Um, Senators, ever heard of the mute button?
Moments before a conference call with reporters was scheduled to get underway on Tuesday morning, apparently unaware that many of the reporters were already on the line, Charles Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, began to instruct fellow senators on how to talk to reporters about the contentious budget process.
After thanking his colleagues — Barbara Boxer of California, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Tom Carper of Delaware and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut — for doing the budget bidding for the Senate Democrats, who are facing off against the House Republicans over how spending for the rest of the fiscal year, Mr. Schumer told them to portray John Boehner of Ohio, the Speaker of the House, as painted into a box by the Tea Party, and to decry the spending cuts that he wants as extreme. “I always use the word extreme,” Mr. Schumer said, “That is what the caucus instructed me to use this week.”
A minute or two into the talking-points tutorial, though, someone apparently figured out that reporters were listening, and silence fell.
Then the conference call began in earnest, with the Democrats right on message.
“We are urging Mr. Boehner to abandon the extreme right wing,” said Ms. Boxer, urging the House to compromise on the scale of spending cuts and to drop proposed amendments that would deny federal financing for Planned Parenthood and for government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mr. Carper continued with the theme, referring to some House Republicans’ “right-wing extremist friends.” Mr. Cardin decried Mr. Boehner giving into “extremes of his party.” Mr. Blumenthal closed by speaking of the “relatively small extreme group of ideologues” who are “an anchor” dragging down the budget negotiation process.
How news is made . . .
‘Anonymous’ Calls for Flag Day Protest June 14, 2011; Calls for Bernanke to Step Down Immediately
According to TheRawStory.com, the most well-known hacker group, Anonymous, uploaded a video message to YouTube yesterday calling for Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to resign.
Do we know the ‘real’ Anonymous made this video? That’s hard to say … because Anonymous is you and me. So I guess you made it since I know I didn’t.
“Democrats have failed us, Republicans have failed us… It is time for us to stand up for ourselves… We must fight back against the organized criminal class… We must launch “operation Empire State rebellion. The operation will commence on June 14th…Operation Empire State Rebellion Engaged.”
You may recall Anonymous first called for Bernanke to resign on March 12.
Anonymous even made a handy dandy Google Map guide for you to find the nearest protest.
“This Flag Day, Tuesday June 14th, we will launch a non-violent social movement with this list of demands: End the campaign finance and lobbying racket, Break up the Fed & Too Big to Fail banks, Enforce RICO laws against organized criminal class and Order Ben Bernanke to step down (my personal favorite).”
The Banks: #BofA, #Citibank, #Chase, #WF, #Ally
Want to help? Tweet: See FLAG DAY http://bit.ly/mdtXF3 #OpESR
Click on the $ on the map for rally info: #NYC #DC #Chicago #SF #STL #OKC #Flint #WI #Monterey
Here is more information about the Flag Day protest
The movement has also been referred to as, “CTRL+ALT_BERNANKE.”
Here is the Anonymous video message:
… but what this story’s mission directive lacks, is the “or else” factor… that’s what we look forward to hearing… and seeing the full wrath of Anonymous in action. This video is not a strong one and lacks the conviction and confidence that past ones have featured.
I like my hero-hackers to be bold and confident, but not braggards and arrogant. They should be liberating and highly ethical- enlightened even… but never destructive to the little guy or harmful to innocent bystanders. Take down the banks, their mean boards of directors, and their corrupt political allies, but leave the clerks and customers in the ATM booth alone please. Anonymous has done this in the past. Their actions have been swift and decisive.
This video above seems to be of a junior level to what they normally do, and as such, I’m not convinced it is authentic. More likely made by a couple of Hipsters jacked up on caffeine with a few hours to kill before the next trip to Hot Topic.
The College Bubble – About to Burst?
“They” are doing it again… first the Credit Card bubble, next the Mortgage Bubble, now the College Bubble. This video illustrates the huge scam being perpetrated on our generation and the next via loans for schools that no one can ever pay back.
