Tenn and Common Core

September 12, 2015

Tennessee Common Core Teaches One Nation Under Allah

By Daniel John Sobieski

The perils of one-size-fits all top-down government-controlled education reared its ugly head once again with the news that TN Core, Tennessee’s version of the national Common Core, middle school students in the Maury County School District were required to recite and write, “Allah is the only god,” as part of a history project, as Breitbart News reported:

In the Maury County School District, students were assigned a Five Pillars of Islam project that included the translation of the pillar of “Shahada” as being, “There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is his prophet.”

Joy Ellis, the mother of a seventh-grader at Spring Hill Middle School, said that Christian children should not be instructed to write the Shahada.
“This is a seventh grade state standard, and will be on the TCAP,” Ellis said. “I didn’t have a problem with the history of Islam being taught, but to go so far as to make my child write the Shahada, is unacceptable.”

TCAP is the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program which evaluates the performance of students under TN Core and how well they’ve learned these standardized lessons. But judging from what is and is not being taught, TACP and TN Core seem to have as a goal, no child left unindoctrinated.
Another Tennessee middle school parent, Brandee Porterfield, appeared on “Fox and Friends” and objected to the fact that no other religion was being taught in this way, requiring the recitation of a central creed, such as the Lord’s Prayer or the Beatitudes:

"They did this assignment where they wrote out the Five Pillars of Islam, including having the children learn and write the Shahada, which is the Islamic conversion creed," she explained.
Porterfield said she spoke with the Spring Hill Middle School teacher and principal, who said there would not be similar lessons on Christianity and Judaism…
"They don't study any other religions to this extent... It is the state sponsoring religion in schools. They're not going over anything else. For the students to have to memorize this prayer, it does seem like it's indoctrination," said Porterfield.

Teaching about religions in a historical context is one thing. Actually teaching the tenets of a religion are quite another, certainly when liberals constantly reminding us of the separation of church and state -- which appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution -- and objecting to things like a moment of silence to start the school day or reciting “one nation under God” as part of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Lesson plans developed under the auspices of Common Core have been developed to indoctrinate children on many ideological fronts, including one lesson plan Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) pointed out in 2013 painted President Barack Obama as nothing short of a Messiah himself:

A language-arts lesson plan for third-, fourth- and fifth-graders has been developed around the book "Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope," in which the author, Nikki Grimes, paints the 44th president as nothing short of a messianic figure. The description of the associated lesson plan by Sherece Bennett boasts that it is officially "aligned" with the Common Core State Standards Initiative, an attempt to standardize various K-12 curricula around the country that has drawn national opposition...
The book notes Obama's struggle with his identity and uses it to slip in a biblical reference, one that would violate the left's definition of the separation of church and state. Late in the book, Obama dramatically changes his name from Barry to Barack.
"One morning, he slipped on the name he'd been born with. The name of his father, Barack. For the first time in his life, he wore it proudly -- like a coat of many colors," the story goes, an obvious reference to Genesis 37:3, in which Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob, receives a "coat of many colors."

Worksheets that were developed by Common Core for its national English Standards asked students to rewrite sentences that IBD noted contained “subliminal messages”:

…subliminal messages in a worksheet that asks students to rewrite sentences to make them "less wordy." Sentences like, "The commands of government officials must be obeyed by all."
The worksheets, published by New Jersey-based Pearson Education, ask fifth-graders to edit such sentences as "(The president) makes sure the laws of the country are fair," and "The wants of an individual are less important than the well-being of the nation."
That last sentence sounds suspiciously like the old Marxist axiom "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

The TN Core middle school requirement to learn the teachings of Islam is just the latest examples of how the nation that achieved greatness with the proverbial “little red schoolhouse” as the norm has allowed its schools to be transformed into liberal reeducation camps where children are taught what to read, not how to read, and even what to think.
This is why we need school choice and vouchers, so that students don’t have to check their beliefs with someone standing in the schoolhouse door and forcibly be indoctrinated as to what to believe by agents of the state. You can teach the three Rs without using schools as tools for social engineering.
Daniel John Sobieski is a free lance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.               

