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Tuesday, September 27, 2016

"MY FAITH WON'T ALLOW IT": JUDGE HOLDS IMPRISONED PASTOR IN CONTEMPT DURING INTERNATIONAL KIDNAPPING TRIAL

Miller
"MY FAITH WON'T ALLOW IT": JUDGE HOLDS IMPRISONED PASTOR IN CONTEMPT DURING INTERNATIONAL KIDNAPPING TRIAL
BY HEATHER CLARK
SEE: http://christiannews.net/2016/09/23/my-faith-wont-allow-it-judge-holds-imprisoned-pastor-in-contempt-during-international-kidnapping-trial/republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A federal judge held a Mennonite minister in contempt of court on Thursday after refusing to testify for reasons of “faith and conscience” at the trial of a Virginia man who is being accused of aiding an ex-lesbian turned professing Christian who fled the country with her daughter in 2009 to escape a court order.
Kenneth Miller, who is currently serving a 27-month sentence in a federal prison in Vermont for likewise helping Lisa Miller—no relation—flee to Nicaragua, is now potentially facing new charges and a longer prison sentence for declining to testify against others.
Miller had been escorted into the courtroom by federal marshals after being ordered to testify in the trial of Philip Zodhiates, who is charged with international parental kidnapping and conspiracy for allegedly driving Lisa Miller and her then seven-year-old child from Virginia to New York.
Kenneth Miller’s attorney, Herbert Greenman of Buffalo, had advised the court in advance that the pastor was going to decline to testify, citing the Fifth Amendment. The jury was consequently recessed until the court discovered whether or not Miller would comply.
U.S. Assistant Attorney Paul Van De Graaf of Burlington, Vermont informed Miller that he had been granted immunity in speaking—that his testimony would not be held against him.
“You no longer have a Fifth Amendment right not to answer,” advised Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara, who then asked Van De Graaf to read aloud the immunity order.
Moment later, Van De Graaf proceeded with the questioning as Miller was placed on the stand.
“In September 2009, where did you live?” he asked.
“On the advice of my attorney, I decline to answer the question,” Miller replied humbly, choking up as he sought to respect the court but chose to stand by his convictions.
Van De Graaf repeated the question.
“For reasons of faith and conscience, I am not answering,” Miller again replied.
Arcara warned Miller that if he did not answer the questions he would be held in contempt of court, which could escalate to criminal contempt of court. Miller understood.
ken-miller-compressed
Miller
ken-miller-compressed
Arcara asked Van De Graaf to ask Miller additional questions, giving him further opportunity to comply. He remarked that there was “no lawful basis” for Miller to decline as Arcara had granted him immunity for testifying.
“Have you met Lisa Miller?” Van De Graaf asked.
Miller again responded that he could not answer for “reasons of faith and conscience.”
“Did you call Timothy Miller?” Van De Graaf questioned.
As Miller stood firm and again declined to answer, Arcara held Miller in contempt of court under 18 U.S. Code 6002. His supporters remained standing until he was escorted out the courtroom. Van De Graaf smirked.
Miller, who has been serving his sentence in Vermont, is now being held in a Buffalo prison for the duration of the trial in the unlikely event that he changes his mind.
Others prior to Miller agreed to testify before the court on Thursday, including Tara Devine, an attorney who had been appointed before Lisa Miller’s departure to oversee the child’s custody in the case, and Annie Joyner, a telephone company employee who discussed Zodhiates’ phone records.
William Sidebottom, who handled direct marketing for the religious liberties organization Liberty Counsel, was also questioned about an email he received from Zodhiates, asking, “Is there no legal recourse now for Lisa Miller?” Zodhiates had advised that he wanted to communicate with her.
A woman from Oregon by the name of Jessica, who worked with Timothy Miller in Nicaragua, told the court that someone had used her email account to send communication without her knowledge and permission, and that she had met Lisa Miller and her daughter, known to her as Sarah and Lydia.