Watch and learn how these loans, and the brainwashing that we all must attain a college degree, are destroying families.
Going “Paperless”; Will American States Follow Iceland in Declaring Independence from International Bank debt?
As rumors of considering secession become more of a plausible alternative to a state government instead of the fringe idealist battle cry that it is often considered; we must first take a look at the effects of breaking off from the Union.
Money and national security are the two biggest reasons to not leave the union. We need both as a state to survive… or do we?
When the biggest modern enemy we face is not a hoard of soldiers marching over a hill with muskets, but rather a single suicide bomber with a nuke in his backpack, one wonders what a standing army can really do for domestic wars of this millennium that a strong state militia with good coordinated intelligence gathering can’t handle (foreign armies are excluded from this supposition since Canada and Mexico aren’t massing troops at the moment.) It would seem that we’d be more likely to get invaded by the remaining 49, 48, or 47 states to “re-unify” its resources and taxpaupers (formerly taxpayer, now broke). After all, it worked for Lincoln once already, so there is precedent.
Additionally, when we have currency that is utterly worthless (aka a Federal Reserve “Note”) as it’s issued by a private bank and is no more than a promise to pay a dollar of air for every dollar you have, one wonders what exactly anyone would do to your state if you didn’t pay back the trillions in debt owed to the private bank—”The Fed”.
After all, our states have the militia and the Fed has marble buildings with vaults that close at 2pm… hardly a threat. It becomes more of a moot issue when you learn that only about three percent of ALL transactions in America are done with paper and coin money! So all those pallets of cash you see in the movies account for less than a “tip” if you spent all that cash at Starbucks. So, what if you just “unplugged” yourself from that monetary system and send them a paper letter saying you promise to pay back your share of the debt as soon as you can? Sure, they would send you a paper letter back taking your state to international court where you may lose the case and be sent a piece of paper to order you to pay the banks back, “or else.” But again, courts have gavels and robes, not much of a threat there either.
Discussions in Texas, New Hampshire, and Washington state of secession have reached as far as the statehouse floors within the past decade, with various Internet sources citing between 15 and 25 more states having fairly serious conversations about it today. We have dozens of states calling for a Constitutional convention to attempt a fix to the current crisis of overreaching federal hands in private lives. Virginia is paving the way for suing to get out of Obamacare mandates and many are following suit. All that is fine and dandy, but still doesn’t get to the root of most of the corruption and problems… money supply. Banks have it, and people generally think we all “need” it.
But recall and research if you will, bartering and trading throughout human history, and you’ll learn that we actually got along pretty well as a species long before a banker created “easy money.” People used to work for money. They had a trade and craft. They performed a service of value to others worth paying for… it wasn’t until “paper” with pictures on it became so “valuable” that we all wanted it instead of food, clothes, and durable goods. Sure, it works as a system when everyone is honest about how much paper something is worth, and we generally can agree on a system of price setting that’s fair and attainable for the average day of work… but what happens when that number becomes blurry? Like say, $7.00 for a gallon of gas, or $190/barrel of oil, and the trickle down effects set in of a Big Mac now costing $11.00 all of a sudden. It all comes crashing down that’s what. Bankers get overly greedy and monetary systems collapse. The digital age has brought consumer access to knowledge to an instant, so nothing happens gradually or over time any more. This works for catastrophes as well as solutions though.
The politicians can’t be bought off fast enough to pass laws to control people and keep them enslaved to the cash, and even the banks now realize that dumb politicians have raised their price above the rate of corruption’s inflation! So we little people are left with some decisions to make in the next couple decades and election cycles…. are we going to remain slaves to the international bankers and their puppets in the U.S. Federal Government who help to enslave us, or are we going to walk away and tell them that the paper check is in the mail to pay back the paper notes they gave us to run the state all these years? We can always sell state paper bonds to fund the paper checks if we need to, right?