The perils of one-size-fits all top-down government-controlled education reared its ugly head once again with the news that TN Core, Tennessee’s version of the national Common Core, middle school students in the Maury County School District were required to recite and write, “Allah is the only god,” as part of a history project, as Breitbart News reported:

In the Maury County School District, students were assigned a Five Pillars of Islam project that included the translation of the pillar of “Shahada” as being, “There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is his prophet.”
Joy Ellis, the mother of a seventh-grader at Spring Hill Middle School, said that Christian children should not be instructed to write the Shahada.
“This is a seventh grade state standard, and will be on the TCAP,” Ellis said. “I didn’t have a problem with the history of Islam being taught, but to go so far as to make my child write the Shahada, is unacceptable.”

TCAP is the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program which evaluates the performance of students under TN Core and how well they’ve learned these standardized lessons. But judging from what is and is not being taught, TACP and TN Core seem to have as a goal, no child left unindoctrinated.
Another Tennessee middle school parent, Brandee Porterfield, appeared on “Fox and Friends” and objected to the fact that no other religion was being taught in this way, requiring the recitation of a central creed, such as the Lord’s Prayer or the Beatitudes:

"They did this assignment where they wrote out the Five Pillars of Islam, including having the children learn and write the Shahada, which is the Islamic conversion creed," she explained.
Porterfield said she spoke with the Spring Hill Middle School teacher and principal, who said there would not be similar lessons on Christianity and Judaism…
"They don't study any other religions to this extent... It is the state sponsoring religion in schools. They're not going over anything else. For the students to have to memorize this prayer, it does seem like it's indoctrination," said Porterfield.

Teaching about religions in a historical context is one thing. Actually teaching the tenets of a religion are quite another, certainly when liberals constantly reminding us of the separation of church and state -- which appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution -- and objecting to things like a moment of silence to start the school day or reciting “one nation under God” as part of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Lesson plans developed under the auspices of Common Core have been developed to indoctrinate children on many ideological fronts, including one lesson plan Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) pointed out in 2013 painted President Barack Obama as nothing short of a Messiah himself:

A language-arts lesson plan for third-, fourth- and fifth-graders has been developed around the book "Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope," in which the author, Nikki Grimes, paints the 44th president as nothing short of a messianic figure. The description of the associated lesson plan by Sherece Bennett boasts that it is officially "aligned" with the Common Core State Standards Initiative, an attempt to standardize various K-12 curricula around the country that has drawn national opposition...
The book notes Obama's struggle with his identity and uses it to slip in a biblical reference, one that would violate the left's definition of the separation of church and state. Late in the book, Obama dramatically changes his name from Barry to Barack.
"One morning, he slipped on the name he'd been born with. The name of his father, Barack. For the first time in his life, he wore it proudly -- like a coat of many colors," the story goes, an obvious reference to Genesis 37:3, in which Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob, receives a "coat of many colors."

Worksheets that were developed by Common Core for its national English Standards asked students to rewrite sentences that IBD noted contained “subliminal messages”:

…subliminal messages in a worksheet that asks students to rewrite sentences to make them "less wordy." Sentences like, "The commands of government officials must be obeyed by all."
The worksheets, published by New Jersey-based Pearson Education, ask fifth-graders to edit such sentences as "(The president) makes sure the laws of the country are fair," and "The wants of an individual are less important than the well-being of the nation."
That last sentence sounds suspiciously like the old Marxist axiom "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

The TN Core middle school requirement to learn the teachings of Islam is just the latest examples of how the nation that achieved greatness with the proverbial “little red schoolhouse” as the norm has allowed its schools to be transformed into liberal reeducation camps where children are taught what to read, not how to read, and even what to think.
This is why we need school choice and vouchers, so that students don’t have to check their beliefs with someone standing in the schoolhouse door and forcibly be indoctrinated as to what to believe by agents of the state. You can teach the three Rs without using schools as tools for social engineering.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/09/tennessee_common_core_teaches_one_nation_under_allah.html#ixzz3ytBUyxhr
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

The Truth About Common Core

In my last article, I mentioned COMMON CORE. Some of you do not know what this is.

 Common Core is a curriculum to be very wary of based on the people who are putting it together, one of whom is Linda-Darling Hammond who was endorsed by domestic terrorist Bill Ayers for Secretary of Education and served as an advisor to the Obama campaign.

What EXACTLY is Common Core?