As previously reported, the situation began in 2000, when Miller, then a homosexual, joined in a civil union with lesbian Jenkins in the state of Vermont. Following an artificial insemination procedure from a male sperm donor, Miller gave birth to a daughter, named Isabella, in 2002. But even then, Miller had concern.
“There were numerous incidents of Janet going to [the Internet] and putting up naked women on the screen saver, and I would ask her to please change it,” Lisa later told the court, according to the Washington Post.
“I don’t have clean hands, either. Previously, before … the baby was born, [pornography] was used in our relationship,” she said. “When we moved to Vermont, Isabella was 4 months old, and I said this stuff has to go … There’s a baby in this house now. I don’t want that.”
In 2003, Miller and Jenkins split over continued tension in their relationship, and Miller moved to Virginia. She renounced homosexuality and reportedly turned to Jesus Christ for salvation.“It wasn’t a struggle,” she recalled of walking away from the homosexual lifestyle. “I felt peace.”
Miller, who had previously been married to her college boyfriend, said that she had struggled with being intimate with her husband due to an abusive childhood, which adversely affected their marriage. She turned to alcohol for solace, and later became involved in a relationship with a woman, but only for the companionship.
“I did not feel sexually attracted to women,” Miller said.
She met Jenkins at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting while seeking help and soon moved in with her, where one step led to another.
When the civil union between Miller and Jenkins was officially dissolved, the court gave custody to Miller, while also granting visitation rights to Jenkins.
While Miller did allow Isabella to spend time with Jenkins for a while, she reportedly became concerned at the information that her daughter was providing to her following the visitations.
Miller and Isabella
Miller and Isabella
Miller and Isabella
Later, Miller testified to the court that the visits were causing great trauma to Isabella. She claimed that at six years old, the girl was forced to take baths together with Jenkins, and that the girl was openly touching herself inappropriately. She also stated that Isabella was withdrawn and talked about suicide at times.
“Isabella came home and said, ‘Mommy, will you please tell Janet that I don’t have to take a bath anymore at her house,’” Miller told reporters in 2008. “I asked her what happened. She said, ‘Janet took a bath with me.’ I asked her if she had a bathing suit on. ‘No, Mommy.’ She had no clothes on and it totally scared Isabella. She had never seen this woman except once in 2 ½ years and she takes a bath with her.”
“Last year, Isabella put a comb up to her neck and said she wanted to kill herself after one of the visits,” she outlined. “She took a comb and pressed it into her neck and said, ‘I want to kill myself.’ I don’t know where she got that. It was immediately after a visit. Other people have seen huge changes.”
Miller then filed for exclusive custody of Isabella, and the court agreed. She told the Washington Post, “I don’t see Janet as a parent, first and foremost. Secondly, I don’t want to expose Isabella to Janet’s lifestyle. It goes against all my beliefs. I am raising Isabella to pattern herself after Christ. That’s my job as a Christian mom. Homosexuality is a sin.”
However, Jenkins fought the ruling all the way up to the Virginia Supreme Court, which in 2008, ruled in favor of granting Miller’s former lesbian partner visitation rights. Miller refused.
The following year, family court judge Richard Cohen warned Miller that she must allow Isabella to visit Jenkins and threatened that if she did not do so, he would transfer full custody to Jenkins. In November 2009, Cohen followed through with his threats and ordered Miller to hand the child over to Jenkins.
However, Miller had fled the country with Isabella before he issued the transfer order, and for some time, none knew the whereabouts of the two. It was later discovered that they had fled to Nicaragua via the help of a number of Mennonite Christians and their contacts.
Zodhiates is accused of driving Miller from Virginia to Buffalo, New York, where she then crossed the Rainbow Bridge into Canada. (See the indictment here.)
American missionary to Nicaragua Timothy “Timo” Miller—no relation to any in the case—is also accused of arranging Lisa Miller’s travel arrangements from Canada and assisting her upon her arrival to Nicaragua.
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SEE ALSO:

Fight or Flight: Trial Underway of Virginia Man Accused of Helping Ex-Lesbian Flee Country With Daughter


POPULAR RADIO HOST MICHAEL SAVAGE BROADCAST SHUT DOWN NATIONWIDE AS HE DISCUSSES CLINTON’S HEALTH

CENSORSHIP BY HILLARY'S THUGS
SHADES OF THE DICTATORS
Popular Radio Host Michael Savage Broadcast Shut Down Nationwide as He Discusses Clinton’s Health…
Savage Pulled Nationwide: 
The War On Free Speech Has Begun
Published on Sep 27, 2016
The death of the first amendment may be here as Michael Savage was pulled off the air during his broadcast where he questioned Hillary's health.
WHAT HILLARY CLINTON'S AMERICA WILL LOOK LIKE IS SHAPING UP

Michael Savage Pulled From Nations Airwaves Live On Air For Discussing Hillary's Health

Emergency! Hillary / Globalists Shutting Down Opposition Media
Published on Sep 27, 2016
Alex Jones discusses the latest news surrounding Michael Savages silencing by ABC radio and provides the background warning that was laid out by Matt Drudge one year ago.
http://www.infowars.com/popular-radio...

Savage Nation Sounds the Alarm on Censorship!
Published on Sep 28, 2016
Massively popular radio talk show yanked from the airwaves in a show of network power. Does this signal the end of dissenting voices?

POPULAR RADIO HOST MICHAEL SAVAGE BROADCAST SHUT DOWN NATIONWIDE AS HE DISCUSSES CLINTON’S HEALTH

2016: There are Trillions of Dollars at Stake…

BY THE LAST REFUGE
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Wow. This is quite remarkable.
Michael Savage is a very well known radio talk personality. The Savage Nation is a nationally syndicated talk show that is the second most listened-to radio talk show in the country with an audience of over 20 million listeners on 400 stations across the United States.
Earlier today he was discussing his perspectives on the presidential debate and giving examples of current and anticipated debate bias.
In addition, the broadcaster began discussing Hillary Clinton’s mysterious health condition that Savage believes might be Parkinsons.
Almost immediately, and without any notification, New York (tri-state area) radio station WABC-Radio TV cut Savage off the air and replaced him with the lesser rated  Curtis And Cooby Show.
Shortly thereafter, as Michael Savage discovered the issue and began discussing what was going on in/around the New York broadcast area, all Savage affiliates nationwide cut off the broadcast and replaced the live transmission with a recording of a previous show.
Here’s a recording of the 2nd hour broadcast today that explains what was going on, as it was going on in real time, and as Savage began finding out what was happening.   The explanation culminates best around the 23:00 point of this audio.


POPULAR RADIO HOST MICHAEL SAVAGE BROADCAST SHUT DOWN NATIONWIDE AS HE DISCUSSES CLINTON’S HEALTH

CENSORSHIP BY HILLARY'S THUGS
SHADES OF THE DICTATORS
Popular Radio Host Michael Savage Broadcast Shut Down Nationwide as He Discusses Clinton’s Health…
Savage Pulled Nationwide: 
The War On Free Speech Has Begun
Published on Sep 27, 2016
The death of the first amendment may be here as Michael Savage was pulled off the air during his broadcast where he questioned Hillary's health.
WHAT HILLARY CLINTON'S AMERICA WILL LOOK LIKE IS SHAPING UP

POPULAR RADIO HOST MICHAEL SAVAGE BROADCAST SHUT DOWN NATIONWIDE AS HE DISCUSSES CLINTON’S HEALTH

2016: There are Trillions of Dollars at Stake…

BY THE LAST REFUGE
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Wow. This is quite remarkable.
Michael Savage is a very well known radio talk personality. The Savage Nation is a nationally syndicated talk show that is the second most listened-to radio talk show in the country with an audience of over 20 million listeners on 400 stations across the United States.
Earlier today he was discussing his perspectives on the presidential debate and giving examples of current and anticipated debate bias.
In addition, the broadcaster began discussing Hillary Clinton’s mysterious health condition that Savage believes might be Parkinsons.
Almost immediately, and without any notification, New York (tri-state area) radio station WABC-Radio TV cut Savage off the air and replaced him with the lesser rated  Curtis And Cooby Show.
Shortly thereafter, as Michael Savage discovered the issue and began discussing what was going on in/around the New York broadcast area, all Savage affiliates nationwide cut off the broadcast and replaced the live transmission with a recording of a previous show.
Here’s a recording of the 2nd hour broadcast today that explains what was going on, as it was going on in real time, and as Savage began finding out what was happening.   The explanation culminates best around the 23:00 point of this audio.