I certainly have no idea what will end up happening in Virginia, but I suspect that the country will get a lot worse for a while financially before the helping hands are offered to us at the last-minute. Whether we reach out for the banks to solve the crisis by loaning even more paper money, or communism ideals, or incorporate into a North American Union to spread the debt out to new suckers, or foreign ownership of our debt, or simply just “quit” is anyone’s guess. I think it’s fair to say that “change” IS coming, and it’s going to happen fast for some states.
Here’s what Iceland did recently, and it’s something we should look at and discuss.
Iceland is free. And it will remain so, so long as her people wish to remain autonomous of the foreign domination of her would-be masters — in this case, international bankers.
On April 9, the fiercely independent people of island-nation defeated a referendum that would have bailed out the UK and the Netherlands who had covered the deposits of British and Dutch investors who had lost funds in Icesave bank in 2008.
At the time of the bank’s failure, Iceland refused to cover the losses. But the UK and Netherlands nonetheless have demanded that Iceland repay them for the “loan” as a condition for admission into the European Union.
In response, the Icelandic people have told Europe to go pound sand. The final vote was 103,207 to 69,462, or 58.9 percent to 39.7 percent. “Taxpayers should not be responsible for paying the debts of a private institution,” said Sigriur Andersen, a spokeswoman for the Advice group that opposed the bailout.
A similar referendum in 2009 on the issue, although with harsher terms, found 93.2 percent of the Icelandic electorate rejecting a proposal to guarantee the deposits of foreign investors who had funds in the Icelandic bank. The referendum was invoked when President Olafur Ragnur Grimmson vetoed legislation the Althingi, Iceland’s parliament, had passed to pay back the British and Dutch.
Under the terms of the agreement, Iceland would have had to pay £2.35 billion to the UK, and €1.32 billion to the Netherlands by 2046 at a 3 percent interest rate. Its rejection for the second time by Iceland is a testament to its people, who feel they should bear no responsibility for the losses of foreigners endured in the financial crisis.
That opposition to bailouts led to Iceland’s decision to allow the bank to fail in 2008. Not that the taxpayers there could have afforded to. As noted by Bloomberg News, at the time the crisis hit in 2008, “the banks had debts equal to 10 times Iceland’s $12 billion GDP.”
“These were private banks and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks,” Iceland President Olafur Grimsson told Bloomberg Television.
The voters’ rejection came despite threats to isolate Iceland from funding in international financial institutions. Iceland’s national debt has already been downgraded by credit rating agencies, and now those same agencies have promised to do so once again as punishment for defying the will of international bankers.
This is just the latest in the long drama since 2008 of global institutions refusing to take losses in the financial crisis. Threats of a global economic depression and claims of being “too big to fail” have equated to a loaded gun to the heads of representative governments in the U.S. and Europe. Iceland is of particular interest because it did not bail out its banks like Ireland did, or foreign ones like the U.S. did.
If that fervor catches on amongst taxpayers worldwide, as it has in Iceland and with the tea party movement in America, the banks would have something to fear; that is, the inability to draw from limitless amounts of funding from gullible government officials and central banks. It appears that the root cause is government guarantees, whether explicit or implicit, on risk-taking by the banks.
Ultimately, such guarantees are not necessary to maintain full employment or even prop up an economy with growth, they are simply designed to allow these international institutions to overleverage and increase their profit margins in good times — and to avoid catastrophic losses in bad times.
The lesson here is instructive across the pond, but it is a chilling one. If the U.S. — or any sovereign for that matter — attempts to restructure their debts, or to force private investors to take a haircut on their own foolish gambles, these international institutions have promised the equivalent of economic war in response. However, the alternative is for representative governments to sacrifice their independence to a cadre of faceless bankers who share no allegiance to any nation.
It is the conflict that has already defined the beginning of the 21st Century. The question is whether free peoples will choose to remain free, as Iceland has, or to submit.
Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government. You can follow Bill on Twitter at @BillWilsonALG.