Essentially it is a standardized, all-out assault on learning: it is designed to further lower schools standards and is supported by the teachers' unions which have a self-serving interest in avoiding as much accountability as possible; the lower the standards, the less push back against the teachers, too many of whom are failing the young trapped in the government schools. The over arching ideology that shapes this agenda is far leftist ideology, that is  much more intense and deliberately focused than that which tends to be a somewhat sporadic, less uniform at present.

Okay. But can you give us some examples.

The curriculum even includes teaching math in such a way, that non ideological Math experts who have looked at the proposed programs are telling us that "it marks the end of improvement in education." Moreover it devalues and de-emphasizes traditional literary works in favor of song lyrics and of course, government documents. I am willing to bet that these documents will be carefully cropped to make the left all-powerful and the only channel of the flow of such information, or should we say disinformation?

These are for starters.

Why is this happening?

The left, in order to increase its hegemony, its total control, permanently, since we are still  "a democracy" of sorts, that is, requires an absolutely ignorant as possible cadre of voters. It isn't enough that the mainstream media, almost all of the organs of the dissemination of vital information are in collusion with the left and extremely dangerous, double faced organizations, such as CAIR, it is necessary to destroy any vestige of Constitution-upholding citizens if at all possible. It is too late for the older generation who were not indoctrinated in the government schools, but the young are vulnerable.

Currently only five states do not have any aspect of the Common Core curriculum programs. Maine is not one of them, most unfortunately. The five states are Alaska, Texas, Nebraska, Virginia and Minnesota.

There are many logos for the various subsets of Common Core, one of which is an apple that has been bitten into on both sides. This reminds me of the serpent in the garden with Eve who has taken a bite out of the apple - she chooses what is good and evil, not God - then hands the apple to Adam who eats of it also. The apple has always been a symbol for the teacher, but as an unblemished, whole fruit, until now.

I believe that this is why Obama wants to begin with mandating school for impoverished 4 year olds, under the pretext of preparing them for a global economy, to further Common Core. Once the public becomes used to this, then it will be mandated for all 4 year olds. Five years is just too old - Mom and Dad may have already begun to instill the ideal of true liberty and the natural law principles that go hand in hand. By this time, he and his so-called Department of Justice and other agencies will have striven to have home schooling outlawed. If he is no longer in office, the war against normalcy and meritorious standards will  be carried on with whatever means are available to those still entrenched in government agencies where policy is issued. 

Parents who do not want their children indoctrinated for the left at present have a choice and choice for the "pro-choice" crowd only means abortion, not education.

Let us listen to Michelle Malkin, who says it best of all. This excerpt is taken from an article about  Common Core from her web site, link HERE. [Text below in Red, emphasis in bold added by me.]

For decades, collectivist agitators in our schools have chipped away at academic excellence in the name of fairness, diversity and social justice. “Progressive” reformers denounced Western civilization requirements, the Founding Fathers and the Great Books as racist. They attacked traditional grammar classes as irrelevant in modern life. They deemed ability grouping of students (tracking) bad for self-esteem. They replaced time-tested rote techniques and standard algorithms with fuzzy math, inventive spelling and multicultural claptrap.

Under President Obama, these top-down mal-formers — empowered by Washington education bureaucrats and backed by misguided liberal philanthropists led by billionaire Bill Gates — are now presiding over a radical makeover of your children's school curriculum. It's being done in the name of federal "Common Core" standards that do anything but raise achievement standards.

Common Core was enabled by Obama's federal stimulus law and his Department of Education's "Race to the Top"gimmickry. The administration bribed cash-starved states into adopting unseen instructional standards as a condition of winning billions of dollars in grants. Even states that lost their bids for Race to the Top money were required to commit to a dumbed-down and amorphous curricular "alignment."

In practice, Common Core's dubious "college-and career"-ready standards undermine local control of education, usurp state autonomy over curricular materials, and foist untested, mediocre and incoherent pedagogical theories on America’s schoolchildren.

Over the next several weeks and months, I’ll use this column space to expose who’s behind this disastrous scheme in D.C. backrooms. I’ll tell you who’s fighting it in grassroots tea party and parental revolts across the country from Massachusetts to Indiana, Texas, Georgia and Utah. And most importantly, I’ll explain how this unprecedented federal meddling is corrupting our children’s classrooms and textbooks.