HEAL THYSELF?-C.PETER WAGNER, CHARISMATIC HUCKSTER & FAITH HEALER IN HOSPITAL DUE TO FAILING HEALTH

FAMOUS FAITH HEALER IN HOSPITAL 
DUE TO FAILING HEALTH
BY JEFF MAPLES
SEE: http://pulpitandpen.org/2016/09/23/famous-faith-healer-in-hospital-due-to-failing-health/republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Founder of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), C. Peter Wagner, and proponent of charismatic chicanery such as faith healing, perhaps doesn’t have enough faith to heal himself. The famous huckster and author of the book, How to Have a Healing Ministry in Any Church, has been admitted to the hospital, according to Rebecca Greenwood of Christian Harvest International. Wagner’s wife, Doris, has written a letter asking for prayer, Greenwood reports on her Facebook page, stating,
This past Friday Peter was admitted back into the Heart Hospital in a very weakened condition. After several days of extensive testing, the general consensus of his many excellent doctors is that Peter has become severely dehydrated from the ongoing treatment to control his fluid retention. The treatment is very much a balancing act and the dilemma is that he is now both dehydrated and fluid overloaded at the same time…To further complicate the matter, the treatments for either problem cause the other issue to escalate further
While on the one hand, we hate to see a fellow image-bearer suffer, on the other hand, our first prayer should be for Wagner to repent and turn to Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Wagner has a major movement and propagated serious damnable error into the church. While his promotion of charismatic nonsense, blaspheming the Holy Spirit regularly, has made major inroads into the professing church, it goes without saying that his false teachings are being exposed right before our eyes.
Of course, at the age of 86, perhaps we should expect his special powers to start dwindling after all? So why aren’t all of his NAR faith healers flocking around him to heal him? At what point do they fold their cards and give up? By all means, anyone with an ounce of common sense would be able to see right through the shell game of faith healing. If it were true, there should be someone out there who could heal him–or perhaps he’d be able to heal himself.
Of course, the Scriptures nowhere allow for the concept of a “faith healing” ministry or even a “faith healer.” The notion is completely foreign to the word of God. Men and women who teach, preach and practice this junk are nothing bud frauds with self-interests.
They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. – Titus 1:11
Mr. Wagner, your time is running out. Repent!

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IS CODE FOR BIGOTRY, CLAIMS OBAMA APPOINTEE

USCCR Chairman Martin Castro, a left-wing extremist from Chicago 
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IS CODE FOR BIGOTRY, CLAIMS OBAMA APPOINTEE 
BY ALEX NEWMAN
SEE: http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/faith-and-morals/item/24117-religious-liberty-is-code-for-bigotry-claims-obama-appointeerepublished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