U.S. Senators Forget to Mute Conference Call with Reporters, Caught Conspiring
Though, these aren’t our state’s guys, the priceless stupidity on the Senate majority’s behalf is comical at best and malfeasance at worst. This news from the NY Times even! What is the world coming to when the NY Times actually reports a Liberal Democrat for being dumb? This is what these clowns do on our dime instead of focusing on any number of WARS we’re in, or the ECONOMY, or JOBS, or the FAILING VALUE of our MONEY.
Nope, get a few Washington insiders on a call, and it’s schoolyard namecalling time. Does this apply to both parties? You Betcha.
- Dumb Asses!
On a Senate Call, a Glimpse of Marching Orders
When Republicans Beat Their Drum, Our Nation Will Be Saved
“When Republicans Beat Their Drum, Our Nation Will Be Saved”
By Terry T. Beatley
March 7, 2011
An older black pastor recently asked me, “Why don’t Republicans beat their own drum? How come they can’t get their message into the black community?” In other words, how can we teach the principles of freedom to the very people who have suffered the most under the consequences of Democrat Party progressivism- the black American family? How can conservative Republicans take back our country from the liberal left? How can we once again experience landslide victories with leaders as principled as Ronald Reagan before we morph into a communist Corinth?
This is the answer. Proliferating the truth about Planned Parenthood’s federally funded black genocide agenda opens the doors to teach about black American Republican political history that’s been removed from textbooks and the annals of history. In so doing, we will save lives, liberty, heal the racial divide and cripple the Democrat Party. Making a gigantic leap toward breaking generational government dependence and poverty, the Republican Party will restore dignity, justice and righteousness to a country that calls good evil and evil good. Investing the time, sharing the information and forging relationships to prove that we care will dismantle the minority stronghold of the Democrat Party and as votes transfer to fiscally and socially conservative Republicans, our nation will be saved from the advancing socialists’ agenda.
If Matthew Fontaine Maury, Pathfinder of the Sea, was still of alive, he would probably tell us the answer to our Republican “marketing-the-message” dilemna is in Scripture. In the 1800’s, Psalm 8 revealed to him that there were paths in the seas. Pursuing this promise, he discovered ocean currents. Consequently, he shrunk the world, expanded economies, sped up travel and the distribution of goods and services, as well as, helped prove to future generations that God’s word provides answers.
Could it provide the answers we need to solve our Republican marketing-the-message dilemma? God clearly states in Hosea 4:6 that “My people perish for lack of knowledge.” I question what would happen if the majority of the minorities learned about the seventy years of missing black Republican political history. Speaking of perishing, 40% of African American babies are aborted- 60% in New York City and with statistics like these, the most dangerous place for a black person to be is in his mother’s womb. This tragedy is not by accident, but is the result of federally funded social policy agendas of Secular Humanists and Marxists…in other words, worldviews that make killing people incredibly justifiable; worldviews that collide with the Judeo/Christian worldview of our Founders. It’s the agenda of federally funded Planned Parenthood…modern day Klu Klux Klan. So what happens when we love our neighbor enough to expose this evil? (Ephesians 5:11)
It bears tremendous fruit. After I shared with the first black minister, he stated, “I will never vote for a pro-choice candidate again.” Now that the door was opened to talk politics and after disclosing the facts about black Republican history, he shared with the Virginia Speaker of the House, Bill Howell, that he had “to repent for voting for the wrong political party all of his life. He just didn’t know.” Another pastor confessed to “having to repent for removing herself from government for twenty years.” (translated: only voting for Democrat candidates) Black Americans respond when we reach out in love, friendship and truth, not political short-term gimmicks. It’s about relationships and honesty. My experience from working with downtown Richmond, Virginia inner-city pastors to rural area pastors and congregations, they so appreciate the information and many are willing to align their votes with their values. Anything less is a vote to annihilate their race and hinder liberty.