There’s no better illustration of Common Core’s duplicitous talk of higher standards than to start with its math "reforms." While Common Core promoters assert their standards are "internationally benchmarked," independent members of the expert panel in charge of validating the standards refute the claim. Panel member Dr. Sandra Stotsky of the University of Arkansas reported, "No material was ever provided to the Validation Committee or to the public on the specific college readiness expectations of other leading nations in mathematics" or other subjects.

In fact, Stanford University professor James Milgram, the only mathematician on the validation panel, concluded that the Common Core math scheme would place American students two years behind their peers in other high-achieving countries. In protest, Milgram refused to sign off on the standards. He’s not alone.

Professor Jonathan Goodman of New York University found that the Common Core math standards imposed "significantly lower expectations with respect to algebra and geometry than the published standards of other countries."

Under Common Core, as the American Principles Project and Pioneer Institute point out, algebra I instruction is pushed to 9th grade, instead of 8th grade, as commonly taught. Division is postponed from 5th to 6th grade. Prime factorization, common denominators, conversions of fractions and decimals, and algebraic manipulation are de-emphasized or eschewed. Traditional Euclidean geometry is replaced with an experimental approach that had not been previously pilot-tested in the U.S.

Ze'ev Wurman, a prominent software architect, electrical engineer and longtime math advisory expert in California and Washington, D.C., points out that Common Core delays proficiency with addition and subtraction until 4th grade and proficiency with basic multiplication until 5th grade, and skimps on logarithms, mathematical induction, parametric equations and trigonometry at the high school level.

I cannot sum up the stakes any more clearly than Wurman did in his critique of this mess and the vested interests behind it:

"I believe the Common Core marks the cessation of educational standards improvement in the United States. No state has any reason left to aspire for first-rate standards, as all states will be judged by the same mediocre national benchmark enforced by the federal government. Moreover, there are organizations that have reasons to work for lower and less-demanding standards, specifically teachers unions and professional teacher organizations. While they may not admit it, they have a vested interest in lowering the accountability bar for their members. … This will be done in the name of 'critical thinking' and '21st-century' skills, and in faraway Washington, D.C., well beyond the reach of parents and most states and employers."

Please bookmark this page. I will be bringing you updates regularly as I accrue them.

I referred to an organization, CAIR, above. What is it and why should we all be concerned?

You could say, without any exaggeration, that CAIR is the media's "common core." How?

CAIR is the acronym for The Council on American–Islamic Relations, a PR front group that presents the good face of Islam to the public. It has tentacles throughout government and the media that either knowingly or stupidly act as propaganda shills for Muslim extremists. CAIR has strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Both depend on preventing the public from seeing through their ultimate goals - Islam the dominant power and belief system in the world and the establishment of the Caliphate. Period. Only they cannot let us know this. They exploit Americans' lack of common sense and reason in re "discrimination" in order to mis-direct our attention and change our ideas about Islam. The term Islamphobia is bandied about as if we are all evil for rejecting elements of Islam or all of it, as we should. One CAIR honcho on one of their web sites some time ago boasted about the group's ability to get us to comply in so many words. CAIR also has its sinewy clutches into various financial institutions, etc. I suspect, although I cannot prove it right now, that CAIR has a hand in Common Core principles. Certainly at present the American government schools are pro-Islamic and anti-Christian, very important for CAIR. There was even a Supreme Court case that did not make it through Certiorari - in effect, the Islamists won big time in the New York schools because the Supreme Court permitted a lower court ruling favoring the favoritism of Islam in public schools over that of the Christians. Just think about this, folks!

CAIR pressures journalists to cease using the term Islamist because to them it ought not connote and denote what it actually, rightly does. One cannot adequately address and fight against a concept or idea that one is not permitted to name. At best a distortion but the intent is to remove it from the American mind. How many times have we heard a reporter's account or read a story that this word is absent from and a politically correct substitute is used, like Jihadist? Now Jihadist is a warrior for a holy war. But there is only one kind and that is Islamic. We are not supposed to connect the two. Of course, fundamentalist and Christian are paired by our sell-out journalists ad infinitem so as to prejudice the public unfairly. The defense of Christ the King, why that is such a threat, don't you know! But Allah's war on the West, well, that's okay for now, it fits our agenda.

