Last week, Bryan Fischer said that pleading the Fifth was a sure sign of guilt. Of course he wasn’t talking about the participants in Chris Christie’s BridgeGate scandal, because those people are on his side of the political isle.
Well now it seems that pleading the Fifth and refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents are not enough. The main characters in the BridgeGate scandal now want a judge to legalize their decision.
Two figures in a political payback plot that has overshadowed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration will attempt to convince a judge that they shouldn’t be forced to turn over documents to a legislative panel.
Lawyers for former Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien and fired Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Kelly have asked the judge to throw out their subpoenas.They say handing over personal emails, text messages and planning calendars would be like testifying against themselves.
They also cite the possibility of criminal prosecution as a legal basis for not complying with a request for correspondence involving a plot to create traffic jams near the George Washington Bridge.
More than a dozen individuals and organizations close to Christie have complied with similar subpoenas.
When it comes to foods, homemade is always best. Whether you know your way around the kitchen or not, trying anything at home is the way to go. Always! That’s why these three homemade energy drinks caught my attention. Now I must admit, I haven’t tried them yet, but I will… soon!
The Fire Hydrant (left) – 3-4 8oz glasses throughout the day
filtered water
1 slice lemon
1 pinch cayenne pepper
Other than getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night, staying hydrated is the most important thing you can do to help keep your body functioning at optimum levels. So this drink is just water with a squeezed lemon slice and a pinch of cayenne pepper. The lemon not only tastes good, but is also super alkaline* which helps your body maintain a healthy pH level. The cayenne pepper helps raise energy levels naturally and provides protection for your heart by helping to maintain proper cardiovascular movement throughout the body. Combining this with 4-5 glasses of regular water will bring you up to your recommended 8 glasses of water per day!
*For an explanation of lemons’ miraculous transition from acidic outside of the body, to alkaline once ingested, visit this link: http://phbalance.wikispaces.com/Lemons+Alkaline%3F
The Quick Fix (center) – as needed, during the day
(I don’t recommend drinking it at night as it might keep you up)
hot water
1 1/2 – 2 tsp honey (to taste)
1 inch of fresh ginger root
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp tumeric
Cut off two thin slices of ginger and place in your cup or mug.
Use a garlic press to juice the remaining ginger into your mug.
Add both spices and fill your mug with hot water and stir.
This is the closest thing I found to a non-caffeine/refined sugar pick me up! And I find it pretty delicious. Ginger speeds up metabolism and increases circulation. It also aids in the digestive process which can help stave off the post lunch coma that contributes to the afternoon slump. Turmeric, a cousin of ginger, also helps speed things up in the body, including energy levels! And Cardamom has long been valued medicinally for its ability to increase circulation and improve energy. Honey is mother nature’s equivalent of an energy shot and is one of the best kinds of sugars for your body.
The Heavy Lifter (right) – 1 glass in the morning
1 ripe banana
1/4 cup raw almonds or 2 tbsp almond butter
1 scoop of high quality whey protein powder (low sugar content)
2 washed kale leaves
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 tbsp ground flax seeds
1 cup milk of choice (I used unsweetened almond milk)
According to Dr. Oz, sixty percent of women don’t get enough protein in their diets and that is often the number one reason for fatigue! (http://www.doctoroz.com/media/print/11196) A morning protein shake is a really easy and delicious way to make sure that you’re starting the day off well fueled. Pair this with a piece of whole grain toast and you have everything you need to give you a solid energy foundation for the day.
The next steps are energy booster tips that I find, when done along with the drinks, help me keep on keeping on all day long!
At some point, I could see teachers having to not only swear allegiance to the United States and the state in which they live, but taking an oath to uphold the testing mania that is now in full swing across the country. This would be the only legitimate way for tests to become an accepted part of the educational landscape in the form that the know-nothing reformers would like. But when you construct a system that relies on tests and ineffective evaluation measures, I suppose force is all you have to make the system work. Right Vladimir?
This past week in New Jersey, scores of teachers attended the state Board of Education meeting in Trenton with the express desire of bringing some sanity and professional judgement to the issue. Do I think this will happen? Not really, as long as the discussion begins and ends with testing and so-called objective measures of determining teacher effectiveness.