So if saving lives and liberty is the sincere motivation of proliferating truth to minorities, conservative Republicans can dismantle and cripple the Democrat Party one drum beat at a time. No tomahawks required. The United States of America will experience a providential victory: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” Psalm 33:12
Republicans, let the drum roll begin from sea to shining sea.
-END-
Wikipedia: List of African American Republicans
See Also: Black Conservatism in the United States
Is VA Senator Edd Houck Helping to Fund The Sex Slave Industry?
When I received this in an email, I was not surprised. How sad is it that my Virginia Senator (Edd Houck-D 17th) continues to fund organizations that do this to our brothers and sisters, and with OUR TAX MONEY!!
Author: J. Michael Sharman
Column No. 260
Publication Date: February 8, 2011
Title: Kermit Gosnell, Sen. Houck and Abortion Facility SafetyDr. Kermit Gosnell collected the feet of fetuses and kept them in jars. He let a 15 year-old girl intravenously sedate patients, do ultrasounds, and run the night shift at his Philadelphia abortion clinic. On January 19, 2011, he was charged with seven murder counts for cutting the spinal cord of babies who survived his abortions. Police believe he committed hundreds more similar murders, but can’t charge him on those because Gosnell destroyed the records.
The Grand Jury that issued Dr. Gosnell’s murder indictments reported, “Even nail salons in Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety.”
The same unfortunate statement is true for Virginia.
Virginia’s House of Delegates has consistently passed bills for abortion clinics to be licensed just like other surgical clinics: in 2004, the vote was 65-35, and by 2010, the margin had grown to 72-25.
But those bills with a super-majority margin have never even been given a vote on the Senate floor.
At least two women are known to have died as a result of Dr. Gosnell’s abortions. The Grand Jury reported he injured “scores” more, leaving fetal remains in some, and perforating the bowels and uteruses of others. In 2006, the Virginia House voted 64-34 to require physicians to report when patients sought medical treatment for complications from an abortion. The Senate committee voted to have it “passed by indefinitely”.
Dr. Gosnell frequently falsified ultrasound readings (like he did for a 14 year-old girl when she was 30 weeks pregnant) to make it appear that the babies were much earlier in gestation than they really were. In 2007, the House of Delegates passed HB2808, with a 60-38 vote, to allow every pregnant female the choice to view an ultrasound image of her unborn child. Again, the same Senate committee stopped the bill.
When Dr. Gosnell’s patients “got unruly”, he slapped them or “put them under”. His “Anesthesia for Surgery” form noted “It will probably be best to pay the extra money and be more comfortable if the following condition [is] true for you: Your decision has been forced by your parents or partner.” The Grand Jury said, “A legitimate practitioner would never perform forced abortions. Gosnell would and did.”
One woman who was 29 weeks pregnant changed her mind after Gosnell had inserted dilators on the first day of a two-day abortion process. He refused to remove the dilators and he refused to refund the $2,000 cash she had paid. Rather than be forced to have an abortion she no longer wanted, she went to a local hospital, they removed the dilators, and a few days later she delivered a little baby girl who is now a healthy kindergartner.
In 2007, the Virginia House voted 71-27 to make it a crime to force or coerce a female to have an abortion. It is incomprehensible how anyone could be against that bill and still call themselves “pro-choice”, but the Senate committee blocked it in 2007, in 2008, and again in 2010.
The Senate Health and Education Committee is the committee that killed all those pieces of protective legislation. Sen. “Edd” Houck voted with the committee’s actions every single time. He is the chairman of that committee.
When Houck first ran for the state Senate position, a November 1, 1983 news article quoted him as saying that “extreme fundamentalist churches in the area” were distorting his position on abortion.
In the 27 years since then, Sen. Houck has compiled a record that precisely defines his position on abortion and, to state it in one word, it is extreme.
It’s national news. It’s discussed at every level of government. Abortion may have been decriminalized in 1973, but the taxpayer funding of the abhorent behavior that surrounds the opportunistic sex industry never needs to be funded with the money WE EARN every paycheck by the likes of someone who WE ELECT to REPRESENT US.