When anyone raises the alarm about CC [Common Core] and CAIR, their spokesmen just offer the usual clichés about alarmists and so forth, then provide some soothing talk to allay public fears. The public, wanting things to just go away as it has too much to deal with as it is, buys it all too many times. We are losing our culture, our Western heritage, our religious rights, our freedoms, one at a time, our very country and so few as yet realize it. The revolution needs this mindset to succeed. I am determined that this will not happen and there are others, too. Do not let the insurgents against common sense, the ideals of the natural law, and above all the Social Reign of Christ the King maintain their already powerful grip on those in power. Make no mistake they are after total control and no-choice, not pro-choice. Now Islam does not favor abortion. Once they become dominant I am not certain that their useful idiots - the left - will know how to handle this reality, which they have discarded for the moment - strange bedfellows and all. Perhaps the Islamics will permit America to continue to abort herself into oblivion and such degradation of immorality that America will cease all together, which suits them I am sure, just so long as they have control of what is left of the finances and infra structure.

Do not be deterred by the politically correct statements, the disarming palaver in the media. What else would you expect from those with such an evil agenda? The truth, an admission? Oh, come on people ...

The banner image was put together thus: the twice bitten apple for COMMON CORE and the green serpent for CAIR. Green is the color symbol of the Caliphate. The snake for the devil in the details.

 

MAIN INDEX  -------------------- E-MAIL


www.catholictradition.org/common-core.htm 

Significant Legislation

WEST VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE

2016 REGULAR SESSION

Introduced

House Bill 4329

By Delegates McGeehan, Faircloth, Azinger, Folk, Ihle, J. Nelson, Moffatt and Butler

[Introduced January 29, 2016; Referred
to the Committee on the Judiciary.]

A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by adding thereto a new article, designated §5-30-1, §5-30-2, §5-30-3, §5-30-4 and §5-30-5, all relating to providing that all future federal, state and local statutes, ordinances, laws, orders, rules, and any other actions which attempt to restrict, tax, or regulate the possession, use, discharge in lawful self-defense, transportation, purchase, acquisition, sale, transfer, ownership, carrying, manufacture, or repair of firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition and their accouterments are invalid and unenforceable; making it a felony to attempt to enforce a federal, state or local statute, ordinance, law, order, rule, or any other action which attempts to restrict, tax, or regulate possession, use, discharge in lawful self-defense, transportation, purchase, acquisition, sale, transfer, ownership, carrying, manufacture, or repair of firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition or their accouterments; prohibiting such laws, orders, rules, policies and other actions by executive departments and state agencies, and providing a felony for violation; providing definitions; making findings; providing penalties; requiring the Attorney General to defend citizens of West Virginia who are prosecuted by the United States government for violation of a federal law relating to the possession, use, discharge in lawful self-defense, transportation, purchase, acquisition, sale, transfer, ownership, carrying, manufacture, or repair of a firearm, a firearm accessory or ammunition; providing exemptions; providing for retroactivity; and providing that ex post facto laws are not created.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

That the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new article, designated §5-30-1, §5-30-2, §5-30-3, §5-30-4 and §5-30-5, all to read as follows:

ARTICLE 30.  RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.

§5-30-1.  Definitions.

For purposes of this article:

(1) ALocal@ is a word that refers to any county in this state as defined in section one, article one, chapter one of this code, any municipality, city, town or village as defined in section two of that article or any consolidated local government, county consolidation and consolidated county as defined in section three, article one, chapter seven-a of this code.

(2) AFederal@ is a word that refers to the government of the United States, the Congress of the United States, the President of the United States, and any executive department or regulatory agency thereof.

(3) AExecutive department or state agency@ is a phrase that means any executive departments defined in section two, article one, chapter five-f of this code, as well as any state board, agency, committee, or authority other than the Legislature.

§5-30-2.  Legislative findings.

The Legislature finds that:

(1) The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

(2) Section twenty-two, Article III of the Constitution of the State of West Virginia provides: “A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and state, and for lawful hunting and recreational use.”

(3) All federal and local statutes, ordinances, laws, orders, rules, or any other actions which attempt to restrict, tax, or regulate the possession, use, discharge in lawful self-defense, transportation, purchase, acquisition, sale, transfer, ownership, carrying, manufacture, or repair of firearms, firearms accessories and ammunition violate the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Section twenty-two, Article III of the Constitution of the State of West Virginia.

§5-30-3.  Prohibitions on federal and local infringements on the right to keep and bear arms, firearm accessories and ammunition; felony; penalty; Attorney General to defend.

