in attacking the constitutionality of the centerpiece of Obama's legislative achievements, the Stalinist scheme known as Obamacare.

 


The Arizona governor gave President Obama a written invitation to meet and to visit the Arizona-Mexican border. He apparently walked away without accepting it. Governor Brewer did her duty by wagging her finger at him and trying to correct him.

 


The criticism of Governor Brewer stems from a basic misunderstanding: Many people wrongly think that the president actually has the power to give orders to state governors. He does not. State governors are neither part of the federal government nor subordinate to it. They derive their powers, rather, from the sovereign people of their states.

 


Governor Brewer's duty is thus to the people of Arizona. She is not a federal civil servant who must defer to Obama. Indeed, she must hold him duty bound to honor her state's sovereignty - and correct him when he does not.

 


The limitations that the federal government can legitimately put on a state governor are few, and all authorized by express language in the United States Constitution. They are few and include, but are not limited to, the following: State governors cannot decree ex post facto punishments, decree corruption of blood, make paper money, deprive people of a fair trial, restrict voting rights on the basis of race, create a hereditary aristocracy, invalidate contracts, impose custom duties, or segregate public facilities.

 


These restrictions, however, do not come from the federal government, but from the sovereign people of the states. The people of each state are "free and independent by the grace of God," as many official documents describe the people of the State of New York. The sovereign people place great restrictions on the power of the governor through the instrument of a state constitution. Governors actually do not have much power - and what power they do have truly belongs to the sovereign people of their states.

 


The president of the United States is entitled to a certain courtesy precedence over a state governor. For example more guns are fired when saluting a president than a governor. He has a higher diplomatic position than a governor. This is because all fifty states have decided voluntarily, in adhering to the Constitution, to exhibit the majesty and power of our nation as a union, not as individual states.

 


The courtesy precedence extended to the president should not be dispositive of his rank in constitutional questions with respect to the governors, however. Although the president is obviously the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, he does not command the state militias - the governors do. Certainly, he has exclusive power with the Senate to make treaties. He is also the chief executive and chief magistrate of the executive department of the federal government.

 


At the same time, he is the servant of the people of the United States. This is not a single conglomerate American people, but the people of each of the fifty states. History clearly proves this. Rhode Island did not become subject to the Constitution as soon as nine states ratified it, or as soon as the first Congress and president were elected, or as soon as federal judges were appointed and confirmed for the other twelve original states. It became a state only when it chose to ratify the Constitution and enter into the compact with the other states.

 


Of all fifty states, not one was simply established and imposed by the federal government. Each one entered the union by virtue of its voluntary application. The first Congress proposed a Constitutional amendment - one that was rapidly adopted - which made it express and explicit that every power not specifically delegated by the states to the federal government was "reserved to the states, respectively, or the people." This language is clear: Sovereignty is in the people of the respective states, not of some conglomerate.

 


The president is elected by the Electoral College, which is chosen by state law by the people of each state separately. He represents the compact between the states. The governors, on the other hand, represent the people of their states. The president has a duty to correct a governor only when he or she violates a specifically delegated federal power. The governor, on the other hand, represents the full general power of the people of the state and must oppose any transgression against his or her people by a president illegitimately trying to expand federal power.

 

Jan Brewer has set the example. Let fifty hands wag fingers at the president whenever he tries to usurp power from the people of the states.

. . .

###

The Confederate Lawyer archives

 

###

The Confederate Lawyer column is copyright © 2012 by

Charles G. Mills and the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation,www.fgfBooks.com. All rights reserved. This column may be posted or forwarded if credit is given to Charles Mills and fgfBooks.com.

 

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