Here’s a LIST of others in our district and the many PACs who give Edd money. Let’s hope they don’t find out about Edd’s continual, regular, reliable funding of Planned Parenthood and other related sex-slave or human-rights-violating centers, or many may choose to look at alternatives for representation.
People who say, value human life?
This list are some of the top donors who gave to Edd in the past six months or so. Do you see any connection to the 17th District residents whom Edd supposedly represents? Or do you see PACs and special interest groups from Richmond with whom Edd “does business” with?
Who does Edd Houck represent? Who does Edd Houck do favors for? …You and me?
| $5,000 | Dominion | Richmond |
| $5,000 | Elmon Gray | Hopewell |
| $5,000 | G Gilmer Minor, III | Richmond |
| $3,995 | Va Hospital & Healthcare Assn | Richmond |
| $3,000 | Elliot S Schewel | Lynchburg |
| $2,500 | Allen Allen Allen & Allen | Richmond |
| $2,500 | Eva Teig Hardy | Richmond |
| $2,500 | Thomas G Slater, Jr | Henrico |
| $2,500 | Va Education Assn | Richmond |
| $2,500 | Va Health Care Assn | Richmond |
| $2,155 | Hunton & Williams | Richmond |
| $2,000 | Genworth Financial | Washington, DC |
| $2,000 | David J Trone | Potomac, MD |
| $2,000 | Williams Mullen | Richmond |
| $1,750 | Mednax Services Inc | Fort Lauderdale, FL |
| $1,500 | GlaxoSmithKline | Philadelphia, PA |
| $1,500 | Intuit | Seattle, WA |
| $1,000 | Altria | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Amerigroup Corp | Virginia Beach |
| $1,000 | Apollo Group Inc | Phoenix, AZ |
| $1,000 | Appalachian Power Co | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Robert M Blue, Sr | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Boehringer Ingelheim | Ridgefield, CT |
| $1,000 | William M Camp, Jr | Franklin |
| $1,000 | David A Christian | Toano |
| $1,000 | Community Health Systems | Franklin, TN |
| $1,000 | Josee G Covington | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Bertram F Dodson, Jr | Lynchburg |
| $1,000 | Mary C Doswell | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Pamela Frailey Faggert | Montpelier |
| $1,000 | John F Fick, III | Spotsylvania |
| $1,000 | Paul O Hirschbiel, Jr | Virginia Beach |
| $1,000 | Hospital Corp of America | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Ivan P Jecklin | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Paul D Koonce | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Lifepoint Hospitals Inc | Brentwood, TN |
| $1,000 | Medical Facilities of America | Roanoke |
| $1,000 | Pfizer Inc | New York, NY |
| $1,000 | Psychiatric Solutions | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Richard S Reynolds, III | Richmond |
| $1,000 | James E Rogers | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Ronald F Rosner | Fredericksburg |
| $1,000 | SDI Health LLC | Plymouth Meeting, PA |
| $1,000 | Joel J Silverman | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Titan America | Troutville |
| $1,000 | Toll Road Investors Partnership II | Sterling |
| $1,000 | Transurban USA Inc | New York, NY |
| $1,000 | Va Bankers Assn | Glen Allen |
| $1,000 | Va Career College Assn | Richmond |
| $1,000 | Va Chapter American Academy of Pediatrics | Richmond |
Yes- Army Veterans, the Government IS COMING TO GET YOUR GUNS and Put Your Kid in JAIL!
This should alarm you on many levels, even IF YOU HATE GUNS. If it can happen to a veteran, it can damn sure happen to YOU!
…But what about the “alarmist” title to this blog about children in jail? Let’s take you a little closer to home then… Spotsylvania County, VA. This is how STUPID liberals in charge are!