(a) All current and future federal, state, and local statutes, ordinances, laws, orders, rules, and any other actions which attempt to restrict, tax, or regulate the possession, use, discharge in lawful self-defense, transportation, purchase, acquisition, sale, transfer, ownership, carrying, manufacture, or repair of firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition and their accouterments contradict the true meaning and original intent of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Section twenty-two, Article III of the Constitution of the State of West Virginia.  Those statutes, ordinances, laws, orders and rules which violate the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of West Virginia are invalid, and therefore, are null and void.

(b) All current and future federal, state, and local statutes, ordinances, laws, orders, rules, and any other actions which attempt to restrict, tax, or regulate the possession, use, discharge in lawful self-defense, transportation, purchase, acquisition, sale, transfer, ownership, carrying, manufacture, or repair of firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition and their accouterments shall not be recognized by this state and shall not be given any recognition within the state as they are against public policy.  Those federal, state, and local statutes, ordinances, laws, orders and rules are null and void and of no effect within this state.

(c) It is the duty of the State of West Virginia to adopt and enact any and all measures as may be necessary to prevent the enforcement of any future federal and local statutes, ordinances, laws, orders, rules, and any other actions in violation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Section twenty-two, Article III of the Constitution of the State of West Virginia and this section.

(d) Any attempt to enforce any future federal, state, or local statute, ordinance, law, order, rule, and any other action which attempts to restrict, tax, or regulate possession, use, discharge in lawful self-defense, transportation, purchase, acquisition, sale, transfer, ownership, carrying, manufacture, or repair of firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition or their accouterments within the State of West Virginia by any official, officer or employee of the United States government, the government of the State of West Virginia, any county government, local government, or government of any municipality or any political subdivision is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be confined in a correctional facility not more than two years and fined not more than $10,000.

(e) The Attorney General shall defend a citizen of West Virginia who is prosecuted by the United States Government for violation of a federal law relating to the possession, use, discharge in lawful self-defense, transportation, purchase, acquisition, sale, transfer, ownership, carrying, manufacture, or repair of a firearm, a firearm accessory or ammunition.

§5-30-4.  Prohibitions on infringements of the right to keep and bear arms by executive departments and state agencies; felony; penalty.

(a) All future laws, orders, rules, policies and any other actions which attempt to restrict, tax, or regulate the possession, use, discharge in lawful self-defense, transportation, purchase, acquisition, sale, transfer, ownership, carrying, manufacture, or repair of firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition and their accouterments promulgated by any executive department of the State of West Virginia without explicit statutory authority shall not be recognized by this state and shall not be given any recognition within the state as they are against public policy.  Those future laws, orders, rules, policies and any other actions are null and void and of no effect within the state.

(b) Any attempt to enforce any future laws, orders, rules, policies and any other actions described in subsection (a) of this section by any official, officer or employee of the United States government, the West Virginia government, any county government or local government is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be confined in a correctional facility for not more than two years and be assessed a fine of not more than $10,000.

§5-30-5.  Exemptions; retroactivity; ex post facto.

(a) Notwithstanding the provisions of this article, local governments may enact zoning ordinances to regulate the manufacture of arms and ammunition, pursuant to chapter eight-a of this code:  Provided, That the regulation does not restrict or hamper said manufacture more than any other comparable industry within the jurisdiction of the local government.

(b) Notwithstanding the provisions of this article prohibiting the taxation of firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition, or their accouterments, it shall not be unlawful for local governments to tax such goods, provided that such tax is comparable and common to other goods or commodities available in the jurisdiction and that the power to impose such a tax is expressly granted by state law.

(c) Notwithstanding the provisions of this article, local governments may enact ordinances, rules and regulations governing the use and or possession of arms by individuals directly employed as government officials while such individual is acting within the course and scope of their official duties.

(d) This article is effective retroactively to January 1, 2015.  This article may not be construed so as to create any ex post facto law.

NOTE:  The purpose of this bill is to make all future federal, state and local statutes, ordinances, laws, orders and rules concerning firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition and their accouterments invalid and unenforceable. The bill makes it a felony to attempt to enforce a federal or local statute, ordinance, law, order or rule concerning firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition and their accouterments that violate the state and federal Constitutions. The bill makes legislative findings. The bill provides criminal penalties. The bill requires the Attorney General to defend citizens of West Virginia who are prosecuted by the United States Government for violation of a federal law relating to the manufacture, sale, transfer or possession of a firearm, a firearm accessory or ammunition. The bill provides for retroactivity.  The bill provides that ex post facto laws are not created.