The terms “religious freedom” and “religious liberty” are actually just code words for racism, intolerance, sexism, discrimination, and more, according to a radical left-wing activist Obama appointee serving as chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR). In a report released this month on balancing religious freedom with government decrees, the controversial outfit also called on policymakers to limit as much as possible religious exemptions on everything from mandated support for homosexual "marriage" to allowing men into girls' bathrooms. Critics, though, are outraged at the bigotry and intolerance displayed by Obama's extremist appointee.    
Analysts said the Obama administration may actually be laying the groundwork for stepped-up future persecution of Christians and others of faith who refuse to bow to the administration's anti-Christian demands. Already in recent years, more than a few business owners, for example, have been all but destroyed for refusing to participate in homosexual “weddings.” A county clerk in Kentucky was even jailed for refusing to endorse homosexual “marriages” illegally decreed into existence by a rogue Supreme Court. Even nuns and religious organizations are being bludgeoned by government into financing moral outrages such as abortion and sex changes. And that may be just the beginning.   
Other voices on the controversial U.S. commission, though, publicly rejected the Obama appointee's anti-religious freedom hysteria. Instead of using the force of government to beat down Christians, advocates of tolerance suggested that government decrees should be able to peacefully co-exist with religious freedom. For the Obama-appointed chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, one of four left-wing radicals appointed by Obama to the outfit, not including others appointed by Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.), that will clearly be a problem.
“The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ … remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance,” said USCCR Chairman Martin Castro, a left-wing extremist from Chicago who boasts of providing “strategic consulting services” on having a “positive social impact” on “diverse communities,” whatever that means. Apparently “diverse communities” do not include people who disagree with his extreme bigotry against people of faith. He also brags about being a “proud product” of “affirmative action in higher education.”
In a statement released with the USCCR report, he blasted religion, particularly Christianity, and its alleged use as a tool of oppression. “Today, as in the past, religion is being used as both a weapon and a shield by those seeking to deny others equality,” Castro claimed, relying on a bizarre definition of “equality” popularized in recent years by far-left radicals. “We now see ‘religious liberty’ arguments sneaking their way back into our political and constitutional discourse (just like the concept of ‘state rights’) in an effort to undermine the rights of some Americans.”
Those imagined “rights” being undermined in Castro's imagination include, for instance, the alleged “right” to force bakers and florists to endorse homosexual “marriage” at government gun-point. By contrast, the sovereign right of the people of the states to govern themselves, and the religious rights of American individuals and churches, are explicitly protected in the U.S. Constitution.   
For Castro, though, the imagined right to force other Americans to violate their conscience trumps the constitutionally protected right to live out one's faith and moral principles. “This generation of Americans must stand up and speak out to ensure that religion never again be twisted to deny others the full promise of America,” he argued. Presumably, he had in mind groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who have been fighting for religious liberty and against Obama's extreme efforts to force the nuns to pay for abortion-inducing drugs and other outrages against their beliefs.  
The radical remarks equating religious freedom with hatred and oppression came in a statement released by Castro with a nearly 300-page USCCR screed dubbed Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Non-discrimination Principles with Civil Liberties. Among other primary recommendations, the report claims that “overly-broad [sic] religious exemptions unduly burden nondiscrimination laws and policies.” As such, the report calls for religious liberty to be curtailed. “Federal and state courts, lawmakers, and policy-makers at every level must tailor religious exceptions to civil liberties and civil rights protections as narrowly as applicable law requires,” the report argued, as if the commission could dictate demands to courts and lawmakers.
The report targets a wide array of religious liberties, which the commissioners argue should be restricted or abolished. Among other examples cited of conflicts between religious freedom and “nondiscrimination principles” is “when religious institutions and organizations claim the freedom under constitutional and statutory law to choose leaders, members or employees according to the tenets of their faith, even if the choice would violate employment, disability, or other laws.” In other words, government should have a bigger say in choosing church leaders. “It arises also when individuals claim the freedom to adhere to religious principles regardless of otherwise applicable law governing their conduct,” the report found.
The commission recommended that federal and state laws on religious freedom be modified and “clarified” to further restrict the rights of religious people and institutions. For example, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act should be changed to ensure that religious freedom applies “only to the extent that they do not unduly burden civil liberties and civil rights protections against status-based discrimination.” Imagine a situation in which the U.S. government claimed that a woman posing as a man must be accepted to the priesthood of the Catholic Church because of “status-based discrimination protections,” and you get the idea.
But not everyone on the commission agreed with the brazen attack on religious freedom, which was viewed as so crucial by America's founders that it was enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights. “The secular ... side believes that the nondiscrimination principles should take precedence over religious liberty principles,” explained Peter Kirsanow, a member of the commission who requested that the issue be taken up in the first place but dissented from the outfit's anti-religious liberty conclusions.
“I sought to see if a balance could be struck between the two principles and whether they could peacefully coexist,” Kirsanow continued. “Unfortunately it’s pretty clear at least one side doesn’t think that they can.” That “side,” of course, is the side that believes the Supreme Court can invent homosexual “marriage” by judicial fiat, and then have government coerce everyone else into endorsing said “marriages,” regardless of religious beliefs.
Another dissenting commissioner, University of San Diego law professor Gail Heriot, also objected to the report's conclusions. “The Commission majority takes a complex subject and tries to make it simple — far too simple,” Heriot argued in a statement. “Not many legal or constitutional issues come down to good guys vs. bad guys.” In this case, though, in the view of Obama's appointees, the bad guys are Christians and Jews who believe the doctrines and teachings of their religions, and the good guys are those who would imprison or destroy those Christians or Jews for their beliefs.   
Christian leaders also slammed the bizarre rantings by Castro. Catholic Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, lambasted the Obama appointee's “reckless” remarks in a statement. “Castro makes the shocking suggestion that Catholic, evangelical, orthodox Jewish, Mormon, and Muslim communities are comparable to fringe segregationists from the civil rights era,” Lori said. “These statements painting those who support religious freedom with the broad brush of bigotry are reckless and reveal a profound disregard for the religious foundations of his own work.”
The archbishop also called for Castro and others to show tolerance toward people with other viewpoints. “In a pluralistic society, there will be institutions with views at odds with popular opinion,” Lori said. “The Chairman's statement suggests that the USCCR does not see the United States as a pluralistic society. We respect those who disagree with what we teach. Can they respect us?”
The unhinged attack on religious freedom from Obama's USCCR appointees comes shortly after Obama's extremist-dominated Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled that displaying the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”) was creating a “hostile work environment.” As reported by The New American's Joe Wolverton last month, “the Obama administration’s decision to overrule the employer’s initial dismissal of this complaint will cast a long legal shadow over all employers, public and private.” And the attacks continue to grow more extreme with each passing day.
With the USCCR and other federal bureaucracies increasingly targeting Americans' most fundamental God-given rights for destruction, it is past time for Congress to step in. Any government agency or commission that attacks religious freedom and hundreds of millions of religious Americans, for example, has no business receiving tax funding from Americans — or even existing in the first place. America was founded on religious freedom. Perhaps once the next Congress begins, lawmakers can start pruning the out-of-control federal bureaucracy, de-funding and abolishing rogue and unconstitutional agencies, beginning with Castro's anti-constitutional USCCR.
Related articles:

MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY OPENS, TELLING STORY OF SINFUL SLAVERY, SEGREGATION IN NATION'S PAST

slavery-compressed
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY OPENS, TELLING STORY OF "SINFUL SLAVERY, SEGREGATION" IN NATION'S PAST 
BY HEATHER CLARK
SEE: http://christiannews.net/2016/09/25/museum-of-african-american-history-opens-telling-story-of-sinful-slavery-segregation-in-nations-past/republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

WASHINGTON — The Smithsonian Museum of African American History opened its doors to the public on Saturday, taking visitors on a journey through America’s past from its struggles with the national sin of slavery and segregation to the days when blacks were finally recognized as being equal to whites.
The 400,000 square foot museum was first proposed in 1915 by African American veterans of the civil war, and in 2003, its creation was approved by Congress, putting in motion a 13-year effort to tell America’s story through the eyes of its black citizens.
The $540 million facility features over 36,000 donated artifacts, including items used to buy slaves, a sample segregated railway car, and the shawl of underground railroad hero Harriet Tubman, as well as items surrounding contributions blacks have made to America’s history.
The lower floors of the museum tell the story of the nation’s stain of slavery and segregation from its early years to the 1950’s, while the upper levels provide more light-hearted examples of black celebrities in modern America.
Director Lonnie Bunch told NPR that the museum serve to “remember not just the well-known, but also those famous only to their families, whose lives in quiet ways shaped this nation.”
“We remember so we can ponder the pain of slavery, segregation and second-class citizenry, but we also find the resiliency, the faith, the hope, the joy that is so much a part of the African-American community,” she said.
Passes for the opening weekend of the Museum of African American history sold out, and approximately 7,000 people were in attendance for the grand opening ceremony on Saturday. Barack Obama and George W. Bush were among those who spoke during the event.
“A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws, and corrects them,” Bush said. “This museum tells the truth that a country founded on the promise of liberty held millions in chains, that the price of our union was America’s original sin. From the beginning some spoke to truth. John Adams called slavery an evil of colossal magnitude.”
“Their voices were not heeded and often not heard, but they were known to a power greater than any on earth—One who loves His children and meant them to be free,” he stated.
museum-compressedObama told those gathered, “African American history is not somehow separate than the American story. It is not the underside of the American story. It is central to the American story.”
“The very fact of this day does not prove that America is perfect, but it does validate the ideas of our founding—that this country born of change, of revolution, of we the people, that this country can get better,” he said.
According to the Spurgeon Center in Kansas City, Missouri, slave owners and others, particularly in the South, openly burned the sermons of well-known preacher Charles Spurgeon in the 1800’s and threatened to kill him due to his rebuke of the sin of slavery.
“Spurgeon’s character was assassinated throughout the Confederacy. His sermons, which in 1862-1863 sold one million copies annually, were censured. His books, which sold 1,000 copies per minute at trade shows, were publicly destroyed. Sermon bonfires illuminated jail yards, plantations, and bookshops throughout the Southern states,” it outlines.
“I do from my inmost soul detest slavery … and although I commune at the Lord’s table with men of all creeds, yet with a slave-holder I have no fellowship of any sort or kind. Whenever one has called upon me, I have considered it my duty to express my detestation of his wickedness, and I would as soon think of receiving a murderer into my church … as a man stealer,” Spurgeon once said.
“[I]t was God that gave an Abraham Lincoln, who led the nation onward till ‘Emancipation’ flamed upon its banners.”
But slavery also existed in the North, as the site Slavery in the North explains, “Slaves were auctioned openly in the Market House of Philadelphia; in the shadow of Congregational churches in Rhode Island; in Boston taverns and warehouses; and weekly, sometimes daily, in Merchant’s Coffee House of New York. ”
While a number of the Founding Fathers owned slaves (some of them being said as treating their slaves kindly), others eventually became supportive of abolitionist efforts, including Statesmen Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin, as well as the first U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Jay.