To be fair, I have been evaluated according to the Danielson rubric in my district, and my evaluations have reinforced what I, and my students over the years, have known all along; that I run my classroom according to accepted educational practice and that my students practice and learn the required academic skills. But only one-half of one of 22 components actually asks an administrator to evaluate my content area knowledge and most of the rubric focuses on what the teacher does, not what the students do. This is certainly one way to evaluate teachers, but it’s not the most effective.
Now come the tests. Last week, students in 11th grade took the state’s high school graduation test. In coming weeks, schools across the state will lose valuable instructional time administering elementary and middle school level tests that will eventually be used to evaluate those teachers. Then there’s the pilot program for the PARCC tests, that will take more time and students out of the instructional day.
Next school year, the state’s public schools will virtually shut down in March and May so that they can administer the full dosage of PARCC tests to students on computer hardware and software that must work 100% of the time during the tests. How likely is that to happen? And how likely is it that every teacher will be able to help students who push the wrong key or hit a fatal keyboard combination while legitimately trying to do their best? The tests will not be measuring teacher performance and will barely be measuring student knowledge. What they will be measuring is perseverance, survival, the district’s wealth and ability to buy computers, and how many rooms the school has available for testing.
The coup de grace is that one of the architects of this fakery, Christopher Cerf, stepped down as Education Commissioner last week, but not before penning a love letter to the NJEA, accusing it of double-dealing, hypocrisy and ignorance. I’ve met Commissioner Cerf in a formal professional setting and I can tell you that he doesn’t care a whit what the NJEA says. As long as the NJ state Board of Education supported him, that’s all Cerf needed to legitimize his program. Perhaps his successor, David Hespe, will look at what’s happening and actually listen to educators.
Until then, it’s testing…1,2,3 for students and teachers. Productive school days will suffer as a result.
Republicans never miss the opportunity to tell you that poor people are leaches, sucking the life from the economy with their greed through the welfare system. But they never mention their millionaire friends and businesses, who are milking the system even more than the pocket change going to the poor.
State and local governments have awarded at least $110 billion in taxpayer subsidies to business, with 3 of every 4 dollars going to fewer than 1,000 big corporations, the most thorough analysis to date of corporate welfare revealed today.
Boeing ranks first, with 137 subsidies totaling $13.2 billion, followed by Alcoa at $5.6 billion, Intel at $3.9 billion, General Motors at $3.5 billion and Ford Motor at $2.5 billion, the new report by the nonprofit research organization Good Jobs First shows.
Dow Chemical had the most subsidies, 410 totaling $1.4 billion, followed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire-Hathaway holding company, with 310 valued at $1.1 billion.
The figures were compiled from disclosures made by state and local government agencies that subsidize companies in all sorts of ways, including cash giveaways, building and land transfers, tax abatements and steep discounts on electric and water bills.
A Detroit police officer who responded to a 911 call regarding domestic violence has been arrested and charged with sexual assault against the woman who made the call, according to MyFoxDetroit.
Officer Deon Nunlee, 40, was arraigned Friday on three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, one count of assault with intent to penetrate, and one count of misconduct while on duty.
On October 30, 2013, Nunlee and his partner were dispatched to the home of a woman who called 911 saying her boyfriend had assaulted her.
While Nunlee’s partner stayed with the boyfriend, the officer took the woman upstairs where the woman claims he sexually assaulted her, The woman later told investigators that Nunlee told her that he would be returning the next morning at 7 a.m.
After the officers left the house the woman told two friends about the incident. She then reported it to the police the next day at which time a rape exam was conducted.
Detroit Receiving Hospital, which examined the woman, forwarded the rape kit to the Michigan State Police Crime Lab.
According to police sources, Nunlee denied the woman’s claim, but he was arrested this week when a positive DNA test came back.
Nunlee, a Detroit police officer since 2008, has been on desk duty since Oct. 30, said Detroit Police Commander Johnny Thomas.
When the retirement community in which Evelyn lives got rid of the bus that took its members to the grocery store, her friend Joyce was dismayed and afraid that she would be moved. She didn’t want to go anywhere else and she didn’t have to, because Evelyn stepped up and obtained a license, making sure that Joyce could go to the store (and anywhere else she needed to go).
Evelyn’s quiet confidence and fortitude are admirable, and she points out that while she doesn’t have much money, she still wants to help others in any way she can.