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from a heading or the present law and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.

Men in the Women's Restroom

Mayor, council should reconsider ordinance

• Jan 30, 2016
 

0

I am a concerned citizen ... who is disappointed that the Lewisburg Council is attempting to force an ordinance that the vast majority of people who live, work or shop in Lewisburg are opposed to and which is not needed.

The clever wording of the ordinance to disguise the intent was an insult to the intelligence of everyone who knows the direct implication is to destroy the privacy that every woman and girl is entitled to in the “Ladies’” restroom and likewise the privacy that every man and boy is entitled to in the “Men’s” restroom. A right ceases to be a right when it infringes on the privacy and safety of another. A woman is naturally concerned for safety when a man enters or is already in a room she believed is for women only.

If the sexually confused are trying to prevent criticism and ill will, why make a grandiose effort to draw attention to the fact that they choose to behave counterintuitively to the anatomical gender the Lord God created them at birth? To say one chooses to “identify” or imitate the opposite gender from what a doctor has determined at birth is to imply malpractice on the part of the doctor. Doctors must complete eight years and more of medical training, pass a comprehensive medical examination and work as a resident before practicing medicine on their own and are certified by the state to have sufficient knowledge to determine the gender of a newborn infant.

If everyone could be accepted as whatever they choose to call themselves on a given day, we would not have grounds for any lawsuits claiming someone impersonated a doctor, a lawyer or a police officer. Every one could play mayor whenever it suited them.

I am not saying that people who do not know who they are are delusional. After all, children pretend to be what they are not in order to find out what they like to do. However, children do not propose legal ordinances. It takes adults who should have learned right from wrong and who can see the ramifications of trying to arrogantly ramrod a perverse lifestyle down the throats of those who know and believe God’s word. 

The first chapter of Romans, the creation record in Genesis where God “created them male and female,” and numerous other references will explain to any who are confused that any lifestyle except traditional marriage and traditional chastity is sin. Everyone is born with a sin nature. God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die and pay the penalty for our sins, all our sins. 

Anyone who is willing to honestly see himself as lost and needing God’s forgiveness, is willing to repent and ask God to save them from their sin would be saved. When we are saved, we will want to do God’s will and what pleases Him. That means asking Him to help us not to sin and confessing and forsaking sins we commit after. I am not saying Christians do not sin, but Christians are repentant of their sin and seek forgiveness.

Whether a citizen is a Christian or not, they deserve the respect and dignity of privacy and a safe environment in a public restroom. To provide less is to commit the very kind of discrimination of the heterosexual residents and consumers of Lewisburg the ordinance purports to prevent for the LGBT lobby group. What we do in regard to commerce in Lewisburg depends on what you do. May God guide you and all the council members to make the righteous decision.

Opal Scott

Pleadings

1. "How presented. — Every defense, in law or fact, to a claim for relief in any pleading, whether a claim, counterclaim, cross-claim, or third-party claim, shall be asserted in the responsive pleading thereto if one is required, except that the following defenses may at the option of the pleader be made by motion:
2. lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter,
3. lack of jurisdiction over the person,
4. improper venue,
5. insufficiency of process,
6. insufficiency of service of process,
7. failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted,
8. failure to join a party under Rule 19. A motion making any of these defenses shall be made before pleading if a further pleading is permitted. No defense or objection is waived by being joined with one or more other defenses or objections in a responsive pleading or motion. If a pleading sets forth a claim for relief to which the adverse party is not required to serve a responsive pleading, the adverse party may assert at the trial any defense in law or fact to that claim for relief. If, on a motion asserting the defense numbered (6) to dismiss for failure of the pleading to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, matters outside the pleading are presented to and not excluded by the court, the motion shall be treated as one for summary judgment and disposed of as provided in Rule 56, and all parties shall be given reasonable opportunity to present all material made pertinent to such a motion by Rule 56."

Note that the first sentence of Rule 12b requires that all defenses be pled in the answer.  Therefore, the statute of limitations must be pled in the answer or else it is waived.

Select Big'uns