COMMON CORE: THE DESTRUCTIVE CAPACITY OF DAVID COLEMAN

David Coleman announces the SAT redesign.
ABOVE: David Coleman announces the SAT redesign.
THE DESTRUCTIVE CAPACITY OF 
DAVID COLEMAN
BY JANE ROBBINS
SEE: http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/destructive-capacity-david-coleman/republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Since Common Core architect David Coleman took over as president of the College Board, the scandals or at least embarrassments have come fast and furious (see here and here). The latest is a Reuters investigation, reported by Ed Week, that discovered the College Board’s vaunted redesign of the SAT math section erects even more hurdles to students who traditionally score lower anyway (low-income and minority students). This is because the new math section focuses more on reading than actually working math problems, so a student who is good at math but less so at reading will score lower on math than he would have under the traditional SAT design.
The problem is the new SAT’s alignment with the Common Core national standards. The Common Core math standards are based on the idea that knowing math is insufficient; a student must be able to read a tome and apply math skills to the supposed “real-life” problem it presents. (The engineers who brought the Apollo 13 astronauts home on a crippled spacecraft somehow managed to apply their antiquated math education to a real-world problem, but pay no attention to that.) While the text-heavy approach may work for strong readers, turning a math test into a reading test creates unnecessary problems for students who traditionally don’t score as well on the SAT anyway.
From reviewing internal emails, Reuters discovered that College Board officials “knew of the potential problem with the word-heavy math questions because outside academics raised the issue as they reviewed items while they were being developed.” And in a confidential 2014 test run, only about half the students even finished the math section.
Maybe Coleman and Co. intended to correct the problem, but apparently they never got around to it. Or maybe they’re so invested in the Common Core ideology of “deeper conceptual understanding” that they simply don’t care.
So assume the situation of an immigrant student (call him Carlos) whose family speaks Spanish at home. Assume he’s a math whiz but still struggles with English, because he’s been in the country only five or six years. With the old SAT he might have performed poorly on the verbal portion but scored an 800 on the math. With the new test, he’ll perform poorly on both. Well done, Mr. Coleman.
Not only will Carlos suffer from this ideological redesign, but his school may as well. This is because the new fed-ed bill, the Every Student Succeeds Act, allows states to replace their high-school achievement tests with the SAT. The ramifications of the redesign are thus troubling both for Carlos and for honest accountability for schools.
Dr. Sandra Stotsky raised a related concern years ago about Common Core math, in that case with respect to children in the early grades. Since Common Core applies the word-heavy approach across K-12, young children are also expected to read paragraphs rather than simply grasp math calculations. This means, Dr. Stotsky warned, that many little boys might struggle with math even if they have a gift for numbers – because little boys are generally less verbal than little girls. Johnny might be proud that he can work math problems more quickly than anyone in the class, but don’t worry, Common Core will beat that sense of accomplishment out of him.
Common Core theorists call this “productive struggle.” Normal people might call it academic malpractice. By all means, let’s extend it to teenagers as well.
The Common Core realignment of the SAT math section will hurt low-income students in other ways. In a Pioneer Institute report, mathematician James Milgram and testing expert Richard Phelps explained that aligning the SAT with Common Core essentially converts it from a test predicting college success to one that simply measures high-school achievement. These experts pointed out that an achievement test is less effective at identifying students with significant STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) potential who attend schools with inferior science and math programs. And the Common Core math standards – which stop with an incomplete Algebra II course – will ensure that many schools, especially those serving low-income students, will have such inferior programs.
Michael Cohen, a prominent developer of and cheerleader for Common Core, testified several years ago that we won’t know the full effects of Common Core “until an entire cohort of students, from kindergarten through high school graduation, has been effectively exposed to Common Core teaching.” Having already lowered national test scoresincreased the achievement gapdriven excellent teachers out of the profession, and now wrecked the SAT, it looks like Common Core is ahead of schedule. Mr. Cohen underestimated the destructive capacity of Mr. Coleman.