The only reason anyone know about George Zimmerman is because he murdered a kid named Trayvon Martin. Now, Zimmerman is so popular with the gun nuts that he is a featured guest at their gun shows.
The insensitivity here is palpable. A family is forced to go on without their son, shot down in the streets because Zimmerman had some racially charged misconceptions about the black boy walking in his neighborhood with a hoodie on. Oh yea, Zimmerman also had a gun, so he felt invincible.
Since he followed and murdered Trayvon, the gun loving creeps in Florida have come out in full force to support this killer. This weekend, they invited Zimmerman to be a featured guest at a gun show. But there are still some sensible folks in the state… apparently.
Organizers of the show – a gun dealer called The Arms Room – originally had the gun show featuring Zimmerman scheduled at The Majestic Event Center, but the operators at The Majestic canceled when the learned about the infamous guest.
The Arms Room shopped the event around to other locations with no luck. They ended up canceling the show but then decided to have it at their shop instead, issuing this sick message on their Facebook page:
“The Majestic may have caved, but the sales must go on! Huge sales on Liberty Safes, Arms Room Rifles, Ammunition and Kel-Tec Firearms! Enjoy free food and drinks and you never know who might show up.”
Huge sales, using the man who killed a child as their top salesman. Capitalism at work I guess.
Veterans organizations are not happy with U.S. Senate Republicans today, after a bill to expand health care and education programs for veterans failed to gain enough support to move forward, Reuters reports.
From Washington Post:
The measure, sponsored by Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), collapsed after failing to garner enough Republican votes to waive the VA spending cap established in a budget deal Congress and President Obama approved in December. Sanders’s office estimated that the VA legislation would have cost $20 billion over 10 years.
60 votes were needed to waive the budget rule but 41 of 45 Republicans voted against it, effectively killing the bill.
Calling it “Senate Shenanigans,” the non-profit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America lamented senate leaders who were engaged in “procedural games.”
“It has been a winter of discontent, starting when Congress cut military retirement benefits before being pressured into reversing course,” IAVA Founder and CEO Paul Rieckhoff said in a statement. “Then earlier this week, Congress forced the Pentagon to make budget cuts that increased living costs for our service members. And now the Senate can’t pass a critical and transformative bill that includes priorities that have garnered bipartisan support for years.”
And this from the American Legion:
“I don’t know how anyone who voted ‘no’ today can look a veteran in the eye and justify that vote,” American Legion national commander Daniel M. Dellinger told WaPo. “Our veterans deserve more than what they got today.”
He makes nutritionists frown, but a man who ate all of his meals at McDonald’s for six months says he’s lighter and healthier as he nears the end of his unconventional weight-loss plan.
John Cisna, a high school science teacher in Colo, Iowa, who gained national attention for his experiment, says he has lost 56 pounds, lowered his cholesterol and lost a total of 21 inches off his chest, waist and hips while dining only at the fast food emporium.
As enthusiastic as Cisna is about the results, even he’s incredulous about what he’s done. He documents his experience, which ends on March 15, in the new book, ”My McDonald’s Diet.”
“It’s kind of scary to realize that in nine days, I’ll have spent half a year of my life eating nothing but McDonald’s,” he told TODAY.
“I’m not bored of the food, but I am missing other foods. I am craving seafood. In fact, my first night when I am done with this, I’m going to have some shrimp and some scallops and some salmon. Maybe some asparagus on a bed of rice pilaf.”
As Cisna first told TODAY in January, he followed a 2,000 calorie diet, using the daily recommended allowances for carbohydrates, proteins, sugar and fat; and he walked 45 minutes a day.
We hear a lot about this fictional liberal land under President Obama, where job creation was killed by Obamacare and liberal ideas have destroyed the country. Reality, of course, is quite different. In fact, reality is almost the exact opposite. For Bush’s entire 8 years, job growth was just 1.1 million. Yet under Obama, the private sector has had 48 straight months of job growth, with businesses adding 8.7 million jobs.
Today’s job numbers are a good example of the disconnect. “Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 175,000 in February, and the unemployment rate, at 6.7 percent, changed little,” per Erica L. Groshen, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, put these numbers in perspective in a statement in which he explained that February was the 48th straight month of private sector job growth, “February 2014 was the 48th straight month of private-sector job growth, with businesses adding 8.7 million jobs over that time.”
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