Virginia Senator Edd Houck, a 28-year dinosaur liberal, agrees with these rules and supports the enforcement of these big-government liberal policies. But he also is FIRMLY AGAINST parental notification if a 15-year-old girl is driven to an abortion clinic by a teacher and returned to school during school hours. This is the kind of leadership we have in our region.
People- please WAKE UP AND VOTE FOR CONSERVATIVES!
Could it be your kid getting an abortion with the government covering it up, or your kid arrested for shooting spitballs, or your honorable military veteran husband/wife thrown in jail tomorrow night? YES IT CAN BE!
Plastic pellet incident at Va. school ends in expulsion, assault charges
By Kevin Sieff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 2, 2011; B01
Andrew Mikel II admits it was a stupid thing to do. In December, bored and craving attention, the 14-year-old used a plastic tube to blow small plastic pellets at fellow students in Spotsylvania High School. In one lunch period, he scored three hits.
“They flinched. They looked annoyed,” Mikel said.
The school district saw it as more than a childish prank. School officials expelled him for possession and use of a weapon, and they called a deputy sheriff to the scene, said Mikel and his father, Andrew Mikel Sr.
The younger Mikel, a freshman, said he was charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault. The case was first reported by the Web site WorldNetDaily.
Spotsylvania school officials declined to comment on the incident, citing student confidentiality rules. But documents that the school produced when Mikel’s father filed a Freedom of Information Act request show internal division over the matter.
The federal Gun-Free Schools Act mandates that schools expel students who take weapons, including handguns, explosive devices and projectile weapons, to school. E-mail traffic among school officials showed they ruled that Mikel’s plastic tube, which was fashioned from a pen casing, met the definition of a projectile weapon because it was “used to intimidate, threaten or harm others.”
School officials in some e-mails referred to the plastic casing as a “metal tube.” The plastic pellets were called “B-Bs.”
“We have an obligation to protect the students in our building from others who pose a threat to the over-all safe learning environment,” Russell Davis, principal of Spotsylvania High, wrote to other school officials in one e-mail.
But the school’s hearing officer, John Lynn, wrote to administrators that he was “not at all comfortable expelling or suspending this student for the remainder of the year,” according to the documents. School officials insisted. When Mikel’s father appealed the case, the school board’s three-member disciplinary committee upheld the ruling.
“I was just astonished when I heard,” said the younger Mikel, who is being home-schooled.
Parents and civil liberties advocates point to the case as an illustration of the excesses of “zero-tolerance” disciplinary policies implemented in many school districts across Virginia and the nation. The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville civil liberties organization, is appealing the case in state Circuit Court.
“What happened to Andrew Mikel is an example of how oppressive zero-tolerance policies have become,” said John W. Whitehead, president of the institute. “School officials have developed a very dangerous mind-set that allows virtually no freedom for students, while at the same time criminalizing childish behavior.”
In December, the apparent suicide of Nick Stuban, who was expelled from Fairfax County’s W.T. Woodson High School, sparked concern about the district’s discipline policy, which some parents called overly punitive.
Virginia officials say 3,557 students were expelled in the state in the 2008-09 school year, but most of those expulsions were later modified to suspensions.
The three Spotsylvania school board members who rejected Mikel’s appeal did not return phone messages. Amanda Blalock, a board member not on the disciplinary committee, said that Spotsylvania officials have latitude in implementing state and federal disciplinary regulations, despite claims by some administrators that they are hamstrung by such policies.
“There’s still plenty of flexibility at the local level,” Blalock said. “Sometimes we’re just dealing with a stupid mistake a kid makes, not a criminal action.”
Mikel will be cleared of the misdemeanor criminal charges if he participates in a year-long diversion program, he said. The county sheriff’s office did not return messages seeking comment. Some residents and Spotsylvania officials are questioning the school district’s handling of the case.
“More and more school districts apply these zero-tolerance policies, and common sense goes out the window,” said Del. Mark L. Cole (R-Fredericksburg). “Something like this can haunt a kid for the rest of his life, just for a little mischief.”
